This biography from the Archives of AskART:
|  Following is information from Ira A Kaufman:
I believe in 1967-8 Peter and I had a talk while I drew a picture of him. It was in the front of the Brata Gallery with the daylight coming through the window. He recalled the story of when he was a child and his family made their escape from Nazi Germany. I will just say he described the great tension which his parents felt and which he as a little child also felt and remembered vividly. They were standing on a train platform and waiting for the train which they had somehow obtained tickets on to get them out of there. He recalled the Gestapo patrolling and the fear.
Peter was very Nordic looking, and his parents also had blue eyes, blond hair, high cheekbones and so on. But being Jewish, they had much to fear. This ordeal apparently left terrible scars on his folks. When they found a safe haven in the States, they put statues of pigs in their house. They would get dressed up and go for walks on Sunday. This might seem to be a normal enough thing to do, but Peter explained these walks were made to blend in with the Gentiles. You see no matter how long they lived, the Gestapo was never far behind in their minds.
Peter's makeup was formed in this atmosphere.
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