Below you can read the English translations of the texts on panel 5 in the exhibition Women's Concentration Camp Experience. The texts below are arranged from top to bottom, and from left to right.
Devastated Bodies
Jadwiga Simon-Pietkiewicz,
”Janina Piątek”,
pencil, paper,
1943
(Museum of lndependence Warsaw
______
Jadwiga Simon-Pietkiewicz,
”lrena Szydłowska”,
watercolour, paper,
1945
(Museum of lndependence Warsaw)
______
”Naked on the hospital bunks, almost all of them said: I’m going to finish myself off this time. They were naked on bare planks. They were dirty and the boards were stained with faeces and pus. They did not know that by saying their last words, they would put the survivors in a difficult situation and they would have to hand them over to the family. The family waited for the solemn words.”
Charlotte Delbo,
None of us will return
Series of drawings by Jadwiga Simon-Pietkiewicz,
pencil, paper,
1944,
(Malmö Museum)
______
Jadwiga Simon-Pietkiewicz,
”Muslim”,
watercolour, pencil, paper,
1944
(Museum of lndependence Warsaw)
______
”There is not a single round shoulder, no feminine arms in this crowd of women, no roundness, nota single soft outline; angular ruddy bones, bald heads on skinny thin sticks. One longer, the other shorter; each head on a stick. Where is the grace of the necks? Where the graceful outline of the chin? Heads on sticks and two outstretched sticks of hands. Pointed elbows, excess skin on the elbows [ … ]. When the flesh collapses, when the outline of the body disappears, what is left is the bone itself draped in dry, wrinkled skin; the ball of the clavicle sticks out of the sternum board, and the sternum sticks forward like a board. Flat or convex forward or ridiculously sunken at the bortom, with such a hollow. A trail of breasts along the way. There are sad folds of skin hanging along this sternal plank, or little nipple buttons marking themselves. A woman’s breasts … There are none, the women of Ravensbruck,
Auschwitz have no breasts. Are they women at all?”
Wanda Półtawska,
Old accaunts
(Ravensbruck)
Series of drawings by Jadwiga Simon-Pietkiewicz,
pencil, paper,
1944
(Malmö Museum)
______
,,[ … ] The toilets were something of the worst in the camp. The most despicable place, the most humiliating place, where we were treated worse than animals, which is what the Germans themselves wanted. There are no words to describe what happened here. You had to use the toilets. It was impossible not to go there. The soup we were given was water and each of us had the need to go to the latrines. This was the place where I felt the greatest humiliation and indignity. We had to settle very quickly every time. lf an inmate needed to be a little longer, then she was at risk of being beaten. The block leader would shout, beat and rush her; outside there was already another group of women waiting in line. It was like this every morning before leaving for work and everything had to be done in a huge rush to join the columns leaving for work. Everything was so i led with faeces. It was impossible to sit down. We were just squatting down. Plus the screams of beaten women who were not settling quickly. It was hell.”
Liliane Esrail-Badour,
Memoire Damain (Auchwitz-Birkenau),
translation A. Stanczyk
Series of drawings by Jadwiga Simon-Pietkiewicz,
blyerts, papper,
1944
(Malmö Museum
______
Liliane Esrail-Badour,
Memoire Domain (Auchwitz-Birkenau),
transl. A. Stanczyk
Series of drawings by JadwigaSimon-Pietkiewicz,
pencil, paper,
1944
(Malmö Museum)