United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
irn37590
English
1955
overall : 12.750 x 19.380 in. (32.385 x 49.225 cm.)
pictorial area : 6.120 x 11.750 in. (15.545 x 29.845 cm.)
Etched print in black ink on rectangular, white paper. It presents several images of naked, skeletal, male figures, but not a unified composition, drawn in a loose, gestural style. In the right foreground is an oversized, expressionless, naked figure, seated on the ground on buttocks that are all bone, no flesh, with his knees drawn up. In the center of the paper is an image of a young, naked boy with dark eyes, seated on the ground, legs extended and splayed, arms resting on the ground behind him; a bucket lies nearby. In the background behind him is a clothed, uniformed male figure with his back to the viewer observing 2 figures in prison garb carrying a stretcher with a body sprawled upon it. To the left is another uniformed figure with his hands folded across his chest, also watching them. In front and slightly to the left of this guard, a flat, naked figure, possibly a corpse, is lying on the ground, In the left foreground stands a skeleton of a man with his arms hanging at this side.
Etching (lcsh)
Updated 3 years ago
Intaglio etched print created by Walter Spitzer based upon his experiences as an inmate in Blechhammer and Buchenwald concentration camps from 1943-1945. Following the German invasion of Poland on September 1, 1939, Walter fled with his family from Cieszyn (Województwo Śląskie). In 1940, his brother, Harry, was taken away by German soldiers and his father, Samuel, died after surgery. In June 1943, he and his mother, Gretta, were deported to Blechhammer labor camp where they were separated. Walter was sent to Auschwitz-Birkenau, then Buchenwald, where the 17 year-old Spitzer began documen...