Objects

A drawing of the Auschwitz camp fence with visible smoke from the crematorium, made with a black pen on semi-transparent paper. This illustration functions in the book "Ręka umarłej" in the context of Broniewski's poem "Opowiadania oświęcimskie" (Auschwitz Stories) (beginning: "I read Maria's book, | weeping and howling. | This is how only the dead write, while still alive"). In the composition of the illustrations, Olga Siemaszkowa refers to Zbigniew Rychlicki's drawing from the cover of the first edition of the book "Opowiadania oświęcimskie" by Zarębińska-Broniewska from 1948. In that work, three poles with barbed wires are depicted – but facing left – and, as in Siemaszko's work, on the right there is an element resembling smoke.

Siemaszkowa's drawing was originally stiffened with a cardboard backing and glued to a single-page passe-partout, with the illustrator's inscription in pencil at the bottom right: "str. 19” (p.19) (and on this page it was printed in the book).

Przemysław Kaniecki