Concentratiekamp Sachsenhausen was een uiterst barbaars kamp, vooral bedoeld voor politieke vijanden van het naziregime. Tussen 1936 en 1945 werden er naar schatting 200.000 mensen opgesloten, van wie 30 tot 50.000 het niet overleefden. Tijdens de Tweede Wereldoorlog zaten er ook veel Nederlanders. Onder hen bekende figuren als de politici Piet Jongeling (ARP/GPV) en Koos Vorrink (SDAP), acteur Jan Lemaire jr. en schrijfster en verzetsvrouw Reina Prinsen Geerligs (zij stierf in Sachsenhausen).
Text Ghetto Fighters' House Museum Israel.
Jan Budding was born on January 1, 1922, in Amsterdam. In July 1942, he was imprisoned for subversive activity against the German occupation and was sent to the Oranienburg camp in Germany.
While interned in the camp, he exploited artistic talents that had already emerged in his schooldays. He would draw, sometimes under difficult conditions, his fellow inmates and everyday life in the camp.
Budding’s works from that period are now held in the collections of the museum at the memorial site of the Sachsenhausen camp near Berlin, and at the Ghetto Fighters’ House.
Following the liberation, the seriously ill Budding returned to the Netherlands. He was a patient in convalescent homes for many years.
In 1951, Jan Budding qualified as an art teacher and in 1952 was accepted to Amsterdam’s prestigious Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten, that supports and promotes promising young artists.
In 1958 he relocated to Paris, where he lived for several years, then returned to the Netherlands with his family, settling in the village of Groet in North Holland.
During the 1960s, Budding served as an advisor on arts affairs to residential facilities for senior citizens being constructed in the nearby village of Bergen. Together with colleagues, he founded an artists’ association dedicated to improving the quality of life in hospitals and other health care institutions.
Jan Budding died on February 29, 1988.
Exhibitions of his artworks have been shown in noted galleries in the Netherlands and throughout Europe.