Through cemeteries

The composition Przez cmentarze [Through Cemeteries] does not seem to refer to a specific wartime event. Rather, it is a vision of the artist confronting the memory of the Holocaust and the moment when, shortly after the end of hostilities, he arrived for a short period of time in Białystok in order to look for traces of his loved ones, take part in the exhumations of the dead and organise their burials. The artist (or another narrator of the scene), standing at the right edge of the composition, seems to be looking through camp wires at the figures recalled from memory, which sometimes have strongly individualised physiognomies. One resembles the face of Janusz Korczak, another – that of Gina Frydman.

AT