Prisoner photo from Auschwitz, Courtesy Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum in Oświęcim
JÓZEF SZAJNA
|
Prisoner photo from Auschwitz, Courtesy Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum in Oświęcim |
 Józef Szajna in 1998 |
Born March 13, 1922
in Rzeszów, Poland; today lives in Warsaw, Poland
Background
1939,
Szajna was drafted and assigned with other adolescents to guard bridges, railway
stations, and other military objectives against sabotage. Around this time, he joined a Polish underground
organization that later become known as the Military Fighting Union (Związek
Walki Zbrojnej) and for which he copied a factory's technical plans and
sketches.
Arrest and Deportation to Auschwitz
Threatened
with arrest for their underground work, Szajna and his friends in January 1940
fled to Hungary, were arrested at the border, handed over to Slovak border police,
and delivered to the Gestapo. Szajna was subsequently imprisoned in Muszyna,
Nowy Sącz, and Tarnów. After four-and-a-half
months in Tarnów, Szajna on July 25, 1941, was deported to Auschwitz, where
he was assigned prisoner number 18729.
Work Assignments at Auschwitz
Szajna was initially
assigned to work on construction detail (Baukommando) and in winter of 1941-42 was reassigned to the tailor
workshops (Nähkommando) and the transport
crew (Rollwagen 1). After the SS
caught him attempting to smuggle food and messages in November 1942, Szajna
was beaten and transferred to punishment detail, building the Königsgraben sanitation
ditch at barrack 1 at Birkenau. Early 1943 he was again assigned to the punishment
cells in barrack (Block) 11. February
1943, Szajna was sent to the infirmary and then reassigned as a cleaner in the
SS canteen, a work detail that the artist considered "fortunate" as
the duties it entailed enabled him to barter for food.
Escape Attempt
After an unsuccessful
escape attempt in summer of 1943, Szajna was incarcerated August 17-October
11, 1943, in the punishment "standing" cells of barrack (Block) 11
in Auschwitz
I and sentenced to death. The
execution order was shortly rescinded and Szajna was again assigned to work
in transport detail, sorting objects and clothing belonging to Jews killed at
Birkenau.
Transfer to Buchenwald
January
21, 1944, Szajna was transferred to Buchenwald
concentration camp, where he received prisoner number 41408 and was at first
assigned to labor in the stone quarries. Mid-1944,
he was transferred to the subcamp of Schönebeck near Magdeburg, where he produced
airplane parts at a Junkers factory.
Art Produced at Buchenwald
Szajna was again
sent to the infirmary during the Allied air raids. There, he began to produce portraits of fellow
prisoners and created, from memory, about 20 sketches of Auschwitz barrack 11,
four of which survived liberation and were later deposited in the Auschwitz-Birkenau
State Museum. Szajna also painted street
and barracks signs and produced at least one artwork on demand: a painting of
flower bouquets on the shades of an SS man's quarters.
Liberation and After
When on April 11,
1945 the SS "evacuated" about 600 prisoners from Buchenwald, Szajna
escaped with friends and on April 15 met up with units of the U.S. Army. After spending the next two years as a displaced
person at Haaren/Ems in the British zone, he returned to Poland in 1947, and
in November of that year was called as a witness in the Kraków trial of Auschwitz
and Birkenau guards.
1953,
Szajna graduated from the Kraków Academy of Fine Arts with a diploma in graphic
art and theater design and from 1955-66 served as designer and artistic director
of the People's Theater in Nowy Huta. At
the Venice Biennale of 1970, Szajna was honored with a one-man exhibition featuring
his installation Reminiscences, a
work commemorating Kraków artists killed at Auschwitz. 1971-81, he served as director of the Warsaw
art gallery and theater center "Studio," a post from which he resigned
in 1981 in protest against military rule in Poland.
Bibliography:
Archives and
art collection at the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum in Oświęcim.
Bodek,
Andrzej, ed. Reminiszenzen: ein Environment von Prof. Jósef Szajna: zum 50. Jahrestag
der Befreiung von Auschwitz-Birkenau. Frankfurt am Main, 1995.
Archives
and art collection at the Buchenwald Memorial Museum, Weimar.
Madeyski,
Jerzy and Andrzej Zurowski. Józef Szajna: plastyka, teatr. Warsaw,
1992.
Milton,
Sybil and Janet Blatter. Art of the Holocaust. New York, 1981.
Sybil
Milton interviews and conversations with Józef Szajna at Warsaw 1980 and 1995,
Auschwitz
1988, and Venice 1990.
Oleksy,
Krystyna, ed. Swiat Józefa Szajny. Oświęcim,
1995.
Józef
Szajna: Appell: Geschichtszeichen und Kunstwerk in der Dauerausstellung zur
Geschichte des Konzentrationslagers
Buchenwald. Weimar, 1995.
Szajna, Józef. "Replika - Erinnerungen: Künstleriche Protest-Aktion gegen den Terror," and "Gespräch zwischen Detlef Hoffmann und Józef Szajna," in Detlef Hoffmann and Karl Ermert, eds. Kunst und Holocaust: Loccumer Protokolle, No. 14 (1990), 74-99.