From the August 2009 Peg-Board
Assistant animator DINA GOTTLIEBOVA BABBITT, an Auschwitz concentration camp inmate who survived by creating artwork of fellow prisoners for Nazi doctor Josef Mengele, and later fought to have her work returned to her from the Auschwitz museum, died on July 29.
After WWII she became the second wife of animator and union leader Art Babbitt. Starting in the early 1950s she worked as an assistant animator at Lew Bunin Productions, the Billancourt studio in Paris, Warner Bros., Bill Melendez, Phil Duncan, Reel 3 and Hanna-Barbera. She joined Local 839 in 1965 as an assistant animator at Filmfair, subsequently working for Format, Bakshi, Krantz and again briefly for Warner Bros. According to Cartoon Brew, she worked on Tweety and Wile E. Coyote cartoons and Cap’n Crunch commercials.
In 1973, Babbitt learned that the portraits of Gypsy camp inmates that she had painted for Mengele had been acquired by the Auschwitz Birkenau museum. In the years since the war, numerous works of art stolen by the Nazis have been returned to their proper owners, but the museum has steadfastly refused to return Babbitt’s paintings to her. In addition to the Animation Guild, those who have endorsed and offered assistance to the drive to return her work range from Ralph Bakshi, Stan Lee and Art Spiegelman to Neil Gaiman, Lynn Johnston, Michael Moorcock.
Babbitt’s family has vowed to continue the campaign for the return of the artwork to her estate. More on the Free Dina’s Art blog; posts on the subject can be found on the TAG Blog.