us-005578-irn41976-irn1179
physical characterisitics and technical requirements: Drawing in pencil with charcoal on soiled, torn paper adhered to white cardboard (12.375 x 6.250) of a woman from the knees up huddled against a wall. She holds a white oval shaped white bundle with a faintly outlined infant's face pressed to her chest with swollen interlocked fingers. She has dark, dishevelled hair, large, black, staring anguished eyes, a long nose, and small, downturned, closed lips. A shapeless black garment is draped over her head and body. The background is shaded black, and the texture of the cardboard is visible through the thin paper. The top corners and a bottom left section are missing and it has adhesive stains in the corners. back, pencil : 23. V
scope and content: Pencil drawing of a desperate woman with an infant in the Warsaw Ghetto created by Halina Olszewski (later Olomucki) in Warsaw just after the war. After Nazi Germany occupied Poland in September 1939, Halina, her mother Margarit-Hadassa, and siblings were interned in Warsaw Ghetto. Hannah did forced labor, but she felt her real job was to record the misery and suffering of ghetto residents. Halina smuggled drawings to a non-Jewish friend outside the ghetto. In May 1943, she and her mother were sent to Majdanek where her mother was killed on arrival. Halina was selected for labor. In July, she was transferred to Auschwitz-Birkenau. After she was put on an art detail, she hid pencil stubs and using any paper she could find, secretly drew pictures of camp life. Other prisoners asked her to draw them or their loved ones to preserve their memory and show the world what happened. She hid artwork in the camp, much of it recovered postwar. On January 18, 1945, Halina went by death march to Ravensbrück and Neustadt-Glewe, where she was liberated on May 2, 1945. She returned to Warsaw and found no surviving family members.
has or had subject: http://lod.ehri-project-test.eu/vocabularies/ehri-ghettos/1106
results or resulted from: http://lod.ehri-project-test.eu/units/us-005578-irn41976-irn1179/acquisitions/1
is or was included in: us-005578-irn41976
has or had subject: http://lod.ehri-project-test.eu/vocabularies/ehri-terms/904
has record set type: Item
has or had holder: us-005578
type: RecordSet
conditions of use: No restrictions on use
conditions of access: No restrictions on access
history: Halina Olszewski (later Olomucki/Olomucka) was born on November 24, 1919, in Warsaw, Poland, to Andrzej and Margarit-Hadassa Olszewski. She had an older brother, Moniek, born in 1909, and two sisters. Her parents ran a newspaper distribution service. Her father died in 1924. The family was Jewish but not observant. Halina attended a Yiddish speaking elementary school, then a public gymnasium. Poland was invaded by Nazi Germany on September 1, 1939. German troops entered Warsaw on September 29. Halina and her family were relocated to the ghetto. Jews had to wear armbands with Judenstern, valuables were confiscated, and forced labor was required. Halina had drawn constantly from an early age and she continued to do this in the ghetto. She felt an urgent need to record daily life, even though, as she recalled:"I was in the same condition as every other person all around me. I saw them close to death but I never thought of myself close to death.... My job was simply to write down, to draw what was happening" Halina depicted the misery and suffering of life in the ghetto, where nearly 100,000 people died within the first fifteen months from disease and starvation. She also recorded events such as selections, deportations from the Umschlagplatz, or holding place, near the railroad station, and the destruction of Dr. Janos Korczak’s orphanage. While doing forced labor outside the ghetto, Halina smuggled drawings out to a Polish friend in the Aryan section, dropping small packages of drawings as her brigade walked by. On some occasion, Halina also smuggled in food for her family In May 1943, after three days of waiting in the Umschlagplatz without food or water, Halina and her mother were put into a crowded train car and taken to Majdanek concentration camp. Her mother was sent to be killed upon arrival. Halina survived four selections done to separate those to be gassed from those to be used as laborers. One day, a guard came into the barracks and asked if there was anyone…
has or had identifier: http://lod.ehri-project-test.eu/units/us-005578-irn41976-irn1179/alternateIDs/1
title: Warsaw Ghetto in the bunker, 1945 Halina Olomucki drawing of an anquished women holding an infant
has beginning date: http://lod.ehri-project-test.eu/dates/1945-01-01
record resource extent: overall: Height: 8.500 inches (21.59 cm) | Width: 5.250 inches (13.335 cm)
history: The drawing was donated to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in 1989 by Halina Olomucki.
has end date: http://lod.ehri-project-test.eu/dates/1945-12-31
identifier: irn1179