Pencil portrait of a concentration camp inmate drawn by a fellow inmate
Extent and Medium
overall: Height: 10.880 inches (27.635 cm) | Width: 8.500 inches (21.59 cm)
Creator(s)
- Stanley Cioth (Subject)
Biographical History
Stanislaw (Stanley) Cioth was born on March 15, 1905, in Warsaw, Poland. His parents were Walerian and Zuzanna Honorata Konarzewska and the family was Catholic. Stanislaw worked as a civil engineering technician. He was married to Wanda Bierman, born on April 1, 1907, by the 1930s and they had a son, born in 1935. In July 2, 1941, he was arrested in Krakow and sent to Roznow. He was given the prisoner number 129993 and transferred to several other concentration camps, including Auschwitz, Buchenwald, and Mauthausen, where he worked as an engineering technician. By February 10, 1945, he was in Gros Rosen and then was sent to Natzweiler-Struthof on March 9, 1945. He was liberated in Ostrach-Hohenzollern on April 22, 1945. The family immigrated to the United States in 1951, sailing from Southampton, England, on the Queen Mary and arriving in New York on February 22. Stanislaw died on August 26, 1972, in Cook County, Illinois, at the age of 66. Wanda died on February 3, 1998, at the age of 90.
Archival History
The portrait drawing was donated to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in 2005 by Sara E Sumner, the executor for the Estate of Wanda Cioth, the wife of Stanley Cioth.
Acquisition
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Collection, Gift of the Estate of Wanda Cioth
Scope and Content
Drawing of Stanley Cioth done when he was a concentration camp prisoner in July 1941, presumably by another inmate. Stanley was a Catholic Pole arrested in Krakow, Poland, in 1941 and sent to prison. He was given prisoner number 129993 and transferred to several concentration camps, including Auschwitz, Buchenwald, Gros Rosen, and Mauthausen, where he worked as a civil engineering technician. He was liberated in Ostrach-Hohens on April 22, 1945.
Conditions Governing Access
No restrictions on access
Physical Characteristics and Technical Requirements
Realistic, pencil portrait on rectangular, light brown paper depicting a white, middle-aged, clean shaven male from the mid chest up. The body is angled slightly to the right and he faces front and gazes straight ahead. His straight hair is worn in a side part, cut short on the sides and longer on top. The drawing is very detailed: the eyes include the iris, both upper and lower lids, slight bags and wrinkles. There is a crease between his eyebrows and a notch beneath his nose and he has protruding ears and full, pressed together lips. The right side of his face is shaded as if in shadow. He wears an open collared jacket over a plain, crew neck t-shirt. The drawing is affixed to a recycled light brown book page which acts as a mat; this is glued to light brown cardboard backing that has pencil and black ink marks, numbers, text, and a decorative mark. There is a pencilled inscription in Polish, the date, and the artist’s name in the bottom left corner of the portrait.
front, lower left, pencil : Lipiec 1941 [July 1941] / illegible Polish script on middle mat paper, center under portrait, crayon : 3 / RAPO [...?]
Subjects
- Holocaust survivors--Poland.
- World War, 1939-1945--Prisoners and prisons, Polish.
- Concentration camp inmates--Poland.
- Concentration camp inmates--Germany.
Genre
- Art
- Object