A Superheroic Attempt to Reclaim Art

Dina Gottliebova Babbit (left) and one of her WWII works. — Courtesy Dina Babbitt

Dina Gottliebova Babbitt wants some of her long-lost art back. While imprisoned at the Auschwitz concentration camp during World War II, the now-retired cartoon illustrator was forced by Josef Mengele—the Nazi doctor known as the “Angel of Death”—to paint portraits of other prisoners. In exchange, Mengele spared the lives of Babbitt and her mother.

For years the paintings were lost, but seven of them surfaced in the 1960s and 1970s and were purchased by the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum in Poland.

Since then Babbitt, 85, has asked for the art to be returned. But museum officials insist that while Babbitt created the work, she never owned it. And, they say, the paintings are an important piece of history that belongs at the museum.

Now, three legends in the comic book world—Neal Adams (Batman), Joe Kubert (Hawkman) and Stan Lee (Spider-Man)—have united to create a new comic depicting Babbitt’s struggle to regain the portraits. The six-page comic book is the brainchild of Adams.

"The museum is there to represent that the rights of people were taken from them, and that’s exactly what they’re doing to her,” Adams says. “They’re taking her property.”

Babbitt, now living in California, recently had surgery for abdominal cancer.

“These are the paintings that saved her and her mother’s lives,” says Rafael Medoff, director of the David S. Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies in Washington. “Her heart and soul are in these paintings.”

Michelle Diament is a freelance writer based in Memphis.

SEE PART OF THE COMIC >>