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Background history
The catalogue of an art exhibition is an archival document being a proof that the exhibition was organized by the prisoners-of-war in Oflag VIB Dössel between 26 and 30 September 1944. Tragically, it was disrupted by a dramatic event which followed just the very next day after its opening. Even in POW camps there was a strong need to create and decorate the surroundings with aesthetically beautiful objects. The POWs, who created their own works of art, were willing to show the artefacts to their companions in captivity and therefore organized art exhibitions. Such events were particularly common in oflags and works presented on displays were created during various courses and trainings, frequently initiated and run in POW camps, where – besides courses of the scientific character – there were also held ones devoted to arts. Officers kept in captivity were often professional artists who readily shared their knowledge and workshop skills with other POWs. They taught them drawing, sculpture and painting techniques. The largest group of the interned in the camp were officers who had been detained in Romania prior to their coming to Dössel and had been transferred to the Germans at the beginning of 1941. Those soldiers, following their one-and-a-half-year stay in Oflag VI E Dorsten, were brought to Dössel in September 1942, where they were joined by smaller groups of officers transferred, among others, from the following oflags: X C Lübeck, II E Neubrandenburg, II D Gross Born (Borne Sulinowo). On 27 September 1944, Oflag VI B Dössel was hit with a bomb from an Allied Forces aircraft which mistook its target, killing a few dozen POWs and destroying several camp bunkhouses, including the one which housed the art exhibition. The catalogue which we are presenting is thus the only material trace of the exhibition. Thanks to it we can learn that among the 99 works displayed on that particular exhibition, the majority were oil paintings and watercolors. There were also displayed three gouaches, three linocuts, four sketches in pencil and two sculptures in bone. Their authors specialized in concrete techniques and themes, like Colonel Ludwik De Laveaux (a relative to the Polish artist painter bearing the same name and surname) who showed his oil paintings of flowers, Captain Tomasz Kowalski who specialized in watercolor landscapes, Captain Stanisław Nawrocki who excelled at portraits of his mates painted in oils and watercolor, or Second Lieutenant Zbigniew Suchodolski who created paintings featuring the camp reality. The first work mentioned in the catalogue is the portrait in oils made by Second Lieutenant Edward Dodacki. He was one of the 47 escapees, who fled from the camp on 20 September 1943. The Germans managed to recapture 37 of them. They were all killed afterwards. Second Lieutenant Edward Dodacki was killed in the concentration camp KL Buchenwald. The portrait painted by him was destroyed together with the whole exhibition a year after. Major Ludwik Świder presented a few of his works (an oil painting and three linocuts) on the same exhibition. After the end of the war he was arrested by the Soviets in Berlin and transferred to the authorities of the Polish People’s Republic, where he was sentenced to death and then executed in 1952. In 2014, the Institute of National Remembrance announced that his remains had been identified, being buried in an anonymous grave in “Ł” quarter in the Powązki Cemetery.
Prepared by: Beata Madej
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Catalogue of an art exhibition
Source of acquisition
Gift from Józef Kobylański – a former POW in Oflag VI B Dössel
Description of the item
An ecru pasteboard cover; the title page executed with the use of linoprinting technique, bearing – besides the title of the exhibition, the name of the place and date – also a graphic image. Inside the covers, there are glued-in pages with lists of the displayed works, accompanied by their authors’ names. The list is typewritten on white coated paper.
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