The drawing was donated to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in 2011 by Lorraine DeMaio, the daughter of John Bole.
Ivan (Johann) Bolé was born on February 9, 1916, in Prague, Czechoslovakia, to Catholic parents, Ivan and Danica Strekelj Bole. The family moved to Laibach, Yugoslavia (Ljubljana, Slovenia). Danica died on November 14, 1929, in Laibach. Ivan completed five years of university education. He received his diploma from the University of Ljubljana, Faculty of Law, in January 1941 and became an attorney. He spoke Czech, Slovenian, German, Italian, French, and Serbo-Croatian. On April 6, 1941, the Axis powers, Germany, Italy, Hungary, and Bulgaria, invaded and divided Yugoslavia. Laibach was in the area occupied and annexed by Italy. Ivan went to Venice with the Slovenian Red Cross. On September 19, 1944, he was caught attempting to smuggle a radio transmitter across the border and was arrested by the German SS security force in Trieste. Ivan was sent to Buchenwald concentration camp, arriving on November 19. He was designated a political prisoner, assigned prisoner number 67186, and housed in Block 17. He was assigned to work commando A6 in Wanz-leben am See. Buchenwald was liberated on April 11, 1945, by American forces. The war ended when Germany surrendered on May 7. In June 1945, Ivan was repatriated from Mittenwald displaced person camp to a dp camp in Rome, Italy. In 1946, he was employed by the Allied Military Government as a school director in the Gorizia region of Italy, near the Slovenian border. In fall 1948, Ivan was living in Bagnoli dp camp near Naples, run by the IRO [International Refugee Organization.] On January 16, 1950, Ivan left for the United States, sailing from Bremerhaven, Germany, on the General JH McRae, arriving in New York on January 26. He became a naturalized American citizen in 1955 and changed his name to John. He went on to have a successful career in international banking. He married Martina, nee Kosuchowski, on May 4, 1957, and they had a son, Michael, and a daughter, Lorraine. John, age 61, died in January 1978 in New York.
Realistic portrait in black ink on light brown paper depicting a man seated on a stool in front of a wooden bunk bed in a barrack with his legs stretched out in front of him. He is barechested, with short, cropped hair, and wears baggy pants patched on the knee. He is looking down and mending a jacket held in his lap. His face is shaded and he is outlined with thick lines. The bunkbeds, 2 beds high, have blankets and the wall behind them is shaded, and may have a doorway. The artist’s signature and date are at the top left. On the back are sketches of men, 3 in pencil and 8 in ink. One ink sketch depicts the man on the front side. There are sketches of a foot, an ear, a nose, and text in the lower right corner. The paper is stained and discolored. back, lower right, cursive, graphite : Dr Coen
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overall: Height: 10.625 inches (26.988 cm) | Width: 7.750 inches (19.685 cm)
Double sided portrait of a prisoner given to 29 year old Ivan (Johann) Bole in Buchenwald concentration camp, where Ivan was held as a Yugoslavian political prisoner from November 1944 to April 1945. The artist was probably another inmate and it is signed N. Pinat, but nothing is known about him. It depicts a shirtless man with short hair fixing his shirt, sitting near bunk beds. The back has sketches of several faces. Ivan, a Catholic, was a lawyer in Laibach, Yugoslavia (Ljubljana, Slovenia) when the Axis powers, led by Nazi Germany, invaded in April 1941. Laibach was annexed by Italy. Ivan went to Venice with the Slovenian Red Cross. In September 1944, he was arrested by the German SS for smuggling a radio transmitter into Trieste. In November, Ivan was sent to Buchenwald in Germany and assigned prisoner number 67186. He was assigned to work commando A6 in Wanz-leben am See. The camp was liberated on April 11, 1945, by US troops. Germany surrendered on May 7. Ivan lived as a displaced person in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany, and emigrated to America in 1950.
2 sided ink drawing of a shirtless male inmate given to a Yugoslavian political prisoner