Peretz Beda Mayer's Biography

5.3.1906. Bedrich (Beda, Peretz) Mayer was born in Hodonin, Southern Moravia, to Julius and Amalie Mayer (nee Redlich), who had an inn near the railroad station.
1912. Attends Hodonin German high school where art teacher Livora spots his talent in drawing.
1918. Aged 12, Beda joins the Maccabi Jewish youth organization, later becomes a secretary of the local branch; creates a puppet theater and puts on amateur plays; organizes fund-raising drives for the Jewish National Fund.
1920. Julius Mayer dies.
1924. Studies at the Prague Academy of Art.
1925 – 1939. Drafted to the Czech army, but released about eight months later. Returns to Hodonin and helps his mother with the business. Takes art lessons with Prof. Livora; learns etching and gets assignments for illustrating periodicals and books published in Prague, mostly in Synek Publishing House, where his etchings are published in small octavo editions of classical literature. About a hundred such publications appear with his signed illustrations.
March 15th 1939. The German army enters Hodonin. Beda leaves for Prague, by now under the German “Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia”, where efforts are being made to organize emigration of Jews. Meanwhile he resides with his architect brother Leo Mayer and works as an apprentice in a zincographic works.
November 1939. Meeting with Fritz Haendel at Prague Central Railway Station. With a Zionist youth group they travel by rail to Bratislava to await their departure for Palestine.
November 1939 – September 1940. Waiting in Bratislava. Beda meets Hanna Beer.
5. 9. 1940. – 26.12.1940. Voyage of the refugees to Haifa, interception by the British navy, and deportation by the British from Haifa to Mauritius.
December 26, 1940 . The refugees reach the island of Mauritius.
1941 – 1945. British detention camp near Beau Bassin. Beda and Fritz work together, they produce wooden toys from used crates – hand-painted carved wooden giraffes, elephants, etc. on wheels, for sale by Chinese tradesmen in their shops. They make wood-placers, shoe-shapes and suitcases out of local raw materials. They also engage in art: drawings, cartoons, paintings and woodcuts, portraits and copies. They teach art, make puppets and put on a show.
The “Camp News” of June 27, 1941, reports: Archi Mayer with his serious realistic cycle reminded us of our life aboard the “Atlantic”; he also showed a couple of highly elaborate portraits, as well as a beautiful pen drawing “Mother”. Fritz Haendel demonstrated along with a sketch-portrait of Comrade Kessler, drawn with great vigor and inspiration, also a strong leaning and talent for humorous and satirical descriptions.