The Labyrinth

Marian Kolodziej came to Auschwitz with the first transport, on 14 June 1940, and was given the number 432. He survived the camp and after the war became a theatre and film designer, one of the finest in Poland. For half a century he did not say a word about the camp, not even to those closest to him.

He began to draw in the early nineteen nineties, after a severe stroke, while he was learning to use his hand again. He did not stop until his death. Several hundred large format panels came out of it, on which the same faces, numbers and scenes return, and the artist himself appears as a skeleton among the living.

The exhibition is in the basement of the Saint Maximilian centre at Harmeze and is built as a labyrinth. There are no display cases and no explanatory captions. There is a corridor that has to be walked. For most groups it is the strongest point of the whole day.