Waldemar Nowakowski (graphic artist)
Waldemar Nowakowski (born November 10, 1917 in Bialogródek , Russia ; died January 30, 1984 in Cracow ) was a Polish geodesist and graphic artist.
Life
Waldemar Nowakowski studied geodesy at the Polytechnic University in Warsaw . After the German occupation of Poland in 1939, he became involved in the Polish resistance . He was arrested by the Gestapo in May 1940 , first sentenced to death and then imprisoned in Pawiak Prison in Warsaw. In August 1940 he was transferred to the Auschwitz concentration camp as a political prisoner . There he worked in the timber yard and as a carter in the agricultural command. In August 1942, Nowakowski was sent to the penal company in the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp for two months . Afterwards he was a clerk and later a block elder in the prisoner infirmary of the concentration camp.
During his four years imprisonment in the Auschwitz concentration camp, Nowakowski created more than 300 watercolors on cardboard in postcard format, in which he depicted the reality of the camp. On behalf of the camp management, he painted some of the walls of prisoner barracks with landscapes. In 1943 he and fellow inmate Tadeusz Borowski created an illegal theater in the infirmary.
In October 1944 Nowakowski was transferred to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp and used as a forced laborer in a company belonging to the Heinkel-Werke Oranienburg aircraft factory. In January 1945 he joined the 8th SS railway construction brigade as a slave laborer .
After the liberation in May 1945, he came back to Poland in September 1945, began studying graphics at the Academy of Fine Arts in Krakow and then worked as a teacher and graphic artist. The holdings of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Museum contain more than 20 drawings by the artist from his time in a concentration camp.
literature
- Jörn Wendland: The warehouse from picture to picture. Narrative series of images of prisoners from Nazi forced camps . Vienna: Böhlau, 2017, ISBN 978-3-412-50581-3 , p. 205.
Web links
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Nowakowski, Waldemar |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Polish geodesist and graphic artist |
| DATE OF BIRTH | November 10, 1917 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Bialogródek , Russia |
| DATE OF DEATH | January 30, 1984 |
| Place of death | Krakow |