Franciszek Jaźwiecki

Adam Franciszek Jaźwiecki was a Polish political prisoner and artist interned in Auschwitz, known as the Portraitist of Auschwitz for his portraits of other inmates.

Franciszek Jaźwiecki
Born	(1900-12-23)December 23, 1900 Kraków
Died	October 16, 1946(1946-10-16) (aged 45) Świdnica
Alma mater	Jan Matejko Academy of Fine Arts

On December 1, 1942, Jaźwiecki was deported from Kraków to Auschwitz.[1]

Jaźwiecki worked in Auschwitz's carpentry workshop and paint workshop.[1] Prisoners were not allowed to make art, under penalty of torture or death, and so Jaźwiecki had to hide his portraits, which he did in his clothes or bed.[2] However, they were eventually discovered by the SS, and SS-Scharführer Wilhelm Boger was assigned to investigate his case.

“He sits down behind the table and browses through my drawings. … Through hurting eyes I can see him looking at them with interest. … Thus I feel I’m not going to be hanged, I also feel that he is going to punish me in his own way and not through the Politische Abteilung, because he wants to steal these drawings for himself. … Otherwise, he would have to send them away with me, and he’s putting them into the drawer.” - Jaźwiecki on SS-Scharführer Wilhelm Boger[1]

Jaźwiecki was sentenced to three months in a penal company and forbidden from sending or receiving letters.[1]

“With a load of 40 kg of sand on bent back… Round and round again… For 12 hours… And so round and round again, for three months with a hundred other miserable souls… Round and round… Day by day. … One more step, at least one and one again, before I drop, and the Kapo finishes me off.” - Jaźwiecki on the penal company[1]

In March 1943, Jaźwiecki, via Gross-Rosen, was transferred to Sachsenhausen.[1] On July 28, 1944, he was transferred to Schönebeck subcamp of Buchenwald.[1]

A year after being liberated from the camp, Jaźwiecki died of tuberculosis.[3] His family donated 100 of his portraits to the Auschwitz-Birkenau Museum.[2] Agnieszka Sieradzka, an art historian at the museum, suggests that Jaźwiecki intended the portraits to be a part of historical record, as he included the prisoner numbers in most of his portraits, allowing the subjects' names to be revealed through cross-reference with the extensive camp records. the extensive camp records.