Thus among the old and decrepit houses of one of Eilat's oldest neighbourhoods is one home in which, together with numerous cats and dogs, lives an artist of exceptional talent.  An artist who, in fact, lives because of that exceptional talent. 

While the biggest worries of a 15 year old girl today might regard a boy, her wardrobe, or the state of her complexion, the worries of this artist were of a different sort altogether.  At age 15, Magda Watts was torn from her home in Hungary by the Nazis and taken, together with all of her family, to Auschwitz.  Her mother, one sister, and toddler niece were sent to the gas chamber immediately.  Another sister was singled out for slave labour.  Magda and her older sister, Shari, were sent to the death camp and then seven months later to forced labour making bombs at Nuremburg.  She didn't know the fate of her father and brothers until much later.  Only her youngest brother survived.

Magda and Shari kept each other going while in the labour camp.  Magda stole food to keep their bodies alive, while Shari provided moral support to keep their spirits from breaking.  One day Magda made a doll out of fabric scraps, and this turned out to be her salvation: the girl in charge of food rations saw it and said she'd give her double portions if Magda would make her a doll.  The Germans came to know of the incredible rag dolls, and brought fabric to ‘place orders' in return for food and being spared from death.  Magda and Shari survived, albeit it mere skeletons, long enough to achieve liberation by the Allies.  A second life of the body.

In the early 1980's Madga went back to Hungary for a visit.  The terrible memories of the war it resurrected plunged her into despair.  When she got back to Israel, she started making dolls again, something she had not done since the end of the war.  She felt that her hands worked almost on their own without her mind even being necessary, and found that the artistry lifted her out of depression.  In a subsequent visit to her hometown and to Auschwitz in the 1990's, she returned with a far different feeling.  Liberation, rejuvenation, a new lease on life.  This time she felt she'd been freed from the dark terrors and despair of the past and was now ‘a happy person'.  A second life of the spirit.

The dolls Magda creates are more than just ‘art' or some sort of ‘occupational therapy'.  Magda's sculptures have life to them and are so realistic that they genuinely look like ‘little people', as she terms them.  Many of those ‘little people' are figures from her childhood, the inhabitants of the ‘shtetl' before that life was cruelly destroyed forever. 

With Magda's dolls set in their incredibly detailed tableaux, you enter a world of Hassidic Jews in their long black coats and hats, a group of well-coifed ladies sitting around a table of cards, a local butcher, three elderly ladies gossiping over tea, an old-fashioned artist painting a portrait (of Magda's daughter Hannah perhaps), orchestras, bands, and ensembles playing music, an elderly couple dancing to the gramophone, a milkman, a shopkeeper, jewellers, tailors and seamstresses, greengrocers, a newsagent, all with their wares or equipment; a couple at home complete with tiny photos on the mantel, a heart patient at his doctor's, a lady shopping with her baskets, a couple of gents sitting for a rest and a chat, a schoolmaster with three reluctant pupils under his stern hand, an accountant with an abacus, and more.  Then suddenly you see a more modern couple with a lady in fishnet stockings with a mobile phone and cigarettes, or an Arab sheikh reclining half drunkenly leering at a belly dancer, or tourists with luggage just coming or going on holiday.  It seems that both Magda's imagination and her talent are unlimited as she creates entire little worlds with her dolls and their surrounding backdrop.

Magda herself is an enthusiastic, boisterous woman whom I remember as being abundant in cats, cigarettes, and humour.  Since my son and her grandson drifted apart from being best friends, it's been years since I've seen her now.  Her hand always seemed to hold a fag and her lap at least one cat, often more, with dogs twining around her legs in between the cats.  Magda's love of animals and her sense of humour, sometimes bawdy but always amusing, make her a great person as well as a great artist.

Magda has shown her work in both longstanding displays and in exhibitions in various parts of the world including the USA and Europe.  Here in Eilat they were displayed for a long time in the airport and during another period in the Caesar Hotel.  Her dolls can be found in museums, galleries, and private collections all over the world.  In November she's off to exhibit her amazing ‘little people' in New Jersey, USA.  You can see some of her dolls on her website at: http://www.magda-watts.eu/3.html and some videos at http://www.magda-watts.eu/8.html.

[Photo taken from Magda's website]