As Jewish people became more and more excluded, life grew increasingly difficult for families such as Rachel’s during the early years of the war. The non-Jewish families from the remote village where she lived allowed most of her family to evade capture until 1944, when they were rounded up and taken to Auschwitz-Birkenau. Rachel and her brother were spared because they were able to work; their mother, younger sisters and baby brother were sent to the gas chambers. At the start of 1945 she survived a death march to Bergen-Belsen before being liberated from there by British troops on 15 April 1945.

The portrait shows a woman of great inner strength and dignity – qualities that spoke readily to the artist when he met Rachel during the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic. He took as many photographs as possible so that he could continue to work without further sittings.