Kaitlynn O'Reilly: Labyrinth

Above the Entrance

I always thought I was the kind of person who was largely unmoved by art.  I have skills for art sure, but going to art museums always bored me.  At least I thought this about myself until I entered the labyrinth. 

 “Negative of a Memory: Labyrinth” cannot be explained in words.  The artworks that comprise it were all drawn by Professor Marian Kołodziej.  He used pencil as his medium, and the detail of his work left me in awe.  It was sickness which drove him to go back to the camp.  As many survivors begin to need to tell their story as they age, he felt this need after sickness.  Instead of using traditional rehabilitation techniques for his hand he instead asked for a pencil.  Labyrinth was the result of his choice. 

I noticed themes in his work.  Our class focuses on the Church and the Holocaust.  So I found it interesting to see images drawn by a man who was in the first transport to Auschwitz and survived there until its liberation, with religious themes.  This may be mainly due to his respect for Father Maximilian Kolbe who gave his life to save the life of another man, or his own Polish Catholic background.  However, images like the one pictured above made me think beyond these possibilities.  I guess I do not fully understand it, but it appears that Maximilian Kolbe is depicted crying under something heavy reminiscent of a cross, while prisoners laugh at him, and a hand from clouds which is possibly God's points at him.  So how does one interpret this image? I see a man who appears to be crushed by his religion and is even accused by his God, but why?  After all he died to save another and this act of love and kindness was inspirational in the face of evil.  Father Maximilain Kolbe is a Saint  in the Catholic Church.  This image I cannot comprehend.

Possibly a rendering of the Auschwitz Orchestra 

His images are enveloping as they are all around you, and haunting as you cannot possibly look away.

A Soviet Demon

A Depiction of Bystanders?

This is another image which struck me for its theme.  I have been learning about how many people were bystanders during the Holocaust, and "not to be a bystander."  Therefore, this image which shows both Catholics and others as bystanders stood out to me.

A Christmas Dinner?

 I focused on this part of the work because it shows Catholics, or at least I think it does.  When I look at this image I see the people portrayed as bystanders, but I also see a prisoner sitting at the table with them, maybe as a ghost.  I see that the little girl seems afraid and the parents are tearing a small sheet of paper.  Also Santa is looking really creepy.  But more importantly, are these people really Catholics?  They could be Jews who converted to Catholicism as an attempt to save themselves.  They could be tearing a deportation notice.  Did they lose a member of their family to the Holocaust and that is who is sitting at their table with them?  Inspection of the details only raises more questions.  However, most poignant for me when I call these people bystanders is the detail of blood spatter.  This image was splattered to appear that it is covered in blood.  I can only interpret it then, that these people have blood on their hands as they sit to eat.

Maximilian Kolbe

I think that I should finish with the translated words of the creator because no one can better explain his works than him.

"This is not an exhibition, nor art.  These are not pictures.  These are words locked in drawings.  It wasn't my intention to complete the obligation of the memory and testimony through art.  Art is impotent before that which man has organized for man. /.../

So, I do not invite you to an "exhibition".  It wouldn't be right to say.  Instead I propose a journey by way of this labyrinth marked by the experience of the fabric of death.  Please, read my designed words, words born also from the yearning for clarity of criteria, from the yearning to understand what separates good from evil, truth from lie, art from appearance.  Also, this expresses my disagreement with the world as it is today.  Everything speaks about us, about what we have done with our humanity.  It is a pretext for consideration...thought and for a fundamental deduction for today.  This is the letter of an elderly man to himself 55 years ago.  It is a rendering of honor to all those who have vanished in ashes." 

Kołodziej, 432