Józef Szajna. On the 80th anniversary of liberation
Exhibition
On 15 January 2025, the International Youth Meeting Centre in Oświęcim opened the exhibition ‘Józef Szajna. On the 80th Anniversary of Liberation'. The exhibition was prepared in cooperation with the Silesian Museum in Katowice.
The exhibition was opened by Joanna Klęczar-Déodat, director of the IYMC, together with Jolanta Niedoba, curator of the Silesian Museum in Katowice.
The Silesian Museum has in its possession the largest collection of Szajna’s works in Poland, a selection of which relates to his experience in the camp are presented during the exhibition titled Józef Szajna. On the 80th anniversary of liberation. The aim of the exhibition is to present works derived directly from the experience of the Holocaust, composed as a spatial installation as well as paintings.
Józef Szajna was born on 13 March 1922 in Rzeszów and died on 24 June 2008 in Warsaw. One of the most eminent artists in the world of theatre and art. Painter, stage designer, director, theatre theoretician, creator of original and innovative performances. A prisoner of KL Auschwitz and KL Buchenwald. Szajna’s experiences during World War II, including his many years in concentration camps, and their material manifestations in his work are an indisputable cultural legacy. The artistic skills acquired at the Academy of Fine Arts in Kraków, in juxtaposition with his traumatic personal experience, has forged Szajna into an outstanding individual of national and international significance.
Szajna’s compositions are not beautiful, they are meant to be moving, to reflect the state of his emotions. They are a warning to the audience, who should find in them their own anxieties and tormenting questions. In them, he manifested his consciousness as an artist, an individual deeply marked by suffering, who affirms and appreciates life, while warning, questioning and provoking the viewer.
For Szajna, the primary value was the freedom that unlimited creation gave him. The art to which he devoted his life allowed him to come to terms with his past in the camp; it was a kind of catharsis and a cry of defiance against tyranny: “Escape into art is self-defence against helpless surrender!”
The exhibition will be on display at the International Youth Meeting Centre in Oświęcim until 15 March 2025.
The exhibition can be visited from Monday to Friday from 9.00 am to 4.00 pm. Visitors can also make an appointment outside regular visiting hours by contacting the IYMC reception in advance. We do not recommend that visitors under 12 years of age visit the exhibition.
