Jozef Szajna

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Józef Szajna (born March 13, 1922 in Rzeszów , † June 24, 2008 in Warsaw ) was a Polish actor and theater director .

life and work

Szajna was born the son of Polish Catholics in Rzeszów. At the age of 17, Szajna became a soldier and fought underground in the Polish Home Army after the German and Soviet occupation of Poland in 1939 . He fought the Wehrmacht as a saboteur and was caught by the Gestapo in Slovakia in 1940 . After staying in several prisons, he came to Auschwitz concentration camp , where he was tattooed with prisoner number 18729. After attempting to escape in 1943, Szajna was housed in death block 11 . 1944 was transferred Szajna finally to Buchenwald concentration camp , where he wore the prisoner numbering 41,408th From Buchenwald concentration camp, he was in the satellite camp KZ Schoenebeck brought. There he was used as a slave laborer in the Junkers factories in armaments production.

In the little free time he had, he was able to make drawings and paintings, some of which have been preserved. During the evacuation of the Schönebeck concentration camp on April 11, 1945, he managed to escape during the death march .

After the war he stayed in a camp for Polish Displaced Persons in Haren (Ems) for two years before returning to Poland in 1947. There he took part as a witness in the Kraków Auschwitz Trial.

After the war, Szajna studied at the Academy of Arts in Cracow , which he graduated in 1953 with degrees in graphics and set design. From 1955 to 1963 he is a set designer, author and director, from 1963 to 1966 artistic director and artistic director at the Volkstheater in Nowa Huta near Kraków. In 1972 he became a professor at the Art Academy in Warsaw.

Józef Szajna's grave in Warsaw

Szajna caused a sensation with idiosyncratic productions at the end of the 1950s. In 1972 he created an author 's theater with the Studio Theater . In 1981, he placed in protest against General Wojciech Jaruzelski proclaimed martial law down the line of the theater. His work has been recognized in Italy, Japan, Mexico, Israel, Egypt and the United States. At the Venice Biennale in 1970, Szajna was honored with a personal exhibition for his 140 square meter installation "Reminiscences" - a work about the Krakow artist murdered in Auschwitz. In 2002 he was awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of Oldenburg for his artistic contributions to the culture of remembrance of the 20th century .

In 1994, Szajna initiated the “ Hill of Remembrance and Reconciliation Auschwitz ” project, in which stones were designed to commemorate the Auschwitz victims across nations and religions.

In socialist Poland and in the Federal Republic of Germany his subtle abstractions, his paintings, drawings and walk-in sculptures about deformed heads and bodies found little recognition; in the GDR he was considered a formalist. In the rest of the world, despite all the ambivalence of cruelty and cheerfulness, his works of art received a great deal of attention, and even became known. The experience of loss of identity was the central motif of his artistic work.

Works

  • Volkhard Knigge & Ingrid Scheurmann (eds.): Jozef Szajna. Art and theater. Buchenwald and Mittelbau-Dora Memorials Foundation; Wallstein, Göttingen 2002 ISBN 3892445974

literature

  • Kay Less : Between the stage and the barracks. Lexicon of persecuted theater, film and music artists from 1933 to 1945 . With a foreword by Paul Spiegel . Metropol, Berlin 2008, ISBN 978-3-938690-10-9 , p. 335.

Web links

Commons : Józef Szajna  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Süddeutsche Zeitung: Through the Outlines of Another. Retrieved May 7, 2020 .
  2. ^ Art collection of Buchenwald and Mittelbau-Dora Memorials Foundation, picture of the month September 2007
  3. ↑ Press release of the city of Schönebeck on Józef Szajna ( memento of June 9, 2009 in the Internet Archive ).
  4. ↑ a b Biography of Józef Szajna on the website of the Buchenwald Concentration Camp Memorial .
  5. ↑ a b Biography of Józef Szajna at The Last Expression. Art and Auschwitz ( Memento of September 3, 2006 in the Internet Archive ).
  6. ↑ Press release from the University of Oldenburg .
personal data
SURNAME Szajna, Jozef
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Polish actor and theater director
DATE OF BIRTH March 13, 1922
PLACE OF BIRTH Rzeszów
DATE OF DEATH June 24, 2008
Place of death Warsaw