Scope and Content Note
The papers of Marie Paneth (1895-1986) span the years 1938-1968 and include correspondence, a diary, reports, notes, writings, and children’s artwork. The collection documents Paneth’s therapeutic use of art in working with children who suffered traumatic experiences. Featured in the collection are writings based on her work with children during the bombardment of London in 1941-1942 and her postwar work with children who survived German concentration camps. Material in the collection is written in English and German.
The bulk of the collection consists of Paneth’s nonfiction and fiction writing. Included are fragments of drafts and reviews of her book, Branch Street. The book recounts her experiences as an art instructor in an air raid shelter in a poor section of London and explores the emotional lives of her pupils through their artwork. Paneth’s original reports outlining her work in the shelter are located in the subject file. Also included in the collection is an unpublished book-length manuscript entitled “Rock the Cradle” based on her subsequent work with children who survived internment in German concentration camps. The children arrived in England in 1945 and were housed in a former war workers’ hostel on Lake Windermere. Most of the children were over the age of fifteen. The largest number were born in Poland; others were from Czechoslovakia, Germany, and Hungary. Paneth’s manuscript relates stories told by the children about their experiences in concentration camps, their adjustment to life in the British reception camp, and the ways artwork provided a nonverbal outlet for their emotional trauma. A few examples of the children’s artwork is found in the subject file.
Other writings in the collection concern Paneth’s theories on the link between visual impressions expressed through drawing and the sensation and memory of eye movement. Also included are several works of fiction including short stories drawn from Paneth’s experiences as a doctor’s wife living in Java and Sumatra during the interwar years. An autobiographical novel entitled “Falschung,” written in English and German, recounts her childhood in Vienna, Austria, her art studies with Franz Čižek, and her early married life in the Dutch East Indies.
Paneth’s correspondence largely concerns her writing projects, most notably Branch Street. Also included are numerous letters to and from psychoanalyst Heinz Hartmann. A diary, spanning the years 1950-1955, documents Paneth’s early years in New York City following her immigration to the United States.