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Marek Oberländer – life despite the Holocaust

Marek Oberländer (1922–1978) was a painter. In 1955, he co-created the ground breaking Polish Exhibition of Young Art: Against War – against Fascism (Ogólnopolska Wystawa Młodej Plastyki “Przeciw wojnie – przeciw faszyzmowi") in the Warsaw Arsenal. When, in 1946, due to repatriation, war prisoners from gulags, exiles, soldiers and former citizens of The Second Polish Republic headed back home, also Oberländer set off for Poland. On 28 August 1946 he registered with the Central Committee of Polish Jews (Polish: Centralny Komitet Żydów Polskich; CKŻP) in Warsaw (Id. Number 7655, O37, O80; in the archives of the Jewish Historical Institute). A wooden suitcase and leather boots were his inventory for the long journey. He was coming back to the country, but not home. Oberländer was born and raised in the little town of Szczerzec near Lwow. Halina Oberländer recalled that her husband "went to Szczerzec counting on finding anyone there. But he was not able to find even the chimney of his own house, because all the chimneys of the burnt down houses looked the same" (A. Wrońska, Rozmowa z Haliną Oberländer o Marku Oberländerze, in: Marek Oberländer. Wystawa malarstwa, Warsaw 1998, p. 8). In the Soviet Union, Oberländer found himself a soldier of the Red Army. Called up in 1941, he served until 1943, when a report was filed on him to the command concerning his alleged plans for desertion. He was sent to the militarised construction battalions which were a forced labour organisation. The so called stroybatovcy would work most often in mines and on construction sites. Oberländer worked in a mine in the Ural Mountains.

After the war, the painter cut himself off from the past. "Marek never talked about what he went through during the war, he never talked about his family or where he was born, he would never recollect childhood", wrote Bohdan Czeszko, writer and the painter’s friend – "he locked it all up tight away from everyone…" (B. Czeszko, Moje Kazimierze, in: Nostalgie mazurskie. Opowiadania, Warsaw 1987, p. 86).

The only keepsakes from the times of war are the wooden suitcase and the leather boots. The artist’s widow, Halina, did not recall her husband ever talking about these objects. They had just been living with them ever since she could remember.

Renata Piątkowska

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