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A SKETCHBOOK FROM AUSCHWITZ. WORKS BY AN UNKNOWN AUTHOR

ART AT AUSCHWITZ

A SKETCHBOOK FROM AUSCHWITZ. WORKS BY AN UNKNOWN AUTHOR

A unique work in the collection of the Museum is a collection of drawings by an unknown author, probably a Jew with the initials MM, known also as The Sketchbook from Auschwitz. This is the only piece of art portraying the mass killing of the Jews deported to Auschwitz and the extermination of the ailing and exhausted inmates.

The sketchbook was discovered in 1947 on the premises of former Auschwitz II-Birkenau (sector BIIf). The drawings were placed in a bottle hidden in the foundations of a barracks building situated close to crematoria IV and V. The locations and scenes presented in the drawings could be identified, as they contained many details.

The only iconographic sources known so far to date back to the time of the camp’s operation and concerning directly the mass murder process are photographs from the album of Lilli Jacob-Meier and photographs of the Sonderkommando taken from a hideout in 1944. Thus, the sketchbook is the third precious source illustrating the events from that time.

It is an interesting fact to note that the author denoted the pages presenting the mass killing with capital first letters of the alphabet from A to D. The sketchbook contains two such series, with the first marked with the letters from A to D and the second—from A to C; each covering three pages of the sketchbook. One opens with a scene presenting the so-called Block of Death in the men’s camp and ends with a drawing of a crematorium belching out smoke. The other opens with the arrival of the transport at the so-called Judenrampe [German for the Jewish ramp] and ends with the people being led towards Birkenau.

These scenes intertwine with other drawings portraying Auschwitz as a concentration camp. The two functions of the camp: of an extermination and a concentration camp are shown simultaneously in the sketchbook, as it happened in real life, nonetheless, the author specially emphasised the subject of the extermination of the Jews. Thus, he is proving his awareness of the gravity of the unprecedented events that he witnessed.

A primitive pencil drawing. Genre scene. Birkenau. Two barracks - one of them has the inscription:

Source: A-BSM Collection

A page from The Sketchbook from Auschwitz. Page 6 of the sketchbook shows blocks Nos. 7 and 8; the blocks of the camp hospital in section BIb. The courtyard between them was enclosed with a wall. The only way inside was through a guarded gate. Block No. 8 was used for sick inmates who seemed likely to return to health. Despite its official name, Block No. 7 had nothing to do with hospital functions. The inmates brought there were extremely exhausted through hunger and work and earmarked for killing. The inmates who could not be accommodated inside lay in the yard. Selections took place twice a week. Usually in the morning, after the work details had marched to work, lorries arrived, and the inmates selected for death were loaded into them. In the drawing, we see a scene of “selection for the gas”. Blocks Nos. 7 and 8 together with a fragment of a wall depicted in the drawing have remained to this day. The precision of the depiction of the place is striking: chimneys on the roof, roof windows with blinds, the poles of the electric distribution network, and the license plate of the lorry.

Two primitive pencil drawings. Genre scene. Birkenau. The drawing on the left shows a fragment of a truck - emaciated prisoners are lying, sitting or standing on the crate. They are guarded by two SS men with rifles. In the background, on the left, a fragment of the camp fence, a guard tower, and tall trees in the distance. On the right, a drawing from Birkenau. A crowd of women and men in civilian clothes with Stars of David sewn on. They are led by two SS men - one at the front, the other at t

Source: A-BSM Collection

A page from The Sketchbook from Auschwitz. The selected inmates were transported in lorries to the gas chambers. The artist clearly marked the license plate of the vehicle in his drawing and the symbol Au on its tailboard. The inmates are only wearing white shirts, an evidence that they were “patients” of the camp hospital. Entering the hospital, a patient had to give away everything he had: clothing, shoes, and all the belongings he has managed to collect. In most cases, inmates realised where they were heading for. Especially that the bodies of the dead were often transported together with them. Their camp colleagues witnessed these events, and the descriptions of the cars moving towards the gas chambers can be found in their post-war testimonies.

Primitive pencil drawing. Genre scene. Freight train on the left. SS men standing in the doorway, pointing at something with their hands. A group of people on the right, on the ground nearby. They got off the train. There are women with children and elegantly dressed men among them. SS man is standing on the right, guarding them. In the background, the horizon, clouds, flying birds.

Source: A-BSM Collection

A page from The Sketchbook from Auschwitz. The sketchbook shows pictures from the so-called Judenrampe [Jewish Ramp], where transports, mostly of Jews destined to be murdered, arrived from the spring of 1942 to May 1944. The people in the foreground: a boy in a sailor suit, a young man in a hat, and an elderly man with a moustache are the same we see in the scene of selection (in the following drawing).

Primitive pencil drawing. Genre scene. SS men separating families: SS man is holding a boy in a sailor's suit. A man in a hat with a coat hanging over his hand is stretching out his hands to him. The boy is breaking away from the SS man and wants to return to his father. On the left, another SS man holding an elderly man's hand. In the background, a group of people walking towards the Gate of Death in Birkenau. The gate is unfinished - it only has the left part. Barbed wires nearby. On the left,

Source: A-BSM Collection

A page from The Sketchbook from Auschwitz. In the background of the drawing presenting the selection, portrayed on page 14 of the sketchbook, we see the sick, the elderly, and the little children on the left-hand side taken to the lorries, and on the right—the people considered fit to work chased on foot towards the camp. In the background, the Gate of Death has only one wing, which lets us place the event on the timeline, as we know the dates of construction of the other wing of the main gate to Birkenau camp.

Primitive pencil drawing. Genre scene. After the transport of deported people arrives, the prisoners are carrying their luggage to the camp. SS man is guarding them. In the distance, SS men escorting a group of people towards the Birkenau camp. Most likely they will all die in the gas chamber. Birds are sitting on wires just above the train.

Source: A-BSM Collection

A page from The Sketchbook from Auschwitz. The transports were taken to the gas chambers straight from the ramp accompanied by an SS guard escort ready to use their arms in case of any resistance from those taken to their deaths. The people had to leave most of their belongings at the ramp. In the drawing, however, we can see a man carrying a suitcase. So as not to raise suspicions and unnecessary ensuing panic, in some cases victims were allowed to retain personal belongings, taken away from them before entering the gas chamber. The location and construction of the building towards which the column of people is being taken to suggests the crematorium IV or V.