A drawing made by the Jewish child Shlomo Bornstein, in the Warsaw Ghetto: The drawing depicts Nazi soldiers executing Jews near the Great Synagogue of Warsaw (Tłomackie Synagogue, which was destroyed by the Nazis in May 1943 after the suppression of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising). In the foreground, on the left, Nazi soldiers in SS uniforms aim their weapons at a Jewish man wearing a yellow star, surrendering with his hands raised. On the street, figures of Jews can be seen fleeing—some have been shot and are lying in pools of blood on the pavement, while others are running for their lives. In the background, the entrance courtyard and facade of the synagogue are visible.
Shlomo Bornstein created this drawing at the youth center managed by the Jewish charitable organization Centos – Centralne Towarzystwo Opieki nad Sierotami (Central Society for the Care of Orphans), located at 16 Śliska Street in the Warsaw Ghetto. The center was run by Professor of Psychology and Jewish lawyer Adolf Berman. The drawing was preserved by Ewa Rechtman, the director of the youth center, who encouraged the children to draw street scenes from the ghetto. After Shlomo was taken by the Nazis in one of the deportations to Treblinka in 1943, Ewa gave the drawing to the social worker and underground activist Irena Stanisława, who, as a nurse, saved dozens of children in the ghetto. Out of fear that the drawing would be discovered in her possession, Irena handed it over to Adam Celniker, a Jewish friend from her university days at the University of Warsaw and later her second husband. Celniker escaped the ghetto using a forged identity card under the name Stefan Zagrębski and survived the war while hiding in the apartment of Irena’s friend, Maria Kukulska, where the drawing was found at the end of the war. During the war, Adam assisted Irena from his hiding place by smuggling food and medicine into the ghetto. The drawing eventually came from Irena’s estate.
On the back of the drawing, Irena wrote in Polish: “Rysunek odręczny chłopca Borensteina Salomon in Centos, – warszaw getto 1943” – “Hand drawing by the child Borenstein Salomon in Centos – Warsaw Ghetto, 1943.” Little is known about the life of Shlomo Bornstein himself. According to Irena’s records, he was last seen by Dr. Ludwik Hirszfeld (one of Irena’s contacts) on a Nazi truck with several other children near the Church of All Saints in January 1943. According to a Page of Testimony at Yad Vashem, he perished in Treblinka
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Irena Stanisława Sendler [1910–2008] was a Polish Catholic nurse, social worker, and underground resistance member who opposed the Nazis during World War II. She spent the war years rescuing Jewish children from the Warsaw Ghetto. Born as Irena Stanisława Krzyżanowska in the Polish city of Otwock, she came from a Catholic family. At the outbreak of the war, Irena began aiding Jews by distributing food, caring for orphans, and providing financial assistance to individuals whose property had been confiscated by the Nazis. In 1942, while serving as a senior administrator in Warsaw’s welfare department, she joined Żegota, a Polish underground organization working under the Polish government-in-exile in London to assist Jews. Known by her underground codename Jolanta, her primary focus was the rescue of Jewish children. At great personal risk, she orchestrated rescue missions with the help of volunteers she recruited, forging documents that gave Jews Christian names and securing medical certificates to deter the Nazis under the guise of preventing infectious disease outbreaks. Irena began smuggling children out of the ghetto to monasteries or Christian families using forged documents. Some children were told their Jewish parents were their adoptive parents to ease the emotional separation. Various methods were employed for the rescue operations: Tramways: Children were smuggled out in the early morning hours, hidden beneath passenger seats on trams that crossed the ghetto. Some children were transported in a private vehicle with a trained dog. The dog barked to drown out the cries of frightened children, ensuring their sobs could not be heard outside the vehicle. Irena meticulously recorded the names and identities of the children she rescued so they could be reunited with their families after the war. She buried these lists in glass jars in her garden. Through her efforts, approximately 2,500 Jewish children were saved. In October 1943, the Gestapo arrested and tortured her in an attempt to extract the names of the rescued children, but she refused to betray them. Sentenced to death along with 39 other prisoners, Irena was saved when a guard, bribed by her underground colleagues, helped her escape. Her name was subsequently added to a list of executed prisoners, enabling her to go into hiding until the war ended. After the war, Irena worked for the Polish Ministry of Health. For her heroic actions in saving Jewish children, she was recognized as a Righteous Among the Nations and awarded Honorary Citizenship of Israel.
Size: 22×17 cm. Condition: Light stains on the upper part of the drawing. Good condition.
