The Sketchbook from Auschwitz

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With the book The Sketchbook from Auschwitz (translated with sketch pad from Auschwitz ) the 32 sketches by an unknown person for the extermination of the Jews of Europe in the largest Nazi extermination camp Auschwitz-Birkenau were published for the first time in full. The bilingual work was published by the publisher of the State Museum Auschwitz-Birkenau ( Polish: Państwowe Muzeum Auschwitz-Birkenau , abbreviation PMO) and can only be obtained directly from the publisher; its title is as follows:

  • Agnieszka Sieradzka: The Sketchbook from Auschwitz (English title) or Szkicownik z Auschwitz (Polish title). Published by Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum, Oswiecim, 2011, 115 pages. ISBN 978-83-7704-031-7 .

The main subject of the book is copies of the 22 original pages of a notepad with 32 sketches / pencil drawings by an unknown person, probably made from 1943 or later. It is possible that the recurring letters MM, placed one inside the other, are the painter's initials. Some of the pencil drawings seem like successive windows of a continuous picture story ( comic ), since at least similar, if not the same people are shown several times. The location also suggests a unified basic idea of ​​the painter for the image statement. No other textual statements by the person drawing or other people living there at the same time about the pictures have become known.

Find history

The museum spokesman Jarek Mensfelt describes the history of finding the pencil drawings as follows: The draftsman, most likely an inmate MM , as the initials "MM" can be found on almost all sketches, stuffed the 22 sheets into a bottle and hid them in the foundations of a shed in the vicinity of the gas chambers and the crematories IV and V . It was found there in 1947 by Auschwitz survivor Józef Odi , who worked as a security guard on the site of the former extermination camp and lived in Oświęcim , where he also built the memorial in the following years .

The burial of post in bottles for unknown posterity or of valuables on the camp site has been handed down several times. This was also achieved by some members of the so-called Sonderkommando - those Jewish prisoners who had been forced by the SS to undertake the burning of the corpses. In contrast to the other work details, these inmates were permanently detained separately from the other inmates at the crematoria. The prisoners who were forced to do this work were always aware that they could themselves be murdered by the SS guards in order to keep the mass murder secret . Before the cremation, these inmates had to search the corpses for hidden valuables and dental gold. During the mass murders, the crematorium ovens were sometimes filled with several corpses at once. It has been handed down that robbery excavations for gold and other valuables took place on the site in the post-war period.

The following can be read about from one of the well-known Sonderkommando prisoners, Salmen Gradowski , a Jew who was born in 1909 in Suwałki , Poland . He introduced his diary notes, which were buried near Crematorium III , with the words: “Dear explorer, please search everywhere, scour every inch of the ground. Dozens of documents are buried here, mine and others, that shed light on what happened here. May posterity find traces of the millions who were murdered ”.

subjects

1944: Arrival of Jewish Hungarians in Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp

The draftsman, who remained unknown, depicts the most important stages of the mass murder: the arrival of the prisoners, the selection on the ramp and the transport to the gas chambers and the cremation of the corpses. He painted the license plates of the SS trucks and the names of individual blocks (buildings). In some cases he put a lot of effort into working out the facial expressions of the people portrayed.

Search for the author

The museum staff could not find out who the person is behind the drawings. The draftsman must have come to various places in the extermination process and have survived these times of attendance, if the assumption is accepted that the original drawings were based on the originals in the extermination camp. This person lived in the camp for an extended period of time and had access to some areas of the extermination camp.

He or she depicts the arrival of the prisoners on the so-called Old Jewish Ramp at the Oświęcim train station, which was located between the city and the village of Brzezinka , in German Birkenau, about two kilometers from the extermination camp. In addition, crematoria are shown. To get to the Alte Judenrampe , he could have worked in what is known as a clean - up squad: a carefully selected squad of concentration camp prisoners who collected the belongings of the deported people arriving at the station from all over Europe and transported them to a huge warehouse. They also served to "calm down" and position the newcomers before the selection that followed . In addition, according to Mensfelt, the draftsman was most likely also employed in the so-called prisoner infirmary - here he could easily have obtained a notepad and pens.

The period of origin

The depressing drawings were made around 1943. This is indicated by a sketch of crematoria IV or V, which were in use from spring 1943. Another sketch shows a prisoner with a triangle and number branded on his forearm: a practice that was also only common for newly admitted prisoners from this point on.

The fact that the last sketch does not have a number and the initials MM are missing is interpreted to mean that the draftsman himself could have got into trouble and therefore buried the unfinished sketch together with the others.

See also

  • Main article on the so-called final solution of the Jewish question sought by the NSDAP (cover name for the persecution of the Jews and the entire mass murder)
  • Auschwitz protocols (i.e. testimonies from the time; especially Vrba-Wetzler Report, reports by Witold Pilecki, report by Arnost Rosin and Czesław Mordowicz)

Other graphic documents:

  • Auschwitz-Album is the name of two photo albums that show photographs from the Auschwitz concentration camp, i.e. from the time before its liberation on January 27, 1945. The pictures in it were made and collected by SS perpetrators . The few known photo albums have been handed down in various ways.
  • Dinah Babbitt Portraits; (born in Brno in 1923 as Dinah Gottliebová, died in the USA) was a Czech painter and sculptor (studied in Brno and Prague) who was transferred to the Theresienstadt concentration camp in January 1942 and from there to the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp on September 9, 1943 was deported. On February 22, 1944, she was taken to the SS camp doctor Mengele based on a drawing she had made for children . He asked her to draw portraits of certain victims of his attempts, including six Roma destined for death , in order to record their "racial characteristics". He wanted to write a book with illustrations of his supposedly anthropological experiments . In return, Gottliebová and her mother were assured security for life and limb. Since Mengele demanded absolute color accuracy, each portrait took two weeks. She also painted pictures of Polish and Czech female prisoners. In addition, the camp guards came to her and asked them to take portraits of themselves or their families. (In the post-war period since the 1970s, the issue of ownership rights to recovered signed paintings was at issue.)
  • The four photographs of Alex at Crematorium V: Georges Didi-Huberman published four photographs in 2007 that inmates could take in the camp.

On the deportation process, among others

literature

  • Agnieszka Sieradzka: The Sketchbook from Auschwitz (English title) or Szkicownik z Auschwitz (Polish title). Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum, Oswiecim, 2011, 115 pages. ISBN 978-83-7704-031-7 .
  • Karsten Uhl : The Auschwitz Sketchbook, in: The Last Expression: Art and Auschwitz , ed. v. David Mickenberg, Corinne Granof a. Peter Hayes, Evanston (Illinois): Northwestern University Press 2003, pp. 94-103.

Sources, citations

  1. ↑ Kateřina Čapková in Theresienstadt Studies and Documents No. 6/1999, pp. 105–111, The Testimony of Salmen Gradowski

Web links

Commons : Auschwitz-Birkenau  - Album with pictures, videos and audio files

Coordinates: 50 ° 2 ′ 9 ″  N , 19 ° 10 ′ 42 ″  E