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The Armband Vendor Arrives at the Museum
The Polish National Bank has presented the Museum with 20,000 zloty for the purchase of one hundred paintings and prints by former Auschwitz Concentration Camp prisoner Halina Ołomucka.
At the age of eighteen, Halina Ołomucka was confined to the Warsaw ghetto, along with her mother, sisters, and brother. Her mother saw to it that Halina, who had been painting since childhood, was supplied with chalk and paper. Depicting images from her carefree childhood was a respite from the nightmare of the ghetto.
Halina's father died there. After the defeat of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising in May 1943, Halina, her mother, brother, and two sisters, were forced to go to Umschlagplatz, from where thousands of Jews were deported to the death camps. "You are too young and beautiful to die," said her mother, who was killed in the Majdanek gas chambers by the Germans immediately after arriving at that camp. Halina was sent to Auschwitz, where number 48652 was tattooed on her left forearm. Halina returned to Warsaw after being liberated in Germany in May 1945. Her home and everyone she knew had vanished.
Halina Ołomucka studied painting at the Higher School of Art. in Łódź from 1945 to 1950. Many of her works can be seen at the Holocaust Museum in Washington, the Yad Vashem Memorial Institute in Jerusalem, Les Invalides in Paris, and the German Holocaust Museum in Berlin. Since 1972, the artist has lived in Ashkelon, Israel.
The painting shown here will soon arrive at the Museum thanks to a donation from André and Lise Hurstel of France. Several other persons have made symbolic donations during a fundraising drive to purchase works by Halina Ołomucka. Now, support from the Polish National Bank makes it possible to acquire the remaining works.
