Petr Kien

The name of Franz Peter Kien, a prominent figure among artists imprisoned in Terezín – Theresienstadt Ghetto during World War II, is usually associated with the opera The Emperor of Atlantis by Viktor Ullmann.

The same year, Kien enrolled in Prof. Willy Novak's class at the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague and in the graphic design school Officina Pragensis under Prof. Hugo Steiner-Prag.

In 1939, after the Nuremberg Laws were enforced, Kien was expelled from the Academy, but continued to work at the Officina Pragensis under Prof. Jaroslav Švab).

Consigned to the drafting room of the Technical Department in Terezín, Kien produced numerous portraits, landscapes, drawings and genre sketches.

Between his arrival to Terezín in 1941 and his deportation to Auschwitz, Kien was officially the director of the Technical Drawing Office of the Jewish Self Administration.

Kien also wrote the libretto to Viktor Ullmann's Der Kaiser von Atlantis, a one-act chamber opera that was composed in (originally on the back of a deportation list due to a lack of paper) and rehearsed in Terezin between 1943 and 1944 but never performed there.