Commemorating the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, the Auschwitz-Birkenau Foundation, in cooperation with the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial and Museum, aims to preserve approximately 4,000 artworks created by Auschwitz prisoners – sketches, drawings, paintings – and display these in a permanent art exhibition at the Memorial. The Alfred Landecker Foundation is contributing to the fundraising efforts of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Foundation with a donation.
Alongside the testimony of survivors and the physical remains of the camp, the exhibition will provide a deeply personal insight into the experiences and feelings of the prisoners. It reflects their hope that, even in death, a drawing or object would serve as a testament to their suffering—or, as many of the portraits convey, as a way to ensure they would be remembered.
The collection, currently stored and preserved at the Auschwitz Memorial, encompasses a wide range of artistic expression: sketches made in secret and great danger, documenting the horrific realities of camp life; post-liberation works by survivors processing their experiences in Auschwitz; and official SS-commissioned works depicting plans for the expansion of the camp and art works recording the course of pseudo-medical experimentation.
Return from work from the cycle "Day of a prisoner". Mieczysław Kościelniak. Small feather, black ink, paper, 66 x 82 cm, Poland 1950. Collections of the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum.
Work – sorting out shoes from the cycle "Day of a female prisoner”. Mieczysław Kościelniak. Small feather, black ink, paper, 81 x 65 cm, Poland 1950. Collections of the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum
Dividing families. Artist unknown. Pencil, crayons, paper, 13,5 x 19,5 cm, KL Auschwitz 1942-44. Collections of the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum.
Prayer. Zofia Stępień. Pencil, crayons, paper, 14 x 8,8 cm, KL Auschwitz 1943. Collections of the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum.
Wishes of freedom. Artist unknown. Watercolour, cardboard, 4,5 x 9,8 cm, KL Auschwitz 1943. Collections of the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum.
A portrait of a young woman. Zofia Stępień. Pencil, paper, 14,5 x 21 cm, KL Auschwitz 1944. Collections of the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum.
A plate. Bolesław Kupiec. Stained wood, diameter 26,5 cm, KL Auschwitz 1942-44. Collections of the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum.
Crocuses. Bronisław Czech. Oil painting, glass, 37,5 x 42 cm, KL Auschwitz 1943. Collections of the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum.
Shh – silence from the cycle "Flowers of Auschwitz". Zinowij Tołkaczew. Small feather, Indian ink, cardboard, 30,5 x 22 cm, Poland 1945. Collections of the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum.
On the ruins of the camp. Jerzy Potrzebowski . Oil painting, canvas, 130 x 100 cm, 130 x 100 cm, Poland 1961. Collections of the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum.
Remembering the Holocaust through the art of its victims and survivors
The Memorial's expert curators, conservators, educators and historians, will create the Auschwitz Prisoner Art Exhibition at the Museum. It will be located inside the historical kitchen building, right next to the entrance gate bearing the inscription “Arbeit Macht Frei”. The aim of the project is to display original works of art as well as to provide space for temporary art exhibitions and themed seminars.