Peter Ginz Remembered

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Peter Ginz, Czech schoolboy remembered as Asteroid Number 50413
	On the eve of the 60th anniversary of the Liberation of the Auschwitz Concentration camp by Russian forces, Czech astronomer Milos Tichy, reported that the International Astronomy Union (IAU) had approved Ginz's name for asteroid number 50413. The asteroid is part of the main band of asteroids between the planets Mars and Jupiter and revolves around the sun once every 4.49 years Peter Ginz was a Czech Jewish boy who was imprisoned in the "holding camp" of Terezin (Czech pronunciation: [ˈtɛrɛziːn]; German: Theresienstadt) during 1941 and 1942, and While there, he drew this most marvellous sketch of the earth as viewed through a bizarre landscape of lunar peaks. In Ginz's picture, the earth is shown rotated so that the longitude line through Terezin is central and closest to the moon, a poignant touch. From Terezin, the schoolboy was transported to Auschwitz, where he was murdered in 1944 aged sixteen. A copy of Peter Ginz's painting was carried by the Israeli astronaut Ilan Ramon on the fatal flight of the Columbia. The ill-fated shuttle flight took place on February 1, 2003, on what would have been Peter Ginz's seventy fifth birthday. The sketch features on this Czech stamp to the left. Peter Ginz displayed great talent for writing as well as drawing at Terezin. What might he have achieved in a full life ?
On my own walls is a strangely similar picture of an alien landscape: This reproduction is of Birth of a Planet by Jorge Espinoza C, a Mexican artist, who has the surname of the famous Jewish philosopher, Baruch Spinosa.
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