Art From Auschwitz: A Last Chance To Preserve Prisoner Voices For Posterity

WARSAW — On the eve of the 80th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp, which falls on January 27, 2025, the state museum plans to launch a groundbreaking project to preserve the memory of survivors.

“I am one of those still alive, the few who were there almost until the last moment before liberation,” recalls 98-year-old Marian Turski, a historian and former Auschwitz prisoner.

Five years ago, only about 200 hundred survivors made it to the Auschwitz liberation anniversary commemoration. Each year that number grows smaller. In 2019, Kazimierz Albin died at the age of 96: He was the last surviving prisoner from the first transport of Poles to Auschwitz. A year later, Dario Gabbai passed away at the age of 97: A Greek Jew, he was the last surviving member of the Sonderkommando, a group of prisoners forced to dispose of the bodies of those exterminated in the gas chambers. The following year, the Roma Association in Poland reported the death of 91-year-old Edward Paczkowski, the longest surviving Auschwitz prisoner of Roma descent.

So who will answer the question that visitors often ask former prisoners: “What feelings accompanied you in Auschwitz?” Some hope that art will be the answer. That’s why the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum is developing an exhibition of some 4,000 works of art, including sketches, drawings and paintings made by Auschwitz prisoners.

“This channel of communication, meetings with former Auschwitz prisoners, is coming to an end,” said Museum Director Piotr Cywiński. “Nevertheless, the emotions of the victims are clearly present in their artwork.”

Using paper and canvas they may be better able to express themselves, their trauma, helplessness and pain, but also hope, sadness or nostalgia. “The paintings convey coldness, hunger and death,” he said. “They speak in every language, to every person.”

Obliged to bear witness

The exhibition will be the first executed concept in this style, with the largest collection in the world depicting camp reality.

“The 80th anniversary will be one of the last with a visible and active role for Auschwitz survivors. In their presence, we are obliged to present this fundamental undertaking to the world. That’s why preparations — both in terms of concept and fundraising — are already underway for the creation of an exhibition of camp art. This could be a very interesting tool for showing the power of dehumanization, but also the various human emotions in the camp. Many of the drawings show this in a particularly telling way,” Cywiński said.

Wojciech Soczewica, the director of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Foundation, said that his organization “is embarking on perhaps the most important and ground-breaking project of preserving the uniquely fragile heritage of victims and survivors, expressed in the universal language of art, that is, accessible to all, regardless of language or cultural barriers.”

The Foundation is an NGO established in 2009 by the late Prof. Władysław Bartoszewski, an Auschwitz survivor. His vision was to protect from oblivion all the authentic remains of Auschwitz: the personal belongings of victims and survivors, as well as the full post-camp infrastructure. Its goal is precisely to find money for the renovation of the grounds, buildings and ruins of the camp. And also for the preservation and safe storage of archives and items belonging to prisoners. A steady flow of money has made it possible, for the first time in the museum’s history, to realistically plan over a longer period of time for conservation work on the nearly 200-acre site, which contains 155 buildings and 300 ruins.

Restoring the camp kitchen

The exhibition is to be housed in concentration camp’s former kitchen, which will become the heart of the Auschwitz emotion story. The kitchen largest surviving structure inside the barbed wire-fenced grounds. The building — located near the gate with the infamous sign Arbeit Macht Frei (“Work Will Set You Free”) — is on every visitor’s route, among the camp blocks, before going to the gas chamber and crematorium.

“The building has remained empty to this day, and its location and space guarantee that works by former prisoners will enable visitors to look at the painful realities of the camp from a new perspective,” Soczewica said.

For the museum’s director, “the works of art constitute a unique collection that provides direct testimony of a people doomed to vegetate in the worst of circumstances. In a world increasingly saturated with visual culture, this collection is gaining importance. Along with the words of testimony of former prisoners and camp remains, these images are an essential element to fully understand the tragedy of humanity during the Holocaust.”

“In this sense, the camp art exhibition is a voice of former prisoners addressed to future generations.”

Once established, the exhibition will become a focal point for the approximately 2 million annual visitors to the memorial, who will gain insight into the camp’s existential conditions through it.

“This is especially important at a time when it is increasingly difficult to meet a survivor in person. In this sense, the camp art exhibition is a voice of former prisoners addressed to future generations. It is a documentation of Nazi terror, but also a story of hope and the strength of humanity, expressed through art in defiance of camp conditions that are incomprehensible today,” Soczewica says.

All works of art will undergo professional conservation, so they can be scanned and made available for viewing online. Creating digital copies of all the works will further secure these material testimonies and give viewers around the world the opportunity to learn more about them. It will also strengthen, as the originators want, the museum’s worldwide educational mission.

Survivors want to leave a mark

“The exhibition is conceived as a silent space, an intimate passage through human feelings and states of mind. The paintings will be a gateway to the exploration of these dimensions. Visitors to the Museum will thus gain a detailed understanding of the prisoners’ experiences,” Cywiński said.

“Art was an expression of man’s overwhelming need to leave a trace of himself. It expresses the prisoner’s hope that even if he dies, a drawing will be left behind to testify to his suffering,” the museum director added.

The works were created under conditions of extreme danger and are a moving document of those times. They represent the most basic human feelings and emotions. These are works created during the camp’s existence, as well as works by survivors created after liberation.

The artworks represent the most basic human feelings and emotions.

The works were created under conditions of extreme danger and are a moving document of those times. They represent the most basic human feelings and emotions. These are works created during the camp’s existence, as well as works by survivors created after liberation.

There are also works made under duress by inmate artists commissioned by the SS for the so-called Lagermuseum, which was a collection of items plundered by the Nazis from people deported to the camp. The Nazis demanded the creation of portraits, landscapes, genre scenes, greeting cards and handicraft works, which were later sent to their families in Nazi Germany.

The project’s development will involve several stages, beginning with the collection and preparation of full project documentation, including the preservation of the former camp kitchen building and the contents of the exhibition. Then work will begin on preparing an international design competition.

A reviewing team of experts will be appointed. It will consist of former Auschwitz prisoners, museum and foundation executives, historians and curators, members of the International Auschwitz Council, specialists in Holocaust research and art.

“We would like to see this exhibition created within five years. We estimate that it will take more than 20 million euros,” Cywiński said.