Stella Repper

Prepared by the Witnesses of War team

Stella Broll Repper was born on 5 September 1928 and grew up in Prostějov, Czechoslovakia. On 30 June 1942, aged thirteen, she was deported from Olomouc to Terezín (Theresienstadt) on transport AAg.

Imprisoned in the ghetto and concentration camp in Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia, Stella became an assistant to the Dutch illustrator Jo Spier. In the camp’s art studio, she mixed plaster and helped produce sculptures. This work became crucial to her survival—and to that of her mother.

An SS officer commissioned the studio to make a plaster replica of the Bamberg Horseman, the medieval equestrian sculpture in Germany’s Bamberg Cathedral. When the officer complained about delays, Spier explained that his assistants were being deported and that he needed them to finish the project. His intervention secured protection for members of his workshop. Stella and her mother, selected for deportation to Auschwitz, were removed from the transport and remained in Terezín.

Stella survived the Holocaust and continued pursuing art throughout her life. Later living in Falls Church, Virginia, she created sculptures in wood, stone, marble and papier-mâché.