Below you can read the English translations of the texts on panel 1 in the exhibition Women's Concentration Camp Experience. The texts below are arranged from top to bottom, and from left to right.
Inside and Outside the Blocks
Here we see examples of the substrates on which the artworks were made and how they were reinforced by backing with a second layer of paper.
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The artworks created in the concentration camps are small in size, usually only a dozen or so square centimetres. They were made on obtainable paper substrates: pieces of wrapping paper from food parcels, thin tissue paper that had to be glued with something to prevent it from tearing when drawing. Sometimes drawings were made on the back of stolen camp administration forms, margins or unprinted fragments of German newspapers. Then, too, the reverse of these works can provide us with historical concrete. On the back of the works we can see obituaries of SS soldiers, articles from the Third Reich press or the contents of concentration camp documentation. The invaluable historical value of the works made in the camps is not only due to the realistic depiction of a dramatic existence and dying. Every, even strictly physical aspect of these artefacts – the technique of execution, the material of the ground, the size – has documentary value and provides a separate account of the conditions of their creation.
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Maria Hiszpanska,
”Serving lunch in the barracks”,
pen, ink, paper,
1946
(Museum of lndependence Warsaw)
,,At the entrance the squeeze. The corridor is crowded. Loud cursing can be heard coming from the crowded restroom. In the dining room, the table woman rules the cauldron with a large spoon in her hand. Tired inmates flock to the table, where knitters are still late – 11 knitting11 [ … ] Where an inept inmate can’t keep order at the table – passionate quarrels begin, sometimes escalating into short, violent brawls. Throughout the dining room, the crowd swirls hopelessly from wall to wall. Bowls of hot, smoky soup balance dangerously in hands raised high above heads”.
Wanda Dobaczewska,
Womans in Ravensbrück
(Ravensbrück)
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Jadwiga SimonPietkiewicz,
”lnside Il”,
watercolour, paper,
1944
(Museum of lndependence Warsaw)
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Maria Hiszpanska-Neuman,
”Eating leftovers from the rubbish bin”,
pencil, paper,
1944
(Museum of lndependence Warsaw)
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Maria Hiszpanska-Neuman,
”Eating out leftovers”,
pencil, paper,
1944
(Museum of lndependence Warsaw)
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Maria Hiszpanska-Neuman,
”Lice hunting”,
pencil, paper,
1944
(Museum of lndependence Warsaw)