In his youth he was a pupil ofJacek Malczewski inKraków, one of the most famous painters of Polish Symbolism. Subsequently he pursued his studies inVienna in 1918, and inParis in 1927. He exhibited in Paris in 1930. Symche Trachter was active at Kraków, and also participated in exhibitions organized by theJewish Society for the Propagation of the Fine Arts.
During theSecond World War he was interned in theWarsaw Ghetto, but continued his artistic activities even in detention, decorating withfrescoes — together with another painter and fellow detainee, Feliks Frydman — the walls of the main reception hall within the seat of the Ghetto'sJudenrat.[1] In 1942 he was deported by theNazis from the Warsaw Ghetto on one of the first transports to theTreblinka extermination camp, where he was murdered in theHolocaust.[2]
The Museum of the Jewish Historical Institute: Arts and Crafts, comp. & ed. I. Brzewska,et al., tr. B. Piotrowska, Warsaw, Auriga, Wydawnictwa Artystyczne i Filmowe (for the Żydowski Instytut Historyczny w Polsce), 1995.ISBN8322106424. (Unpaged.)
Jerzy Malinowski,Malarstwo i rzeźba Żydów polskich w XIX i XX wieku, vol. 1, Warsaw, Wydawnictwo Naukowe PWN, 2000.ISBN8301131780.
Adrian Darmon,Autour de l'art juif: encyclopédie des peintres, photographes et sculpteurs,Chatou, Éditions Carnot, 2003, p. 110.ISBN2848550112. (With an extensive list of further sources on pp. 338–339.)
