News

International Conference on Forbidden Art

26-10-2011

The making of illegal art by prisoners in German Nazi concentration camps was the subject of an international conference titled Forbidden Art at the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum.

The goal of the two-day meeting of people whose jobs involve the protection of art collections at memorial sites was above all to make knowledge of extant works of camp art more systematic. “The classic methods of art history could obscure the main aim of our investigations in this place. This aim is an empathic and informed approach to the story of the suffering camp prisoner. Our aim, when we examine the beauty that arose behind the barbed wire is a profound anthropological reflection on the essence of humanity in the face of this worst of trials,” said Auschwitz Museum Director Dr. Piotr M.A. Cywiński.

Collections located at memorial sites on the grounds of the former concentration camps Auschwitz, Majdanek, Gross-Rosen, Buchenwald, Ravensbrück and Mauthausen as well as the grounds of the former ghetto in Terezin and in the collections of the Central Museum of Prisoners of War in Łambinowice-Opole, the Holocaust Museum in Washington, and the Museum of Ghetto Fighters in Israel were presented at the conference.

“I think that it is important for historians, archivists, and curators form various international institutions to meet and discuss such subjects as art at the time of the Holocaust. Thanks to this we can compare our collections, which is important because various institutions are in possession of material from other places. That is why it is important for us to share our knowledge on this subject,” said Kyra Schuster from the Holocaust Museum in Washington.

During the presentations during the conference there was discussion of the number and themes of the extant works, as well as consideration of issues connected with the preservation, conservation, study, and accessibility of both artistic and historic objects.

Agnieszka Sieradzka, an art historian from the Museum Collections Department, said during a lecture presenting the art collections of the Auschwitz Memorial that “it is surely not possible to re-create a full, complete image of camp art. In the case of this art it is rather a matter of recreating the fragmentary and particular nature of each of these works. And if we succeed today in reconstructing even a fragment of this art, created at the risk of death and today constituting testimony, a document, and a personal profession, that will be a great success for us.”

Guests at the conference also had an occasion to see the conservation workshop and storage areas that house the collections of the Auschwitz Memorial. The conference was accompanied by an exhibition titled Forbidden Art, which can be seen on the grounds of the Auschwitz Memorial until October 31, 2011. Presented there are photographs of selected examples of illegal art from the Museum collections, accompanied by a historical commentary and accounts by former prisoners.