After years of related work and many more trips, Jacobs, and his son Jesse, returned to the camps in 1996 to find and photograph the identical scenes depicted in the art. Krysia Jacobs then devised a way to present them as you see here. They are the result of work over a 24 year period.
This exhibit contrasts contemporary photographs of these two camps, with images of what they were like 1940-45 as remembered by artist-survivors. Much of the art was created soon after their liberation. Their art is the only visual record of day-to-day existence in Auschwitz/Birkenau.
Inside a Barrack in Auschwitz II, Birkenau
Reproduction courtesy of Auschwitz Museum Archive, 1980
Photo: Alan Jacobs
Wooden barracks in Auschwitz II- Birkenau, BIIA. These barracks were actually prefabricated horse stables originally made for use on the eastern Front, against the Soviet Union. Even the rings for tying horses were in place along the sides. The wooden bunks, or “hutches” as they are sometimes called, contained as many as six prisoners on each shelf. Originally intended to house 250 prisoners, these barracks sometimes contained as many as a thousand.
A Street in the Women’s Camp
Reproduction courtesy of Auschwitz Museum Archive, 1980
Women in the cold, in the women’s camp at Auschwitz II-Birkenau, B1A, probably just before the Appel, or Roll Call. The only well-fed woman in the scene is at lower left with the armband CAPO. Capos were prisoners themselves and work supervisors or foreman. They held the power of life and death over their charges. Many of them were very brutal, even beating inmates to death. Some others helped the prisoners where they could, though this was difficult and perilous.
Interrogation in Block 11
Reproduction courtesy of Auschwitz Museum Archive, 1980
This scene depicts the basement of the infamous Block 11 in Auschwitz I, the first Auschwitz camp and administrative center. If Auschwitz was the end of the line either for gassing or for forced labor, Block 11 was the end of the line at the end of the line. After a person found oneself in a concentration, labor and extermination camp, it was possible to be incarcerated in the camp prison, Block 11. Here standup cells were employed, as well as suffocation and internment cells. In a standup cell, as many as three prisoners were made to crawl in through a small door on the floor, and then stand in a very small space making it impossible to sit. Food rations were scarce and sanitary conditions were beyond filthy. One can imagine various scenarios, possibly an interrogation. Exact description of this particular scene is unavailable. On July 31, 1941, in reprisal for one prisoner’s escape, ten men were chosen to die. Father Kolbe offered himself in place of a young husband and father and was sent to the basement of Block 11. He was the last of the 10 to die, having been shot after enduring two weeks of starvation, thirst, and neglect in an isolation cell. Pope John Paul II canonized him in 1981.
A Group of New Arrivals
Reproduction courtesy of Auschwitz Museum Archive, 1980
Arrival into the Auschwitz camp. Just behind the prisoner’s backs and to their left is the guard tower at the main entrance to the camp. Barely discernable are the words at the entrance gate: Arbiet Macht Frei: Work Makes Free. This cynical slogan was posted at the entrance of many of the camps. If the gas chamber, or shooting wall didn’t kill one, the labor was very likely to do so. From the moment of entry, there was a calculated process of dehumanization; the surest way to control prisoners. People in this state do not rebel. It also was a way to reinforce the Nazi belief that these prisoners were inferior human beings, or, in the case of the Jews and Gypsies, not human at all, but vermin. Here we see SS guards and officers, armed with pistols and clubs screaming at the new arrivals, or standing aside in attitudes of power and superiority.
To The Gas
Reproduction courtesy of Auschwitz Museum Archive, 1980
The entrance to the Krankenbau, or camp hospital, courtyard. We see prisoners who have come to the hospital seeking, if nothing else, a brief respite from the killing work. Those too ill to work were killed by phenol injection to the heart, or sent to the gas. Here prisoners are whipped onto a truck for transport to the gas chamber.
Going to Sleep in the Night
Reproduction courtesy of Auschwitz Museum Archive, 1980
Scene shows prisoner official in charge of the block, a Blockeltester, kicking and beating prisoners into bed, if one can call it that. They had endured another day of slave labor with insufficient food rations. This scene is in the original Auschwitz camp, (Auschwitz I). The exact location is there today, the entire camp halving been turned into huge museum, research archive and memorial.
Panorama of the Camp at Birkenau [ Auschwitz II ]
Reproduction courtesy of Auschwitz Museum Archive, 1980
Left: Women prisoners on the left are being marched to work from their barracks on the left in the women’s camp, either BIa, or b.
Center: Unloading of prisoners ringed by armed SS guards, and selection for either slave labor or, more probably the gas.
Rear: In the background, 3/4 km. from the front, are the smokestacks of Krematoria II, and III where men, women and children were gassed, their bodies burned, and their ashes dumped into huge pits, or in the river Sola. These were the largest Krematoria in the entire Nazi system. Originally built to exterminate the Jewish people, many “Gypsies” (more accurately named Sinti and Roma) were also murdered here.
Right: On the right are the men’s camps: BII-a, b, c, d, e, f, g. Each of these barracks has about 1,000 people crammed into impossible living conditions. At the peak in 1944, about 100,000 people were imprisoned here, almost all of them merely because of their different culture, ethnicity, and religion. In the right foreground a men’s Kommando, or work unit, watched by armed SS, are carrying poles into the camp. In the extreme foreground is a prisoner foremen, or Kapo, who had the power of life and death over his charges.
The Roller
Reproduction courtesy of Auschwitz Museum Archive, 1980
Photo: Alan Jacobs
The concrete roller was used to compact the dirt street in Auschwitz I. Human beings were used like draft animals. The fat Kapo illustrates the contrast in prisoner hierarchy created by the SS; “prominenti” with more than enough to eat, ordinary prisoners starved. Most of the early prisoner functionaries, Kapos and Blockeltesta (Work foremen and Block leaders) were criminals from German prisons; the worst types the SS could find. As the camp grew others were chosen to fill these roles. Some of them were decent human beings who did what they could for their charges, occasionally beating someone when the SS were watching. It was difficult to balance one’s actions in this moral schism.
The Arrival of the Soviet POW’s
Reproduction courtesy of Auschwitz Museum Archive, 1980
Photo: Alan Jacobs
Arrival of POW’S. They were starved almost to the breaking point and in some instances started eating each other. Here, prisoners in stripes help the near-dead soldiers off the carts at the entrance to the camp. The smoke stacks of the camp kitchen are only yards away. The saying above the front gate is Arbiet Macht Frei (Works Makes Freedom), the cynical joke adorning the entrance to many camps in Poland and Germany. The Nazis treated the Soviet POW’S more horribly than troops of any other nationality, Hitler having deemed the war a racial struggle for survival over the Slavs and Communism. Often POW’s would be surrounded by barbed wire and left to their own resources with no food, water or housing.
Selection at Appel [Roll call]
Reproduction courtesy of Auschwitz Museum Archive, 1980
Capo selecting some prisoners for possibly as work detail, or perhaps punishment. Every morning and evening the roll call was required, as all prisoners, living and dead had to be counted. The Appel was often a time of great suffering as prisoners were left standing at attention usually in the evening when someone had escaped, both in the heat of summer and bitter winter.
Introduction into Block 11
Reproduction courtesy of Auschwitz Museum Archive, 1980
This is the main entrance to Block 11, the prison inside the Auschwitz I. This notorious building was used for summary court marshals (shown in next frame); really just mock trials instituted to create an impression of legality. The basement of this block, shown here in an earlier painting by the same artist , contained the Stehbunker, or standup cells, where people were forced to crawl into a small door at the floor and then stand in an impossibly small space for one man, let alone the three of four that were sometimes in them.
Summary Court Marshal
Reproduction courtesy of Auschwitz Museum Archive, 1980
Room in Block 11, the prison within the camp, was used to hear cases against prisoners. The man with his chair turned toward us and is arm over it, is SS second lieutenant Maximilian Grabner, Director of the Political Department (camp Gestapo), and Criminal Clerk. Others are not known. He was responsible for the deaths of many thousands of people and was convicted of war crimes in Krakow in 1947 and executed.
Toilets
Reproduction courtesy of Auschwitz Museum Archive, 1980
There was no privacy, very little water for washing and little or no opportunity for personal cleanliness in Auschwitz. Prisoners were often afflicted starvation syndrome, typhus, and other diarrhea-producing illnesses. The toilets in each barrack were totally inadequate and prisoners were often beaten while using them. The toilets depicted here were a luxury, having running water. In Birkenau latrines were cleaned by hand, another strategy of dehumanization.
The Washroom at Birkenau (Auschwitz II)
The wash troughs in this barrack, resembling those used to water horses or cattle, serviced several large barracks. In BIIa they sufficed for 7,000. There was certainly not enough time for more than perhaps 500-1,000 to wash in the morning, and no more in the evening. There was no soap or hot water. Disease was rampant: spotted fever, typhus, and starvation-diarrhea. Infectious diseases caused by lowered immune resilience, were common and often epidemic.
Digging Foundations for Block 15
Reproduction courtesy of Auschwitz Museum Archive, 1980
Auschwitz was built by prisoner slave labor. Barely seen behind the SS officers at the extreme top left, are the chimneys of the camp kitchen. The large building between the two trees is the camp administration headquarters. The camp was 1,000m wide and 400m long, and was to contain 33 blocks for housing prisoners. In 1941 using prisoner labor and building material gathered from demolished house nearby, the prisoners under the harshest conditions constructed eight two-story buildings. As one can see the work was brutal.
“Marching Out to Work”
Reproduction courtesy of Auschwitz Museum Archive, 1980
This is the main street running down the center of the Birkenau, the largest slave labor and killing center. To the left is the woman’s camp. Many of the barracks were dismantled just after the war. The brick one-story barracks still remain. Prisoners marched to work, five abreast here. This street is just to the left of the unloading ramp, where close to a million people were unloaded from trains and sent along this street to slave labor or more probably the gas.
Marching through the Gate
Drawing: Mieczyslaw Koscielniak
Reproduction courtesy of Auschwitz Museum Archive, 1980
The gate at BIb where women prisoners were marched from their barracks to and from slave-labor. This is another drawing in a series by former prisoner and survivor, artist Mieczyslaw Koscielniak, entitled “A Day in the Life of a Woman Prisoner”. Not far from here there was another gate to the main street. Near it the women’s orchestra played classical music as prisoners marched by. Many of the musicians were members of symphony orchestars from all over Europe.
Article source here.
0 comments:
Post a Comment