January 26th, 2010
Feature in the german daily "Neues Deutschland"

Black and one Reminder of Red
Unknown drawings from Auschwitz on show at the German Resistance Memorial Center

By Ingrid Heinisch

A drawing, made at Auschwitz-Birkenau Concentration Camp: a small boy with a sailor’s cap holds onto his father’s hand on the ramp of Birkenau camp. Behind them many people are crowded, and in the background SS guards are visible with their rifles. The scene obviously depicts the arrival of Jews at the ramp of Birkenau. SS men have driven the people onto the ramp and are aiming their weapons at them. The picture is so realistic that the observer can feel the people’s terror.

The person who made these and additional drawings is unknown. A former prisoner discovered them in a bottle at the one-time concentration camp. Is it the artist’s own story? Is the little boy his son, and is the face of the father a self-portrait? Judging by the next picture in the series, this could well be the case: the father and son are being torn apart by SS guards, and again it’s the little boy with the sailor’s cap. In vain, they reach out to each other.
There are 22 pictures in the series which the International Auschwitz Committee is showing for the very first time, in an exhibition at the German Resistance Memorial Center marking the 65th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. The exhibition is entitled »The memories live on…«. Nobody knows why these incredibly expressive and convincing pictures have never been shown to the public before. Maybe nobody at the Auschwitz Memorial realized what kind of a treasure had been preserved there.

The drawings by the unknown artist are just a part of the exhibition, though admittedly they’re the centrepiece. They are “part of a trialogue”, says Christoph Heubner, Vice President of the International Auschwitz Committee and curator of the exhibition. The drawings acted as the initiators of the trialogue which is accompanied by texts from survivors, whose associations fill the pictures with life. They extend the visual dimension by evoking additional sensual impressions, the smells, the sounds. Eva Szemesz, for instance, who arrived in Auschwitz as a young Hungarian Jew in 1944, describes the most intense memory of everyday life in Auschwitz as follows: “It’s the smell: a mixture of burning human flesh, fat, the stench of the corpses combined with a huge amount of chlorine, with the awful odour of unwashed bodies, and the latrines.«

The third part of the trialogue is contributed by young people: they express their reactions to these pictures, their horror, their emotions, emotions that they share with the former prisoners and maybe with the anonymous artist. They are trainees from VW Wolfsburg, because for twenty years now Volkswagen has been enabling its young trainees to stay at the Auschwitz International Youth Meeting Center together with young Polish people, four times a year. The young German and Polish people hear the message that the former prisoners pass on to them. Eva Szemes is decisive: »We have to protect the republic.« – »What a thought,« says Christoph Heubner, »what a formulation! Protect the republic, and for this we bear the responsibility.«

The exhibition is like a mosaic with many small pieces combining to form a complete picture. Sometimes there are parts that don’t seem to fit together. For instance at the opening, when the survivor Marian Turski relates to the title »The memories live on…« in an entirely unexpected way: he doesn’t refer to the suffering that the pictures portray. Instead, he says: »Most people have nothing but terrible memories of Auschwitz, but fortunately I have good memories as well«.

Marian Turski was a Jewish boy scout involved in the resistance struggle of the ghetto in Lodz. He arrived in Auschwitz together with nine friends. Then his glasses were destroyed, a catastrophe for someone so very short sighted. What should he do? Finding some glasses in the camp is not so difficult. There were thousands of pairs in the stores of ‘Canada’, the place where the belongings of the gassed Jews were hoarded and sorted. But they had their price: three days’ rations of bread. He could never have managed that, says Marian Turski. Going without his whole bread ration for three days would have meant certain death. His friends decided that each would go without one third of his bread ration. That’s how he managed to get his new glasses, and survived. And what do you call that? »Solidarity.«

Does this contradict the contents of the drawings? No, quite the opposite: these drawings would never have been preserved, had not another prisoner recognized their value and handed them over to the Auschwitz Memorial. It was Jozef Odi, who not only discovered these pictures but also helped to establish the Memorial in the post-war years. Until his death he lived in the grounds of the former concentration camp, as many other former prisoners did too. And for 35 years now his daughter has also been working at the Memorial.

Perhaps the most moving drawing in the exhibition is the one of a crematorium. Corpses lie in front of the building. In the foreground an SS officer smokes a cigarette. And in the background we see the only piece of colour in all of the drawings. They are all in black-and-white, except for this one. Here, there is a reminder of red as well – the red that pours out of the chimney of the crematorium. There’s not just smoke, but flames billowing out of the chimney. The temperature was so high in the furnaces.

The young people are horrified by the cynicism. A man enjoying a cigarette in front of the building where humans are being burned: how could someone casually stand by and watch? »When I stood with our group beneath these trees in front of the crematorium ruins, I was probably standing on human ashes. It was terrible. It didn’t matter where I placed my feet, there were ashes everywhere. This wood, this idyll , is a gigantic cemetery,« says one comment on the exhibition panels. During the exhibition opening one of the trainees spoke, Denise Weschpatat. She said that every young person should have the chance to visit the Auschwitz Memorial. Her visit had moved her more than anything in her life: »It’s important that we know something about this.«

The exhibition at the German Resistance Memorial Center, Stauffenbergstrasse 13-14, 10785 Berlin, is open from 10 am to 6 pm from Monday through Wednesday and on Fridays. Entrance is free.

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