David Olère was a Polish-French artist known primarily for his powerful and haunting artworks depicting the Holocaust. Born in Warsaw, Poland, in 1902, Olère survived internment in several concentration camps during World War II, including Auschwitz and Buchenwald.
After the war, Olère settled in France and began creating art that bore witness to the atrocities he had experienced. His works often depicted scenes from the camps, capturing the brutality and inhumanity of the Holocaust. Olère’s art served as a form of testimony and remembrance, ensuring that the horrors of the Holocaust would not be forgotten.
One of his most well-known works is a series of paintings and drawings depicting the gas chambers and crematoria of Auschwitz, based on his firsthand experiences. These works are particularly striking in their stark portrayal of the grim realities of the Holocaust.
Olère’s art continues to be a significant contribution to Holocaust remembrance, offering a unique perspective from someone who survived the horrors of the camps and felt compelled to document them through his art.
I did post some of his works before, the painting at the top is titled, “The Food of the Dead for the Living,” and below are more.
Admission in Mauthausen by David Olère.
The Experimental Injection by David Olère
The Oven Room by David Olère
Gassing by David Olère.
On 20 February 1943, due to his Jewish origin, he was arrested by the French police and placed in the Drancy Camp. On 2 March, he was deported from Drancy to the German Nazi Auschwitz Camp, where he was registered with number 106144. Throughout his entire stay at the camp, he worked in the Sonderkommando, a special work unit forced by the Germans to aid in the operation of the crematoriums and gas chambers.
“David Olère is the only prisoner of Sonderkommando who transferred his traumatic experiences from the shadow of the crematorium chimneys on paper and canvas.” — Dr. Piotr M. A. Cywiński
On this day in 1945, Soviet troops walked through the gates of the Auschwitz complex, and I say complex—because Auschwitz was more than one camp. What they saw, they could not believe.
Rather than going through all the horrors on this UN-designated Holocaust Remembrance Day, I have opted to show some art of those who were in the camps, like the above painting by inmate Władysław Siwek to the commission of the SS while working as part of the construction work squad.
Orchestra playing by a group of prisoners. Painted by Mieczyslaw Koscielniak. He was a Polish painter, graphic designer, and draftsman.
Already a prominent artist, he was arrested in 1941 and sent to the Auschwitz Concentration Camp. His camp number was 15261. In the camp, he drew about 300 paintings depicting the everyday life of prisoners.
Female prisoners wThe female prisoners are washing themselves in a puddle painted by Mieczyslaw Koscielniak.
Roll call during a heavy downpour. Painted by Jerzy Pazdanowski, 1902-08.1977. Painter. A graduate of the Academy of Fine Arts in Krakow.
A group of male prisoners leave camp, painted by Mieczyslaw Koscielniak.
On the way to work by Janina Tollik
When Memory Meets Art – Zahrada – The Garden – Le Jardin
The one thing that always puzzled me is that the Nazis never stole one of the most famous paintings, if not the most famous Rembrandt—”Nacht Wacht” (Night Watch).
Recently, I found out the reason.
In August 1939, it became clear that war was inevitable. The Dutch government took steps for the safety of the Dutch artworks. Even though, at the time, the Netherlands was neutral.
At the end of 1939, the government ordered building art bunkers for the national collection at Heemskerk and Zandvoort. In the meantime, the municipality of Amsterdam did not sit idle and had its small bunker built near Castricum for the Stedelijk Museum’s collection (and that of some wealthy collectors).
When war broke out in May 1940, the government art bunkers were not yet ready. Fortunately—the collections made it to safety in time, and the Night Watch took residence in the Knight’s Hall of Radboud Castle in Medemblik. Medemblik was not a military target, and the artwork here was considered safer than in Amsterdam.
The Amsterdam art bunker (completed on time in March 1940) held the paintings of Van Gogh, Breitner and Mondriaan. They were safely buried under the dune sand near Castricum (when the war broke out). Previously, this entire collection had floated in ships on the Rijpweteringschevaart. After the outbreak of war, the Amsterdam art bunker in Castricum also temporarily housed the masterpieces of the Rijksmuseum, the Boijmans van Beuningen and private collectors such as the Van Gogh family. The Night Watch was moved from Medemblik to Castricum on May 12, 1940.
It was not until November 1940 that the other art bunkers were ready. They moved the Night Watch from the small Amsterdam bunker in Castricum to the official government bunker in Heemskerk. Germany occupied the Netherlands and allowed the Dutch to have their way. The Dutch Art Protection Inspectorate was left intact by the Germans because the Germans also had an interest in protecting art treasures. After the war, the Dutch masterpieces were to be displayed at the Führer Museum in Linz.
The war progressed, and the Dutch dunes became a new war front. Here, the Germans built the Atlantic Wall to protect themselves against a possible British invasion. The dunes, once considered safe, were no longer considered a suitable place for storing the most important Dutch works of art. New homes were therefore urgently sought for the paintings.
From December 1941 to March 1942, a hermitage in the marl caves of the St Pietersberg, in Maastricht, was constructed. The Night Watch was safely moved there for its protection on 24 March 1942.
The Night Watch, while in three years of storage, was rolled up. The cloth hung on scaffolding that rotated (a little each day) to prevent adhesions. The works of art were also guarded 24 hours a day by police officers and museum staff. In this storage facility, 750 paintings were in the vault, including 43 Rembrandts, 24 works by Jan Steen and 14 paintings by Frans Hals.
Thanks to the efforts of the Art Protection Inspectorate, all important museum collections survived the war. In July 1945, the artwork, was rescued, and returned to its rightful owners.
The original Night Watch has not been in the caves of St Pietersberg for 78 years, but there is a copy for viewing. Artist Jules Sondeijker made the full-size reproduction in the early 1900s with charcoal on marl. The drawing is in the museum at the Caves Zonneberg, Maastricht, Netherlands. Today, it is a tourist attraction containing artwork and anecdotes.
The existence of the hiding place and its location were no secret. In fact, the Nazis had the vault built themselves. Their intention was to take Dutch art treasures to Germany after the war. And, of course nothing was allowed to happen to it. The Night Watch was joined in National Storage No. 9 by other famous masterpieces, such as The Street by Johannes Vermeer and The Bull by Paulus Potter. The latter painting came to Maastricht from the Mauritshuis in The Hague.
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I believe that the most powerful weapon the Nazis had during World War II was its propaganda machine. Other countries used propaganda, but not as effectively as the Nazis. Perhaps critical thinking had not been eradicated or banned elsewhere.
The Nazis often used art to spread their message. Some of their posters remind me of today’s memes. The connection between art and propaganda was probably the strongest in the Netherlands, known for its art and artists.
The art piece at the start of this article is from the Exhibition Art of the Front collection—displayed at the Amsterdam Rijksmuseum from 21 January–21 February 1943.
The Nazis also set up several charities, not for the betterment of the population, but really as a means of propaganda. Winning hearts and minds was essential for the Nazis. Again, art and fancy posters played an important part in this, to relay the message.
Relief work Visual arts. Nederlandsche Volksdienst (Dutch People Service) in collaboration with the Nederlandsche Kultuurkamer (Dutch Chamber of Culture). Exhibition.
A wall with posters, most likely in Amsterdam from the autumn of 1941. It includes the V-Action poster and calls for enlistment in the SS or the Volunteer Legion. One of the posters was for the exhibition in the Rijksmuseum concerning Westphalian Art of the Present.
German propaganda. Posters from the Netherlands Winter Aid Foundation said, “Your fellow citizens expect you to do your duty,” doesn’t mention the Nazis or the occupiers—but fellow citizens.
Propaganda against Bolshevism “Bolshevism is murder!” It didn’t just instil fear of loss of life, but also destruction of religion.
The NSB (Dutch Nazi Party) was intensively involved in propaganda. Posters and placards flooded the Netherlands, both before and during the war.
Propaganda poster from the NSB Photo Service “Do you want the rule of egoism? That is the freedom to use people and the community for your own personal interests or do you want everyone to have the obligation to serve people and the community? Then support National Socialism.”
Aimed at Railway Workers “Strike only brings misery to your own people!”
Aside from the art used in propaganda, the Nazis also decided an ample number of Dutch artists to be murdered.
Portrait, possible of hidden or captured Jews. (Ghetto Fighters’ House Museum)
Max van Dam Max van Dam was the son of Aron van Dam and Johanna van Dam née Leviticus. Both his parents were Jewish. He grew up in a socialist environment. His father was a certified meat inspector who became the director of the cooperative store De Dageraad, a literal translation of The Dawn, in Winterswijk, where he was on the town council for the Dutch Social Democratic Workers’ Party (SDAP). Max received art training in Amsterdam and Antwerp and attended Isidoor Opsomer’s Academy of Fine Arts.
During the war, Max van Dam went into hiding. He tried to flee to Switzerland but was captured in France and deported to Sobibor by way of the Drancy Interment Camp. During his time in the two camps, Max van Dam continued to produce engravings and paint portraits.
In Sobibor, Max was one of the ‘lucky’ ones who were not immediately murdered. He had to do paintings for the SS. The SS man Karl Frenzel testified in 1983, “He did not have to stand for roll call, and his food was brought to him by fellow prisoners. I asked him to do paintings for the SS canteen, which would not remind us of the camp or the war, they were exclusively landscapes. There was also a painting made by Van Dam of FiFi, Bauer’s dog.” Frenzel further stated, ”Van Dam had been killed in the revolt and that the paintings in the staff quarters of Sobibor were destroyed at the same time.”
The details and exact date of Van Dam’s death remain unclear. Survivors have indicated that he was killed shortly after completing his last commissioned painting in September 1943. Jules Schelvis noted that Frenzel’s assertion that Van Dam was killed in the revolt may have been self-serving. Schelvis concluded this based on statements by Alexander Pechersky, who was emphatic in his declarations never to have met Van Dam because the painter had already been killed prior to his own arrival in Sobibor on 23 September 1943.
Theodoor van Gogh Although Theodoor van Gogh was not an artist himself, he was the great-nephew of one of the most famous artists of all time—Vincent van Gogh.
Theodoor (Theo) van Gogh was born in Amsterdam. He was the uncle of the director, columnist, and opinion maker Theo van Gogh, who was murdered in 2004. Theodoor began studying economics at Amsterdam University in 1941, where joined a student resistance organisation.
He was active in the resistance on many fronts, as were many other members of his Corps fraternity. In 1943, they protested, among other things, against having to sign the so-called declaration of loyalty, which meant that you would not do anything against the Germans. If you refused to sign, you could not continue your studies. On 6 May 1943, those who had not signed had to report for the Arbeitseinsatz in Germany. Theo did not do this. He immediately helped Jews, arranged hiding places and provided identity cards, ration cards, food, etc., for people in hiding in collaboration with, among others, the Student Resistance. He supported the Domestic Armed Forces and was the central figure for a courier service. He also offered help to prisoners and succeeded in getting a number released. At the end of 1944, he housed the resistance newspaper, Het Parool, from his father’s office, and was involved in the resistance newspaper, Ons Volk. He also committed more acts of resistance, about which less has become known. Theo was arrested twice, once during a raid in 1943 and again at a train check-in in 1944. In both cases, his father’s influence was able to have him released after a few months from Camp Vught and Camp Amersfoort, respectively. An extensive group of students and others worked with him and for him. During a raid on his home on 1 March 1945, he, with many others, was arrested for the attack on SS commander Hanns Rauter.
As a reprisal for the attack, on 8 March, the Nazis executed 263 political prisoners, including Theodoor at age 24, by a firing squad in southeast Amsterdam. The spot became known as Fusilladeplaats (execution place).
Calendar design for November, drawing, 1930–31: “On wings of storm winter approaches.”
Willem Arondéus Willem Arondéus was a Dutch artist and author who joined the Dutch anti-Nazi resistance movement during World War II. He participated in the bombing of the Amsterdam public records office to hinder the Nazi German effort to identify Dutch Jews and others wanted by the Gestapo. Arondéus was caught and executed soon after his arrest. Yad Vashem recognized Arondéus as Righteous Among the Nations.
When Nazi Germany occupied the Netherlands during World War II, Arondéus became a member of the Dutch resistance movement. He used his artistic skills to forge false identity papers and other documents to help people escape persecution.
With a small group of confidants from the art world, including Gerrit van der Veen and cellist Frieda Belinfante, Arondéus started in 1942 by counterfeiting identity cards for Jewish people in hiding so that they could perhaps survive the war without the “J” on their identity cards. A plan was devised to blow up this register to prevent the occupier from checking the numbers of the forged identity cards in the administration of the Amsterdam population register.
Under the leadership of Willem Arondéus and Gerrit van der Veen, the resistance group committed an attack on this population register on the night of 27 March 1943. A few days later, Arondéus and almost everyone else involved were arrested. On 1 July 1943, 12 resistance fighters, including Arondéus, were shot dead in the dunes near Overveen.
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This post will contain little text. Instead, it has drawings by those who lived through the Holocaust.
Above is “Arrival into the Auschwitz Camp.” Just behind the backs of the prisoners and to their left is the guard tower at the main entrance to the camp. (Illustration by Władysław Siwek)
Next we see the entrance to the Krankenbau, or camp hospital, courtyard. We see prisoners who have come to the hospital seeking, if nothing else, a brief respite from the killing work. Those too ill to work were killed by phenol injection to the heart, or sent to the gas. Here prisoners are whipped onto a truck for transport to the gas chamber. (Illustration by Jerzy Potrzebowski)
The above drawing shows a kapo (prisoner official) in charge of the block, a Blockeltester, kicking and beating prisoners into bed, if one can call it that. They had endured another day of slave labour with insufficient food rations. (Illustration by Jerzy Potrzebowski)
“Before Selection,” by Halina Olomucka
Loading selected prisoners for the gas chambers, by Jan Komski
I am passionate about my site and I know you all like reading my blogs. I have been doing this at no cost and will continue to do so. All I ask is for a voluntary donation of $2, however if you are not in a position to do so I can fully understand, maybe next time then. Thank you.
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Toby Gotesman Schneier is an American Expressionist artist best known for her unique ability to transform objects, people, scenes, & events into jarring and provocative works of art.
Her compassion for the human condition, and tenacious belief in a higher power, are conspicuous throughout the work and noted frequently. Her art evokes a poignant sense of nostalgia and sentiment, even a longing with the viewer, as the pieces appear laced with familiarity, ethnicity, and a heightened sense of irony & collective injustice. Her unabashed and highly unusual use of colour, shape, texture and astounding lack of conventional art mores gives her a keen ability to SHOCK the viewer into a type of action with her bold and direct imagery. Especially her narration of the Holocaust through her art is captivating and evocative. She has gleaned her enormous notoriety throughout the International Art Community.
As so many others, including me, want to tell the story of the Holocaust, we are often silenced on social media by those who don’t want the stories told. In Toby’s case, Facebook stopped her from spreading her work.
View her imagery on Instagram, Linkedin and her website. Uses the links:.
Art can be a powerful medium when expressing emotions or illustrating life as experienced. Artist Bedřich Fritta who was born Fritz Taussig expressed his experiences of the Holocaust via art.
Fritta was captured and deported on 4 December 1941 to the Theresienstadt ghetto. His wife and son followed in 1942. Fritta and other illustrators in the ghetto worked as technical artists. Because of their access to the tools, they illegally drew expressionist sketches of life in the overcrowded ghetto. Leo Haas, Otto Ungar and Ferdinand Bloch were arrested and interrogated. The artists hid their drawings before the arrest.
The Gestapo convicted Bedřich Fritta and his colleagues Leo Haas, Otto Ungar, and Ferdinand Bloch of atrocity propaganda. 17 July, the artists and their families were delivered and incarcerated in the Small Fortress—the Gestapo Jail. Soon after, Fritta’s wife, Johanna, died of typhus in February 1945. Next stop, Bedřich Fritta and Leo Haas went to Auschwitz. Fritta died of exhaustion there in November 1944. Leo Haas survived the war, and he and his wife, Ema, adopted Fritta’s son Tomáš.
Accommodation for Men in the Sudetenkaserne 1943; pen and inkBefore the Transport, 1943/44A throng of people leaves the ghetto for the station of Bauschowitz (Bohušovice), 2.5 km away. From there, trains went to the death camps in the East. Starting in June 1943, rail tracks reached directly into the ghetto.Facades for the International Commission, Theresienstadt
For his son, Tomáš’s third birthday, Fritta had made an album of colour drawings. Cheerfully illustrated moments of the little boy’s life inside Terezín in a more dynamic and pleasant as well as colourful style.
To me, the drawings below are the most heartbreaking because it is about a father desperately trying to keep his son happy and to try to create a level of normality in a crazy world.
One of the aspects of the Holocaust that is often forgotten about, maybe on purpose, is suicide. There were so many who in their desperation only saw one way out and that was by taking their own lives.
Frederika Sophia (Fré) Cohen was born on 11 August 1903 in Amsterdam. She was the oldest daughter of diamond cutter Levie Cohen, a member of the Social-Democrat Jewish community in Amsterdam. Like many other diamond workers, Levie Cohen was often out of work. Therefore, the Cohen family moved to Antwerp in Belgium, where there was more work in the diamond business. After the outbreak of World War I in 1914, the family returned to Amsterdam.
Fré Cohen was a successful and image-defining woman in the men’s world of graphic design. She was of great importance to the Amsterdam School. In her work, both the formal language and the ideals of the Amsterdam School are clearly expressed. She designed graphic print work for the city of Amsterdam, for the socialist movement, such as the Social Democratic Workers Party (SDAP), the Arbeiders Jeugd Centrale (AJC), trade unions, and cooperatives.
Her Jewish origins are in keeping with the story of the Amsterdam School, which had an important basis in the Jewish proletariat, including the diamond working movement.
She had a large output of rather varied printed matter, from window bills to bookplates, diplomas, illustrations, running headers, baby announcements, and postcards. There are also some three-dimensional works such as boxes and scale models. She created folders and maps for Amsterdam Airport Schiphol, in a modernist style using gold, red and blue. Besides, she made paintings, portraits, drawings, woodcuts, and linocuts.
In 1935, the Maastricht publisher A.A.M. Stols publishes Cohen’s work in Het Schoone Boek. 15) Even though his interest is mainly in bibliophile productions and not in large, machine-made editions.
Stols’s review of Cohen’s work demonstrates the success of publishers such as the World Library and Querido that use new techniques and attract ‘artists and innovators in this field.
During the occupation, in 1941 and 1942, Cohen made picture postcards for the Gebroeders Spanjerberg company, with traditional costumes from Huizen, Bunschoten-Spakenburg, and Zeeland towns.
In November 1941, Cohen was appointed as a teacher at the Jewish applied arts school W.A. van Leer. Not only Dutch Jews but also German emigrants, such as Stefan Schlesinger and Leon Kratzenstein, taught at the Jewish applied arts school Van Leer.
The teachers of the school were initially exempt from deportation. Fré Cohen was one of the gesperrden (exempt), but in May 1942 received a call-up for Arbeitseinsatz and then went into hiding. First with J. Uylings in Amsterdam, where she hid for three weeks. Then she went into hiding in Diemen, with her friend Rie Keesje, after that in Hilversum, with the parents of Pieter Brattinga, and finally, she hid in Lochem with Margo Vos and finally in Borne, with Hendrik and Mien Zomer. During that period she continued to work illegally when she could. On 12 June 1943, she was arrested by the Germans in Borne. In haste, she took the pills she had hoarded for such an emergency. After two days in a coma, she died on 14 June 1943 at the age of 39 at a hospital in Hengelo.
Such a tragedy and all the art that would never be created.
I am passionate about my site and I know you all like reading my blogs. I have been doing this at no cost and will continue to do so. All I ask is for a voluntary donation of $2, however if you are not in a position to do so I can fully understand, maybe next time then. Thank you.
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These drawings are from Ravensbrück, Fallersleben and Salzwedel concentration camps. The artists are unknown, but I don’t think that actually matters. The subtleties of the pictures say so much. The text on the above picture from Ravensbrück, says, “Herr Kommando Führer, I am report for the morning roll call.”
Drawings from Fallersleben concentration camp.
In August 1944, a women’s satellite camp of Neuengamme concentration camp was established in Fallersleben for armaments production at the Volkswagen plant. The female Jewish prisoners, most of whom were from Hungary, arrived at the camp on three transports. 500 Jewish women were taken from Auschwitz-Birkenau to Fallersleben probably in August 1944. Additional women were brought to Fallersleben on two transports in November 1944 and January 1945 from Bergen-Belsen concentration camp.
With the caption “Opa” as in Grandfather however, I think they mean dirty old man in this context, because the old guard is watching women while they are showering.
Drawings from Salzwedel concentration camp.
In late July or early August 1944, a women’s satellite camp of Neuengamme concentration camp was established in Salzwedel. The Polte factory in Magdeburg had a branch in Salzwedel, which had operated under the title “Draht- und Metallfabrik Salzwedel” before World War II. When the war started, the factory began producing infantry and flak ammunition. The Polte factory requested 5,600 prisoners to use as forced labourers. Most of the 1,520 Jewish women in the Salzwedel satellite camp came from Hungary, while the rest came from Poland and Greece. The women arrived at Salzwedel on three transports from Auschwitz-Birkenau and Bergen-Belsen in late July/early August, in October and again in December 1944. They were forced to work in two 12-hour shifts and were housed in a camp of huts in the grounds of a fertiliser plant on Gardelegener Straße.
In April, women from the evacuated Porta Westfalica-Hausberge and Fallersleben satellite camps arrived at Salzwedel, bringing the number of prisoners to approximately 3,000. Salzwedel was the only satellite camp of Neuengamme concentration camp not to be evacuated. The prisoners, were liberated by the Ninth U.S. Army on April 14, 1945.
The caption says “‘Lice hunt Fransche Stube Salzwedel”
The caption says “April 14 Liberation! Salzwedel”
I think that the drawings are very powerful. They are subtle in a way and yet one can detect a darkness in them.
A picture tells a thousand words, and in this case, they truly do. The drawings and cartoons are made by Emile Franken. I am not sure what happened to Emile. I do know he was born on 15 April 1921 somewhere in the Netherlands and he survived the war.
I also know he spent time in the Vught concentration camp, and from there he was transported to Westerbork on 18 October 1943. After that, he was deported on 3 March 1944 to Auschwitz-Birkenau. The caption of the drawing at the top of the blog says, “Mealtime at the planes, Birkenau.”
“Life in Lower Birkenau Poland, 1944 Latrine at Night in Block.” Auschwitz-Birkenau Concentration camp
Above left: Arrival and transport in Birkenau Above right: Selection for crematorium [or KL] Lower left: The last clothes are taken off Lower right: Hair cutting
I do not know if Emile survived, I doubt it very much, but his drawings made his experiences crystal clear. I suppose now-a-day this could be called memes, but memes are supposed to be funny or satirical. There is nothing funny about these—they portray reality.
History of Sorts 
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