ARTISTIC WORKS AND
DOCUMENTS OF AUSCHWITZ SURVIVOR WALDEMAR NOWAKOWSKI ADDED TO THE COLLECTIONS OF THE MUSEUM
Auschwitz Memorial and Museum
Twenty-six small watercolors and ink drawings came from the artist's grandson, Paweł Huczkowski. These works are part of a larger series, dozens of which have been in the Museum's Collections since the 1980s and 1990s. They depict various camp events and situations, creating a unique record of a prisoner's experiences in the camp. This collection fills a significant gap in the iconography related to the lives and fates of prisoners in the German Nazi concentration and extermination camp Auschwitz, providing a glimpse into scenes behind the barbed wire.
All the watercolors were given by the artist's immediate family (earlier by his wife Maria, also a Survivor, and later by their daughter Ewa) as works made in the camp. Some of these watercolors may indeed have been created in the camp, as the artist worked as a writer and later a block leader in the camp hospital, where access to paper and writing materials, possibly even paints, was possible.
"The vividness of some scenes, the meticulous execution, and the allegorical nature of many of them suggest that most were created after the artist regained his freedom. However, this does not diminish the value of these works or their significance as evidence of crimes and educational material, as they were created by an eyewitness to those events," said Agnieszka Sieradzka, an art historian at the Museum's Collections.
The drawings include scenes from the camp hospital, torture, executions, slave labor beyond one's strength, hunger, as well as everyday camp life: prisoners on bunks, reading letters from home, and searching for food scraps in emptied containers.
"The ink and watercolor drawings on postcard-sized cardboard are kept in a similar style. The prisoners, all similar in appearance without individual features, are shown against a sparse background composed of distinctive elements of the camp landscape. This gives the artworks a universal and symbolic message. Some scenes are framed in symmetrical arches and circles. One can clearly see the hand of a graphic artist with a tendency for summarization and decorativeness, despite the cruelty of the subject," added Agnieszka Sieradzka.
Along with the artworks, camp documents were also given to the Museum. These include two notes written on the back of
A valuable collection of artistic works by the Auschwitz Survivor Waldemar Nowakowski, along with camp documents related to him and his wife, has been added to the Collections of the Museum.
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