Graphics and drawings

Graphics and drawings

This part of the museum items is greatly varied. The section includes the majority of items which were created in the POW camps run by the Third Reich during World War 2. A substantial part of the collection are drawings in pencil. There are also several works made in colored pencils or with the use of combined techniques. As far as the drawings are concerned, special attention should be paid to portrait sketches made by the Soviet POW Georgy Ivanowich Danilov. This is a collection of 78 works executed in pencil, the majority of which are portraits of POWs interned in Stalag 318/VIII F/344 Lamsdorf. Beside the portrait sketches by Danilov, this section contains also works which were made in classes of drawing courses organized in oflags, mainly sketches of still life and landscapes.

A particular place among the objects in the museum collection of graphics and drawings is occupied by camp caricatures. They present important and colorful characters of the POW community in a distorting mirror. Likewise, they show playful or worrying behaviors which were characteristic of the detained, or some particular events in the lives of the POWs, e.g., performing females’ roles in theatre plays, compulsive card-players, smokers of tobacco, soldiers with unkempt appearance, scenes of preparing meals in the camp or columns of POWs during transport.

A large part of the collection includes also various types of graphics, primarily woodcuts and linocuts. Most of the works made with the use of these techniques are decorations on diplomas, identity cards, certificates of completion of scientific courses, obituaries, notices, etc. Attention is drawn to beautifully composed and executed signs of camp associations, circles and unions, e.g., the Circle of POWs of Przemyśl in Oflag VII A Murnau or Theatre Section in Oflag VI B Dössel.