MARIAN RUZAMSKI

Marian Ruzamski, Self-Portrait, 1943, Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum in Oświęcim

Born February 2, 1889 in Lipnik, Poland; died March 1945 in Bergen-Belsen

Background
Ruzamski studied art at the Jagellonian University in Kraków, the Kraków Academy of Fine Arts and in Paris.  During World War I, he spent four years in a prisoner of war camp near Kharkov.  Before his arrest under German occupation, he worked as an artist and teacher in the department of architecture at the Technical University in Lwów.

Arrest and Deportation to Auschwitz
April 7, 1943, he was arrested by the Gestapo in Tarnów and on May 23 remanded to Auschwitz, where he was assigned prisoner number 122843.

Art Produced at Auschwitz
Ruzamski produced numerous portraits, including a self-portrait and one of his close friend Xawery Dunikowski. He also assisted fellow prisoner and artist Józef Mrozek on his portrait sketches when both were working in the Baubüro (construction office).  A portfolio of Ruzamski's drawings were preserved by the son of one of his fellow prisoners, who sent them to a woman who, in turn, donated them to the Auschwitz Museum.

Deportation to Bergen-Belsen
Fall of 1944, Ruzamski was deported to Bergen-Belsen, where he died of starvation shortly before the liberation of the camp.  It is believed that he had brought with him approximately 100 clandestine portraits of Auschwitz prisoners.

Bibliography:
Archives and art collection at the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum in Oświęcim.

Goldmann, Sybille and Myrah Adams Rösing.  Kunst zum Überleben: Gezeichnet in

Auschwitz. Ulm, 1989.

Heubner, Christoph, Alwin Meyer, and Jürgen Pieplow, eds. Lebenszeichen: Gesehen in Auschwitz. Bornheim-Merten, 1979.

Milton, Sybil and Janet Blatter.  Art of the Holocaust. New York, 1981.

Stütz, Marina, ed.  Überleben und Widerstehen. Cologne, 1980.

Szymanska, Irena.  "Portret w obozie oświęcimskim," Przeglad lekarski no. 1 (1985), 93-104.