ANTONI SUCHANEK

Born April 27, 1901 in Rzeszów, Poland; died September 22, 1982 in Gdynia, Poland

Background
Suchanek studied at the Kraków Academy of Fine Arts 1917-23 and was director of the graphic art department of the Polish Library in Bydgoszcz.  He painted many marine landscapes and exhibited works at the Society for the Promotion of Fine Arts in Warsaw.  1937-39, he managed the Zachety gallery of the Warsaw Fine Arts Society.  During World War II, Suchanek rescued some of the gallery's considerable art collection that included Jan Matejko's famous painting Battle of Grunwald, hiding the works in the Warsaw National Museum.

Arrest and Deportation to Auschwitz
June 5, 1943, he was arrested in Warsaw during his daughter's wedding.  His daughter, Teofilia, was sent to Auschwitz, his son-in-law, Mieczysław Uniejewski vel Ludwik Raczynski, was shot, and the entire wedding party of 89 people, many of whom belonged to the Polish Home Army, was sent to Pawiak prison.  At Pawiak, while waiting to be shot, Suchanek wrote: "Day after day, I observe through a crack in my cell those going to be 'worked out,' my ears are becoming numb from screams and moans...I sit, draw, because they allowed me to do so, and wait patiently, when finally I will also stand under this historical tree, black gate, on a sunny day."  Throughout his stay at Pawiak, Suchanek painted and drew, producing about 100 pencil portraits of fellow prisoners on pages of a notebook.  One day, German guards burst into his cell, searched its contents, and seized all the artist's sketches.

August 25, 1943, Suchanek was remanded to Auschwitz, where he was assigned prisoner number 139388.

Work Assignments at Auschwitz
He was initially taken to barrack 11, the "Block of death," and then transferred to the camp museum, where he painted landscapes in watercolors.  When he was starving, fellow prisoner and artist Wiktor Tolkin gave him food.  None of the artworks Suchanek produced at Auschwitz survived the war.

Release from Auschwitz and After
Suchanek was released from Auschwitz in fall of 1943, and then returned to Warsaw, where he hid in the house of the artist Kazimierz Borzym.  He painted obsessively about Auschwitz themes, creating a body of works that burned during the Warsaw uprising in 1944.  After the uprising, Suchanek went to Kraków.  There, he drew views of the city, which he sold to survive.  Following the war, Suchanek worked as a portrait and landscape painter.  He also published the folio Warsaw in Ruins, illustrated with his lithographs, that was later given to the Museum of the City of Warsaw.  1946 Suchanek settled in Gdynia, participating in that city’s postwar artistic renaissance.

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

Jaworska, Janina.  Nie wszystek umrę... Warsaw, 1975.

Archives of the Pawiak Prison Museum in Warsaw.