Majdanek / Zinowij Tołkaczew - 28 Painting panels of harsh scenes from the Majdanek death camp, by the Soviet Jewish artist Zinowij Tołkaczew. Published by "CZYTELNIK" Poland, 1945.
28 black-and-white and color paintings [signed in the print], documenting harsh scenes from the Majdanek camp that were painted by the Red Army soldier, the Jewish artist Zinowij Tołkaczew. Tołkaczew was one of the liberators of the camp and documented in his paintings the difficult scenes he witnessed. Among the illustrations that appear: "Nothing But Bones", "The Gas Chambers", "The Furnaces Raise Smoke", "Children", "The Order", "The Guard", "The Crematorium Chimneys", and others.
Tołkaczew, born in 1903, attended a vocational school and an art school in his youth. During the communist revolution he joined the Komsomol and was a member of the revolutionary underground in Kiev. In the years 1925 - 1927 he served in the Artillery Corps of the Red Army. After finishing his military service, he studied at the Institute of Fine Arts in Kiev and an exhibition of his works on Lenin's death was even shown in Kiev and Moscow. During World War II he served in the Red Army and continued to practice art on behalf of the authorities. Tołkaczew accompanied the Red Army forces immediately after the liberation of Majdanek in the summer of 1944 and documented the liberation. In January 1945 he even joined the Red Army forces that liberated Auschwitz and documented the liberation of the camp with paintings and drawings. The series of paintings he created: "Majdanek", "Auschwitz" were published as albums and exhibited throughout Poland in the cities of Lublin, Rzeszów, Krakow, Katowice, Lodz and Warsaw. In 1965, the album "Auschwitz" was published in Kiev, which contained some of his paintings.
[12] pp. [introduction and review pages] + 28 plates, all complete. Folder: 37x27 cm. Tears in the outer cardboard cover. Spine reinforced with adhesive paper. The drawing panels themselves are in very good condition.
