"I was born on March 8, 1948, in Czechoslovakia, to parents who survived the Holocaust and thought that marriage – and I – would bring only good,” relates Hanna Ben Eliezer Curtis.
The accomplished collage artist notes with pride that her birth date coincides with International Women’s Day and that the State of Israel was born not long after her arrival into the world.
Her family of three made its way to Israel in July 1949, just before the Communists took over Slovakia. They settled in Rishon Lezion.
As the cherished only child of immigrants who were struggling to put their traumatic past behind them and build a new life in a country where the culture and language were foreign to them, Curtis played a vital role as their translator and their “mediator and bridge” from the time she was 10 years old.
Children adjust to change quickly, and her early years in Israel were relatively carefree. She served in the IDF after high school, and went on to study at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
But a series of sad occurrences was soon to follow
When she was 20, in October 1968, her beloved father suddenly passed away. To help support her 43-year-old widowed mother, she left the university and took a job as a bilingual secretary – she was fluent in English and Hebrew – and then worked at the Israel Export Institute in the 1980s.
At the same time, she earned a teaching certificate at the College of Management, as well as a bachelor’s degree in education and a master’s degree in education and communication. She went on to teach at the college, which became part of the Seminar Hakibbutzim network, and then directed its library for 24 years until her retirement in 2011.
Until she was 46, Curtis lived on her own in Tel Aviv and often spent time with her mother in nearby Rishon Lezion.
“I was always afraid of marriage,” she admits. “But after fulfilling myself and meeting my educational goals, I felt ready to find the right partner.”
YOSSI BEN ELIEZER could not have come from a more different background than hers. Whereas she was an only child of European Holocaust survivors, Ben Eliezer was a second-generation native Jerusalemite, the youngest of nine children in a family of Persian heritage. However, all his siblings warmly accepted her.
Marrying a divorcé with three children and an infant granddaughter instantly turned Curtis into a housewife, mother, and grandmother.
“We became a new family. We moved to Rishon Lezion and built a new apartment where everyone could fit,” she says.
“My mother passed away in 2009, and my husband helped me through my grief. But then, after 18 years of marriage, my husband passed away suddenly in January 2010. He was 64 years old when he died, and I was 62. That was the worst crisis of my life. But when things like that happen to you, you somehow become stronger.”
Her strength would be further tested in 2012 when she was diagnosed with lung cancer and underwent major surgery.
“Art was part of my recovery,” she says. “The disease was not my main focus; my art was the one thing that kept me going. I intuitively preferred to think about beauty and not about sickness and depression. I became very self-assured, living and doing positive things.”
Painting was always her favored pastime; her father was a talented painter, and both parents instilled in her an appreciation of art and aesthetics. For years, she sought her unique path in the arts.
“My husband had always supported this. We went to the flea market, bought plates and broke them so I could make mosaics. But after he passed away, I discovered the paper collage technique, which literally symbolizes the gathering of the fragments of my life and building my life again after my mother and husband died,” she says.
The cancer returned in 2018, and Curtis was given an experimental biologic drug that she still takes to keep the disease at bay. “The main issue is not being sick but doing my artwork, which is a blessing for myself and others,” she states.
Now living in the Mediterranean Towers senior residence in Ganei Tikva, Curtis gives collage workshops for fellow residents and has done solo and group exhibitions such as “Homage to the Collage,” a show of works by some of her protégés. She has taught her technique to people dealing with difficulties, such as parents of soldiers over the past year and a half.
“Collecting the pieces of paper, cut from the beautiful pages of magazines, and putting them together is very therapeutic for all of us,” says Curtis, who has exhibited her works in France and the United States.
“Or She’Ba” (The Light that Emerges), her exhibition in Tel Aviv’s Global Art Gallery on Merkaz Ba’alei Melaha Street, opened on March 18 and runs through April 19. She sees this timespan as highly symbolic, containing “a fantastic confluence of my birthday, the birthday of the State of Israel, and Holocaust Remembrance Day,” which falls this year on April 24.
“It’s optimistic and full of light, reflecting the fact that I’m the child of survivors and living in a country that has also survived so much,” she says.
She notes that she is still close with her late husband’s siblings, children, and grandchildren, and she attributes her success to “all the love that was surrounding me from family and friends.”
In a documentary about her life, Licike’ – The story of Hanna Ben Eliezer Curtis, filmed by Moshe Harush of Havayot Metzulamot (Lifestoryfilm), she relates that every night before going to sleep, she says “Thank you” aloud.
Despite the difficulties she has endured, she says that “what is in my heart today is so much love. This is due to all the love I’ve received from everyone who accompanied me in my life.”
Hanna Ben Eliezer Curtis, 77 From Czechoslovakia to Rishon Lezion, 1949