Everywhere he went, it was the painting that kept him [Komski] from the mines, the gas factories, the killing jobs. Like the singers and soccer players and boxers, he was valued by Germans.
Michael Kernam, The Washington Post, 197912
During my incarceration, I worked as a portrait artist for the Nazis and also created architectural renderings; my profession help me to survive.
If I had tried to create a body of work like these while I was at Auschwitz [sic], I would have been killed.
Jan Komski, 199813
Bearing in mind that Jan Komski’s life and works have not been extensively commented upon, I will describe the events and circumstances that determined his artistic formation and career. Thus, I will review key biographical data from the moment he started his artistic education at the Academy of Fine Arts in Krakow until the end of his life.
2.1. 1934-1939: Artistic Formation at the Academy of Arts in Krakow
After starting to study art history at the Jagiellonian University of Krakow at the beginning of the 1930s, Jan Komski developed a strong interest in arts that led him to enroll in a fine arts program.14 On October 5, 1934, Komski joined the Department of Painting and Sculpture at the Academy of Fine Arts in Krakow,15 where he was
12 Michael Kernam, “Muted Works of One Man’s Silent Rage,” in: The Washington Post, April 29, 1979, at https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/1979/04/29/muted- works-of-one-mans-silent-rage/215f484e-db39-4944-a9f2-f5c7dfd963f3/ (accessed June 12, 2015).
13 Jan Komski quoted in Ellen Rosenbush Methner and Bert Van Bork, “Jan Mieczslaw Komski,” in:
Jan Komski, Eyewitness: The Artwork of Jan Komski, exhibition catalogue, Houston Holocaust Museum, Houston 1998, p.6.
14 Linda G. Kuzmack (interviewer), “Interview with John Komski June 7, 1990,” Transcript, USHMM, RG-50.030.0115, at http://collections.ushmm.org/oh_findingaids/RG-50.030.0115_trs_en.pdf
(accessed October 2, 2014), p. 2. The videotape of this interview is also available at the website of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. See Linda G. Kuzmack (interviewer), “Oral history interview with John Komski June 7, 1990,” Videotape recording, USHMM, RG-50.030*0115, at http://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/irn504609 (accessed October 2, 2014)
15 See Komski’s certificate of enrollment at the Academy: Jan Komski, Rodowód (Filiation), October 5, 1934. Do. L. podania 755/3h, L. księgi wpisowej (Book of Enrollment) 47zw/stu30. Archives of the Academy of Fine Arts in Krakow, Poland (December 11, 2015). The school was renamed in 1979 in honor to Jan Matejko, the Polish painter who founded the academy in 1879. It is currently known as Jan Matejko Academy of Fine Arts in Krakow. See Monika Żarnowska, “History,” in: Akademia Sztuk
trained in the studio directed by Professor Władysław Jarocki, a Polish artist member of the Vienna Secession.16 According to the academy’s archives, during the five years that Komski studied there, he took courses in art history, drawing, architecture and painting techniques.17 He was especially outstanding in the course of graphic arts and painting given by Professor Wojciech Weiss, an artist who also belonged to the Vienna Secession.18 Other professors Komski studied under included Kazimierz Sichulski and the painter and sculptor Xawery Dunikowski, who shared captivity with him in Auschwitz.19 The records also reveal that Komski was greatly commended during the last years of his studies for his graphic and painting works, and he also won drawing and painting competitions in the school.20
After Komski graduated from the academy in 1939, the Nazis occupied Poland. Ellen Rosenbush Methner and Bert Van Bork state that when the war started, Komski was initiating his artistic career while supporting himself by restoring furniture and church buildings.21 During the months that followed the invasion, the Polish Underground was established, and Komski decided to take part in its activities.
He worked actively on the underground’s newsletters and was in charge of doing the lettering and political caricatures and cartoons that accompanied many of the texts.22
Pięknych w Krakowie im. Jana Matejki, at https://www.asp.krakow.pl/index.php/en/academy/history (accessed May 8, 2014).
16 See Jan Komski, Rodowód (Filiation), October 5, 1934. Do. L. podania 755/3h, L. księgi wpisowej (Book of Enrollment) 47zw/stu30. Archives of the Academy of Fine Arts in Krakow, Poland
(December 11, 2015). Władysław Jarocki joined the Vienna Secession in 1911. See Stefania Krzysztofowicz-Kozakowska and Piotr Mizia, “‘Sztuka’, ‘Wiener Secession’, ‘Mánes’. The Central European Art Triangle,” in: Artibus et Historiae 27, n. 53, 2006, pp. 217-259, p. 221.
17 The courses in graphic arts were taken during the last two years of his studies (academic years 1937/38 and 1938/39). See Jan Komski, Book of Grades Academic Years 1934-1939, No. 103, Archives of the Academy of Fine Arts in Krakow, Poland (December 11, 2015).
18 Wojciech Weiss joined the Vienna Secession in 1909. See Krzysztofowicz-Kozakowska and Mizia,
“‘Sztuka’, ‘Wiener Secession’, ‘Mánes’”, p. 221.
19 Komski, “Jan Komski,” p.53.
20 Jan Komski, Book of Grades Academic Years 1934-1939, No. 103, Archives of the Academy of Fine Arts in Krakow, Poland (December 11, 2015).
21 Rosenbush Methner and Van Bork, “Jan Mieczslaw Komski,” p.6
22 On January 20, 1992, Komski commented in an interview that during that year he depicted many caricatures including one of Hitler. Some years after the war, those caricatures helped him to prove in a Bavarian court that he was engaged actively with the Polish resistance movement against the Nazis.
This evidence allowed him to win his case in the court and shortly afterwards he immigrated to the United States. See Sandra Bradley (interviewer), “Interview with John Komski January 30, 1992,”
Transcript, USHMM, RG-50.042*0016, at http://collections.ushmm.org/oh_findingaids/RG-50.042.0016_trs_en.pdf (accessed October 2, 2014), p. 4. The video interview can be seen at: Sandra Bradley (interviewer), “Oral history interview with John Komski January 30, 1992,” Videotape recording, USHMM, RG-50.042*0016 at http://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/irn505569 (accessed October 2, 2014).
2.2. 1940-1945: Working as an Artist in Auschwitz and Other Concentration Camps
When Komski’s activities in the underground became dangerous, he decided to leave Poland and join the army of the Polish Resistance in France. However, on April 29, 1940, he was arrested while attempting to cross the border of Poland with the former Czechoslovakia. On June 14, 1940, after spending a few months in Tarnów’s prison, he joined the first mass transport to Auschwitz with other 727 prisoners.23 Describing his entrance to Auschwitz when he and other prisoners were forced to get off from the train, Komski narrates: “We had no time to gather our few personal belongings. We grabbed what we could while the beatings continued. Without food and our personal belongings, we were assembled into columns. Assigning us prisoner numbers (mine was 564), they ordered us to perform gymnastics, to jog, and to jump.”24 When he was arrested, however, Komski showed false identification provided by the Polish Underground and was registered in the accounts of Auschwitz I under the name of Jan Baraś (fig. 6).
Shortly afterward, Komski and the rest of the prisoners were moved into a complex of 21 brick buildings that originally had seen military use. In that moment, the full operation of Auschwitz as a concentration camp officially started.25 Once they established it, the Gestapo used the skills and labor of those first prisoners to enlarge the camp. That expansion resulted in the construction of the crematorium and gas chambers in the area of Auschwitz II, which later would be known as Birkenau.
During those first months, Komski and other fellow prisoners artists started their artistic activities in the camp.26
It is well documented that some ghettos and concentration camps such as Auschwitz had art workshops in which the prisoners painted under the supervision of the authorities. Some ghettos and camps even had separate crafts, drawing and/or painting rooms, the most notable being those in Terezín, Auschwitz, Sachsenhausen, Mauthausen, Buchenwald, and the ghettos of Białystok, Kovno, Łódź, Warsaw and
26 Bradley, “Interview with John Komski January 30, 1992,” pp. 6-7.
27 See Mary S. Costanza, The Living Witness: Art in the Concentration Camps and Ghettos, New York
& London 1982, p. 23. These camps and ghettos, unlike the extermination sites, were also places where some prisoners were selected to make works of different natures. Since the camps were different from
requested by SS officers and produced for functional purposes. Mary S. Costanza describes the various types of works created at these workshops:
It was partly mechanical and technical. All types of graphic work were needed: maps, charts, graphs, diagrams for construction of roads and buildings, signs, posters, emblems, post-cards, and greeting cards. Some of the camp Kommandants had artists do portraits of them, their families, or the staff.
Artists were also required to paint landscapes and genre pictures for the Nazis’
personal pleasure and for propaganda. In additions, artists were asked to copy masterpieces stolen from the museums of Europe that were intended for eventual resale in Germany and elsewhere.28
The official duties of the artists in the camps and ghettos were diverse and served the general purposes of the Nazi regime; furthermore, they contributed to the particular inner dynamics and needs of each camp or ghetto.
In Auschwitz, there were several craft shops and an artist workshop.29 The official works produced by artists in those spaces had two main goals: to be displayed in the internal Museum of Auschwitz or to fulfill any useful purpose related to expansion of the camp and its daily life. The art created there ranged from woodcrafts, portraits of SS officers and capos, decorations on the walls of the baths, posters, architectural rendering and landscapes (fig. 8).
It is important to stress that Auschwitz was the place where countless pieces of art were created and, in addition, it was the first concentration camp in which Jan Komski worked as an “official artist” for the SS guards. Costanza observes that the first artistic workshop in Auschwitz opened eight months after the official inauguration of the camp, when Kommandant Rudolph Hoess wanted to create a space in Block 24 of Auschwitz I in which the prisoners could create arts and crafts for him and other SS functionaries. Because the interest of other officers in the arts was increasing, a second room was created to employ more artists who could create plans, paintings, postcards and other items.30 In the winter of 1941, the Museum of KZ Auschwitz was officially created, and a section of paintings and photographs that
each other in many ways, the conditions in which art was produced at this time varied depending on the place. However, those ghettos and camps in which the inmates carried out various physical works made largely possible the creation of art, in contrast to other places such as Majdenek or Treblinka that were only establish as extermination camps.
28 Costanza, The Living Witness, p. 21.
29 Costanza, The Living Witness, p. 23.
30 Costanza, The Living Witness, pp. 25-26.
“(…) could show the inferior racial characteristics of the prisoners” was opened under Hoess' orders.31 The museum also had a second purpose: to have a cultural and artistic space to display in case a committee of the International Red Cross arrived to review the living conditions and activities of the prisoners.32
In addition to the artworks created by commissions in the workshops, the Gottliebova Babbitt survive (fig. 9).33 Other projects, frequently ordered by the capos, included the decoration of the walls in bathrooms and cells (fig. 10).34
Many other artists created art within the camps and ghettos that was prohibited by the authorities. Some of this art inmates did secretly and hid, in contrast with the works created “officially” in the workshops. Apart from scenes of death, violence and torture, some inmates executed devotional and religious drawings, landscapes, still lifes, abstract art, cartoons and even sculptures (figs. 11-13).35 Among many others who painted numerous forbidden works in Auschwitz-Birkenau are Peter Edel, Jósef Szajna, Maria Hiszpańska, Mieczysław Kościelniak, Władysław Siwek, Włodzimierz Siwierski, Waldermar Nowakoski, Marian Ruzamski and Xawery Dunikowski.36
After Jan Komski joined the camp and due to his artistic formation, he was promptly assigned to the architect’s office at the Baubüro Zentralbauleitung. In a
31 Costanza, The Living Witness, p. 26.
32 Bradley, “Interview with John Komski January 30, 1992,” p.8.
33 Sybil Milton, “Gypsies and the Holocaust,” in: The History Teacher 24, n. 4, August 1991, pp. 375-387. See as well Sybil Milton, “Culture Under Duress: Art and the Holocaust,” in: F.C DeCoste and Bernard Schwartz, The Holocaust’s Ghost. Writings on Art, Politics, Law and Education, Edmonton 2000, pp. 84-96, p. 88.
34 Joseph P. Czarnecki explains that: “Decorating the washrooms and latrines seems to have been one of the capo’s favourite projects. Images of cherubs splashing each other with water and young men riding horses in a pond immediately suggest the Nazi obsession with youth and cleanliness- but, perhaps, with more sinister undertone.” Joseph P. Czarnecki, Last Traces: The Lost Art of Auschwitz, NewYork 1989, p. 25. Czarnecki explains that were also many drawings and paintings on other walls made illegally and anonymously around the entire camp. Some of these images sought to document the daily life, while others were satirical or did not seem to have an obvious connection with the conditions of the camp, as in the case of the countless landscapes or the image of a ballerina found in the wall of a basement that served as the storage area, painted by an unknown artist. Czarnecki, Last Traces, p. 72.
35 Sybil Milton, “Culture Under Duress,” p. 94.
36 Agniezka Sieradzka, “Examples of Illegal Art from the Auschwitz Museum Collections,” in:
Agnieszka Sieradzka and Gabriela Nikliborc (eds.), Forbidden Art: Illegal Works by Concentration Camp Prisoners, Oświęcim 2012, pp. 84-101.
letter dated April 10, 2001 and addressed to Corinne Granof, the curator of Academic Programs at The Mary and Leigh Block Museum of Art, Komski writes:
The majority of my pictures in Auschwitz were done at “Baubüro” (The Central Management of Construction Works) where I was a draftsman. While I was in “Baubüro,” my official function was to make perspective renditions from the architect’s plans and occasionally I helped surveyors draw up the first map of Auschwitz and its environs. On the side I painted portraits and landscapes. Some landscapes were done in the neighbourhood of Auschwitz far from the concentration camp....I was in a favourable position in “Baubüro”
right from the beginning. As an artist, I was able to learn skills quickly, (lettering, perspective, architectural renditions) which later became critical to my survival in Auschwitz and in other concentration camps.37
In addition to the skills Komski had learned while studying at the Academy of Arts in Krakow, in the camp he also learned new artistic abilities that proved crucial for his survival. Thus, although the years of imprisonment in Auschwitz and other camps were for him years of intense anguish and suffering, they were also a time of artistic formation, practice and exchange with other artists who worked in the workshops.38
After Komski was arrested and sent to Auschwitz, he remained active with the Polish Underground. Besides the drawings and works he made in the architect’s office, and because of his knowledge about the camp expansion, he also managed to draw maps of the region surrounding the concentration camp and its defense. He relates:
On one of my trips, the SS supervisor allowed me to paint landscapes. For more than an hour I was alone, abandoned by guards. For that brief time, I had freedom. I even flirted with the idea of escaping. Back in the office, I drew secret maps that contained information about the defenses of the camp. The Polish Underground requested this vital information. In return, we were promised that an attempt would be made to recue us. It never happened.39
37 Jan Komski’s letter quoted by Corinne Granof and David Mickenberg in: Corinne Granof and David Mickenberg, “Complexity and Contradiction: An Introduction to The Last Expresion,” in: David Mickenberg, Corinne Granof and Peter Hayes (eds.), The Last Expression: Art and Auschwitz, Evanston 2003, pp. xiv-xv, p. xv. Komski comments these circumstances as well in as: Komski, “Jan Komski,” p. 54.
38 Komski estimates that during his confinement in Auschwitz he was able to share the Museum’s workshop with around 500 artists. See Kuzmack, “Interview with John Komski June 7, 1990,” p. 12.
39 Komski, “Jan Komski,” p. 54.
Some works Komski created in that period are still preserved: portraits, landscapes, paintings of flowers and letters.40 The maps he drew for the architect’s office and the Polish resistance seem to be lost.
One of these works is Troubadour (fig. 14), an oil on canvas executed between 1940 and 1942. On the right side of the image, a troubadour is singing for a group of knights. The architecture of the chamber the group inhabits is characterized by Gothic pointed arches. The architectural space, the clothes the knights are wearing and the armors hanging on the walls suggest a medieval atmosphere.41 Although the circumstances in which the painting was executed are not completely clear, it seems that it was part of a commission for the Auschwitz Museum and was created to please the taste of SS officers.42
Mieczysław Kościelniak, a Polish artist who attended the Academy of Arts in Krakow with Komski and who at the time worked at the Auschwitz Museum, depicted the moment in which Komski was painting Troubadour. In the painting Interior of the Auschwitz Museum (fig. 15), perhaps made illegally by Kościelniak in the workshop, we can see Komski in the studio painting a canvas.43 Komski’s face is not shown, nor are the red triangle and the identification number sewn to his clothes.
However, it is possible to identify the image on the easel, which shows the shapes of the knights and the Gothic pointed arches. In the background of the scene, the red flag,
40 These works are part of the art collection of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial and State Museum.
41 It is not my intention here to analyze this painting in detail. However, I shall add that currently it is also possible to see the sketch of Troubadour, depicted by Komski using colored charcoal on cardboard.
Both images remain in the archives of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial and State Museum (PMO –I-16 and PMO –I-12-1395). The Italian scholar Letizia Evangelisti in her book Auschwitz e il ‘New Humanism’ commented Komski’s study of the painting as follows: “L’opera, creata con la tecnica del carboncino colorato su cartoncino, che dà l’effetto “sfumato”, con dimensioni 19x23,5 cm, è stata realizata, como le altre, mentre l’artista si trovava ad Auschwitz. Essa prende ispirazione dal modo dei trovatori, ossia dai poeti in lingua d’Oc dei secoli XI-XIII, che erano soliti svolgere la loro attività artistica all’interno delle corti feudali, a volte anche declamando i versi, in qualità di cantori accompagnati dalla musica. (…) La scena proposta da Komski, quindi, si inserisce in un contesto architettonico conforme alle tendenze gotiche del periodo rappresentato, con la descrizione di volte ed archi a sesto acuto. Il soggetto declamatore risulta circondato da altri personaggi, che lo stanno ascoltando, dando l’idea del movimento, pero come appaiono collocate sulla sedia, o in piedi.” This is perhaps the most extensive comment on Komski’s work done so far by any scholar. See Letizia Evangelisti, Auschwitz e il ‘Nuevo Humanismo’: Il Canto di Ulisse delle vittime della ferocia nazista, Roma 2009, pp. 120-121.
42 Boberg and Simon, Kunst in Auschwitz/Sztuka w Auschwitz, p. 246. Even though Komski did not worked officially at the Museum but in the architect’s office, he was able to work in its workshop
42 Boberg and Simon, Kunst in Auschwitz/Sztuka w Auschwitz, p. 246. Even though Komski did not worked officially at the Museum but in the architect’s office, he was able to work in its workshop