Untitled

A presentation of a black bicycle standing in front of the former German concentration camp at Majdanek in Lublin. This is one of the two famous paintings by Sasnal, which were a reflection of a trip to Majdanek. Sasnal went to Lublin after seeing Bełżec. This is how he presented his impressions in an interview with Jakub Banasiak: “There is a beautiful monument in Bełżec. It's basically a slit carved into a small hill. Its surface is covered with remnants of pig iron from open-hearth furnaces, while inside there is a tunnel leading to the wall with the symbolic names of the victims carved on it. It made an electrifying impression on me. The next day I went to Lublin. Majdanek is poignant for a completely different reason - you can see the city and blocks from it. You stand in the camp grounds and watch the city. This contrast is shocking. It would be difficult for me to paint the camp itself, but I had a bicycle with me. And it became something that I could hide behind, a kind of alibi - I was taking pictures of the bicycle and there was the camp in the background. Thus, the bicycle became a pretext to paint the camp, to show something impossible (J. Banasiak, ,,15 stuleci. Rozmowa z Wilhelmem Sasnalem, Czarne: Wołowiec 2017, pp. 72-73).

PK