us-005578-irn41976-irn1187
type: RecordSet
physical characterisitics and technical requirements: Sketch in ink on paper of several ill and emaciated women crowded into small, wooden bunks. On top are 4 hunched figures with anguished expressions and yellow limbs, wearing headscarves and loose, blue striped dresses. Two skeletal figures lie on the bunk below, facing outward with their heads on their hands and knees pulled to their stomachs. Although the figures are indistinct and somewhat abstract, the composition expresses a strong feeling of misery and despair. There is a red, black, and blue swirled border and the drawing is covered with scratches. It is signed and dated. The paper has torn edges and is adhered to glassine and black paper. on backing, center, blue and green crayon : 3. / 3
conditions of access: No restrictions on access
conditions of use: Restrictions on use. Copyright status unknown.
has beginning date: 1945-01-01
has end date: 1945-12-31
has or had holder: us-005578
has or had identifier: 1
has or had subject: 1106
has or had subject: 904
has record set type: Item
history: The drawing was acquired by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in 1989.
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…
identifier: irn1187
is or was included in: us-005578-irn41976
record resource extent: overall: Height: 15.875 inches (40.323 cm) | Width: 13.625 inches (34.608 cm) pictorial area: Height: 10.000 inches (25.4 cm) | Width: 8.000 inches (20.32 cm)
results or resulted from: 1
scope and content: Colored drawing of a bunk crowded with ill and despairing women created by Halina Olszewski (later Olomucki) in Warsaw in 1945, just after the war. It is based upon her experiences as an inmate of the notorious Block 10 in Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp from July 1943 to January 1945. Nazi Germany occupied Poland in September 1939, and, in fall 1940, Halina, her mother Margarit-Hadassa, and siblings were relocated to the ghetto. Halina did forced labor, but she felt her real job was to record the misery and suffering of ghetto residents. Halina smuggled many drawings to a non-Jewish friend outside the ghetto. In May 1943, she and her mother were deported to Majdanek where her mother was killed on arrival. In July, Halina was sent to Auschwitz-Birkenau, where she continued to create art in secret. 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 was sent by death march to Ravensbrück and Neustadt-Glewe, where she was liberated on May 2, 1945. She returned to Warsaw but found no surviving family members.
title: The camp of litters in the block, Germany 1945 Halina Olomucki drawing of emaciated women prisoners crowded in a barrack