Prisoner In Paradise

The happy memories of the sun-drenched Arizona he saw as an American Prisoner of War form the background for the most talked about pictures made by Hans Jaenisch, leader of the younger generation painters now active in blockaded Berlin.

Although he spent but a short time in Arizona, his note books are filled with hundreds of sketches he made while traveling through this artists' paradise.

Besides these little blitzed pencil sketches with many notations carefully recording the exact colors he observed, Jaenisch can also rely on his photographic artist's memory which has retained not only the warmth and feeling of the Southwest but hundreds of specific details of native dress and natural coloring as well, which many an American or foreign tourist might never see or much less remember.

The route which brought Hans Jaenisch to America's West was a fortunate consequence of an unfortunate war that threw millions of men, artists included, into the uniforms of the armed forces in every participating country.

Jaenisch, who was beginning to acquire an international reputation during the thirties found himself fighting on the battle fields in Africa. Here, as the tide of battle turned, he was taken prisoner by the Americans and transported to New York.

The crossing from Oran on a Liberty-prison ship took 23 days and, although Jaenisch was crammed in with hundreds of other prisoners on scantily lighted lower decks, he profited at every opportunity by making sketches of his fellow prisoners on every scrap of paper that he could find.

When they were out of the danger zone after a zig-zagging course across the Atlantic the prisoners of war were finally allowed to get on deck so that they could see the Statue of Liberty and the skyscrapers of Manhattan.

This was a double pleasure because they knew that they were out of the danger area and because they had their first opportunity to fill their lungs with free, fresh air as they saw our national symbol of freedom and welcome in New York.

This tremendous aggregation of man-made cliffs and canyons was the first of the succession of overwhelming wonders which were to impress him in the months to come.

Jaenisch, a blond, handsome, lusty individual, still laughs when he recalls the typical American efficiency he and his fellow-prisoners found after they reached the port. With production-line-precision the prisoners were moved into shower baths, spread with delousing solutions, re-washed, and dried. examined by an American doctor and then equipped with fresh clothing.

From the Brooklyn dock they were taken by the ferry boat to Manhattan which gave Jaenisch another chance to make rapid sketches of the great buildings and the awe-inspiring metropolis before they were marched to a waiting train.To the amazement of all the prisoners they were not herded into cattle cars but were ushered into finely upholstered Pullmans where everyone was given a comfortable seat. This indeed was a strong contrast to the filthy and dusty box cars in which they had traveled in their African military campaigns.

It is difficult to tell what impressed the prisoners the most, the fine meals that they were served, the carefree feeling the prisoners had as the memory of blood and noise and fightingFaded away to be replaced by fleeting glimpes of the Rhine-like Hudson River, the Great Lakes, the industrial cities, the golden harvest lands of the Middle West and the other sights they saw as the train went on, day and night toward the beautiful Southwest which was to be their home for months.

When they arrived at Tonkawa, their first camp near Ponca City, Oklahoma, the prisoners were alarmed by the report that they would have to surrender all personal belongings. This proved to be a blessing in disguise, since a soldier, who made the collection, was a Bronx GI, who happened to be an art student. When Jaenisch gave him his accumulation of sketches that he had made enroute, he was so impressed that he took him to his commanding officer who turned over Jaenisch to the Post engineers to design and decorate the officers mess and the military theater.

Although most of his day was spent on ordinary PW work assignments, he had many opportunities to draw sketches of soldiers and officers who, recognizing his talent, often gave him the water color and other materials he needed to bring his pictures into being.

The second camp to which he was transferred was Roswell, New Mexico, in an area reminiscent of the African land-scapes he had sketched so avidly before his capture.

His next move took him to Maxey in Eastern Texas, another to McLean, and later to Kaufmann near Dallas. Here, as a PW, he had an opportunity to help work on the farms bringing in the cotton, corn and hay harvest. After the crops were in, the Kaufmann camp broke up and Jaenisch was transferred to Hearne in Southern Texas where they were assigned to gather additional crops. It was here that he became a "political" cartoonist for the camp magazine.

Then the great day came for which the entire world was waiting. The war was over, and even though he had found in America a new kind of freedom which had been denied him as a modern artist under the Nazi regime, the close of hostilities brought on a feeling of relief and a new spirit which was reflected in fresher colors and greater freedom in his art.

From the time that his repatriation began, Jaenisch had greater opportunities than ever to sketch the West he learned to love so well.

With a group of prisoners who were being returned at the same time. Jaenisch was able to spend these happier days in New Mexico and in Arizona, as they awaited for further orders to proceed to Long Beach, California, where the steamer Ernie Pyle was to take them to Europe. As a half-free PW Jaenisch took every precious opportunity to record Arizona life and landscapes as he saw them during this period.

Always a productive individual, the urge to record was greater than ever since Jaenisch knew now that it could be a long time before he could again have the opportunity to see this American Wonderland. More than that, he now recorded what he saw with the eyes of a man who was soon to be free. He knew too that the blood and sacrifice of a horrible war was now at an end, and this gave him a new spirit and a determination to work harder than ever.

When asked during an interview in his modest apartment in the British sector of Berlin which place he would most enjoy if he had a chance to return to the United States, Jaenisch said he would most like to return to Phoenix.

"In this large Arizona city one has opportunity to see all kinds of people," he pointed out. "One finds big city types. street workers, wealthy ranchers, beautifully gowned women as well as the throngs of Mexicans, Indians, miners, ranch hands, and other characters who come to Phoenix from the villages, the deserts, and the open, fruitful agricultural areas."

Phoenix particularly impressed him because of its wonderful combination of old and new civilization and the fact that he and his alert pencil were able to record a wealth of detail without a great expenditure of time and effort.

"Naturally," he said, "if I were free to travel I'd like to explore Arizona from Monument Valley to Yuma and from Lake Mead to the Chiricahua Wonderland of Rocks. As a prisoner I heard a great deal about such Arizona wonders as the Petri-fied Forest, the old Spanish Missions, Meteor Crater, and many others but unfortunately I was only able to get second-ary impressions of these world renowned sights from maga-zines, such as ARIZONA HIGHWAYS, which we occasionally found in our PW reading rooms and from picture postcards we saw from time to time.

"Landscape in Pinal District," "Ranch in Arizona," "Arizona Indian." (Reproductions from water colors)

"Since returning to Germany I have advised a great many of my friends, who are about to emigrate to the United States, to investigate the possibility of living in Arizona. Not only are these opportunities in agriculture, mining, small industry and in the arts and crafts, but I'm sure that the climate is as healthy as one could wish for anywhere on earth. More than that, I'm sure German technicians could be useful in Arizona and elsewhere in America in the search for hidden resources which up to now have scarcely begun to be unearthed."

In discussing his Arizona period, Jaenisch was asked if the Germans appreciated his Arizona pictures as much as they do his other work. Jaenisch replied, "These sketches which 1 dearly love to draw, are a sort of chamber music, compared to my recent stronger pictures, which may be compared to symphonic music. However, the romantic West has always been cherished by millions of Germans who, in their youth, read many Indian stories by famous American authors as well as the Arizona stories of the German writer, Karl May, whose yarns are still avidly read by all youngsters in Germany."

There is no doubt that American occupation personnel appreciate Jaenisch's pen-ink and water color sketches. Those who know and understand fine art praise his work highly and a number of Military Government employees have purchased original Jaenisch pictures of his Western and other periods and have given them as gifts to their hometown art institutes.

When asked if the real West was disappointing after having built up strong impressions of the story-tellers' West. Jaenisch said, "No; curiously enough, my early reading merely served as a gateway to this wonderful experience. As I entered this extraordinary land, I was able to build upon this useful foundation and to discover new values in the scenery and people I found in this extraordinary land."

"As a prisoner of war it was perhaps of greater necessity for me to grasp and retain every precious view and impression because I never knew whether or not I would ever again have the opportunity to re-live those rich and exciting moments.

"Because my trip to Arizona was of such uncertain duration. I found myself observing even more closely than ever every detail of an Indian's blanket, of the color in the mountains and canyons, of every fleeting gesture of human things, every graceful movement of the native animals.

"The last train ride I took as we headed toward California and the ship which was to take us to war-devastated Europe is one I'll never forget.

"Even though the war was over I was still a prisoner-a sort of prisoner in paradise-but none the less a restricted resident of your free American world.

"Even the big cacti seemed to stand like proud guards amidst the bluish-green brush. But I was sad as our train moved across this colorful wasteland since I knew then that it could be years before I would again be able to revisit this land I'd learned to love.

"To preserve these fleeting impressions I worked like a madman to jot down every possible idea, form and figure which I could use when I again had enough paint and paper to recreate new pictures out of the many things I'd seen and felt during these experience-filled days.

"My notebooks are filled with thousands of sketches of men and beasts, blankets and buildings, sunsets and sunrises,

"Abandoned Community," "Between Phoenix and Yuma," "Railroad Tracks near Yuma." (Reproductions from water colors)

mountains and valleys, arid deserts and green farm lands. "Not having sufficient paints with me I took great pains to make a word record of the true colors of the Southwest, but even now I scarcely refer to them. It isn't necessary. The memory of the Arizona hues will remain with me forever. "Once as the train stopped near a small Indian settlement and the natives turned their weather-beaten faces toward our coach I thought: Ah, you old fellows. Reserved, quiet, and grand. You are just like your mountains which suddenly rise out of the desert, proud and majestic; the history of your tribes is engraved upon your faces."

"We reached Yuma and I was sad as I realized that we would soon cross the State border and leave Arizona behind. But our last view, a beautiful sunset reflected in the Colorado river, was a balm for our unhappy spirit."

The technique Jaenisch uses in most of his pictures of the American Southwest is a combination of a pen and ink tech-nique augmented with authentic water color.

Berlin critics and art lovers see in these pictures a matura-tion of techniques similar to those used by world renowned artists as Klee, Picasso, and Kandinski. Unlike these masters of abstraction, Jaenisch's sketches can be understood by the man in the street as well as the ivy-towered art collector. One German remarked after viewing an Arizona Indian drawing in a Berlin exhibition of Hans Jaenisch Western art,"

"I feel as though I were drawn into the land of the Indians when I see this picture. This sketch is so beautifully toned, graphically perfect, and compositionally correct that it really tells me the story of this Indian's life."

"These pictures," he went on, "contain no romantic novel-ist's impressions of Indians as he imagines them. Instead they contain all the things which appear to us Germans to make the life of the Indians significant. We see teepees or adobe huts, their racial and religious symbols, and their strong silent faces in which the history of their tribes is so permanently etched. "Almost everyone who looks at these Jaenisch pictures has the impression that their creator has lived for many years among them. One feels too that Indians, who sometimes can shift from business suits to their ceremonial costumes on tribal feast days, cannot easily change their expressive, fate-engraved faces or hide all of the tragedy that one senses in their manner."

Hans Jaenisch continues to grow in stature as he works in his studio in the middle of the ruins of Berlin. As he contemplates and records the things he sees in this blockaded, fuelless, food-scarce metropolis his thoughts often turn to the colorful, beautiful Southwest paradise where he spent many happy days as a prisoner.

A few artists and other cultural leaders in Germany will be given an opportunity to visit America on an exchange program which Military Government has recently inaugurated in cooperation with American art institutes, universities and cultural foundations. Perhaps Jaenisch's dreams of an early return to the democratic land he learned to love are not as unreal as it might be to an ordinary resident of Berlin's ruins. As we concluded our interview, the darkness began to drop over Berlin and the rubble and ruins were slowly obliterated by shadows. There was no electric light. Berlin residents, fed and clothed and fueled by the American air lift, cannot afford that luxury.

"Tell my Arizona friends," Hans Jaenisch said slowly. "that I send them my greetings and my thanks for their hospitality to me as a PW, for their human and natural warmth. and for the unforgettable hours I enjoyed while a prison in their paradise."