Portrait, photographs and books of Jerzy Kwiatkowski found their way to the collections of the State Museum at Majdanek
Dorota Niedziałkowska, State Museum at Majdanek
Erich Schiele contacted the State Museum at Majdanek in September 2019, after reading information about the preparation by the Museum together with Hoover Institution Library & Archives of the English version of 485 Days at Majdanek. The book will be published by the Hoover Institution Press in the fall of 2020.
Thanks to the correspondence we have learned a lot about the American chapter of Kwiatkowski's life. We found out, among other things, the dates of his death and funeral: Kwiatkowski died of heart failure on February 3, 1980, was buried on February 6, and lies in the Avenue of Merit of the American Częstochowa Cemetery in Doylestown, Pennsylvania.
The donation comprises items to which the author of 485 Days at Majdanek was so attached that he did not decide to deposit them at the Hoover Institute in the 1970s. Instead, they remained in his New York apartment until his death.
The collection donated to the State Museum at Majdanek consists of:
– oil portrait of the author of the camp memories painted by Eduard Adrian Dussek during World War I, on whose back Jerzy stuck typewritten biograms of the painter in French and German. Eduard Dussek, a Hungarian national, studied at academies in Budapest, Vienna, Munich, as well as in Paris and Italy, worked in and around Budapest, he painted, among other things, portraits of Franz Joseph and also recreated scenes from the history of Hungary. The portrait presents Jerzy in a field uniform of dragoons of the Austro-Hungarian Army – with leutnant’s distinctions and a silver Medal of Valor;
At the end of December, we received from Mr. Erich Schiele from New York memorabilia belonging to Jerzy Kwiatkowski, the author of the most famous account of the German concentration camp KL Lublin entitled 485 Days at Majdanek. Mr. Schiele's family had been friends with Kwiatkowski, they lived in the neighborhood. Kwiatkowski emigrated to the USA in the late 1940s. He first performed various jobs in Chicago, in 1958 he was employed at Pekao Trading Corporation and moved to New York.
All images in the article: the State Museum at Majdanek