Entrance to the exhibition

Exhibition "NEGATIVES OF MEMORY. LABYRINTHS" Marian Kołodziej former KL Auschwitz prisoner (no 432).

The exhibition “Photographic Plates of Memory. Labyrinths” has been permanently installed in the lower level of the Our Lady Immaculate Church in Harmęże, a part of the St. Maximilian Centre, since the late 90’s. It is an exhibition of drawings by Marian Kołodziej, a former Auschwitz Concentration Camp prisoner, marked with the number 432, which along with its undeniable artistic value, also has a value of testimony. It is an outstanding interpretation of the camp drama of one of the first prisoners of the Auschwitz Concentration Camp. The exhibition presents an artistic vision of the camp ordeal, while featuring a heroic victory of St. Maximilian Maria Kolbe achieved in the camp.

Marian Kołodziej, after almost 50 years of silence, returned to his experiences creating a startling artistic story about himself and about those who survived the “death factory”. He was forced to do this by a disease, a stroke, and the accompanying it paralysis. He began to draw as part of his rehabilitation. The drawing of the “Photographic Plates of Memory” was for Kołodziej, as he says, a form of self-therapy.

He began working on the “Photographic Plates of Memory” in 1993 and finished in May 2009, a few months before his death. During sixteen years, he has created more than 250 drawing compositions of various sizes. This unusual and at the same time frightening story has been shown with the simplest artistic means.

The opening of the exhibition “Photographic Plates of Memory. Labyrinths” took place on August 14, 1998. From that day, it found it’s permanent place in the St. Maximilian Centre in Harmęże. Why here, despite the fact that Marian Kołodziej had received proposals for displaying his work in the United States or at the State Museum Auschwitz-Birkenau in Oświęcim? Because, as he said in an interview: “I stood on the same roll call with Father Kolbe”.  The act of selfless love of St. Maximilian to an unknown husband and father of family during the fateful roll call in July 1941 did such a great impression on Marian Kołodziej that he began to see another Christ in Father Kolbe. St. Maximilian, prisoner number 16670, together with the author of the “Labyrinths”, together with the number 432, became the second main protagonist of the exhibition.

The works drawn in pencil, rarely enriched with colour, were filling up the walls and were accompanied by the everyday camp objects. Small details, stones and broken glass, create an unusually evocative atmosphere. It is deepened by the silence that prevails in here. Until May 2009, the exhibition was regularly replenished with new, additional works.

In his telling of the story, Marian Kołodziej uses symbol. Contrary to the expectations of many, we will not see a German soldier’s uniform, only two clashing worlds: the world of the good presented in the human forms and the world of the evil in the forms of the beast.

The time of war, the time of camps, is the insane world. That’s why Kołodziej shows this world in two colours: in white and black, without counting the hues. When he speaks about his memories from before 1939 and about his dreams, as well as when he refers to the day of liberation, then he uses a full range of colours: because these are the normal times.

By his exhibition, the Author shows to where leads the rejection of the Ten Commandments and the abandonment of Christian values in life. At the same time, on the example of St. Maximilian, he proves that even in inhuman conditions that were created in the camps, it was possible to maintain human dignity and to achieve moral victories.

The cracked window glass at the entrance to the exhibition evokes most emotions in the visitors. Yet, it is not a result of vandalism but only the answer given by the author to the question: “What is the personality of the man who was sent to the camp, after nearly sixty years since the liberation?”. It is broken and cracked!

Passing through Kołodziej’s “Labyrinths”, we first go through a stylized and dark cattle wagon that was used for the transport of prisoners to the camp, in order to enter into the atmosphere of the 1940-1945’s and understand this dark time in human history. Leaving the exhibition, we go out into the world of nature, soothing the unpleasant thoughts and memories.

Since 2003, about 50 thousand people from different parts of the world visited the exhibition. The exhibition is a tool of education for young people who constitute the majority of visitors to the place. Most of them are high school and university students. Moreover, the “Photographic Plates of Memory. Moreover, groups and individual tourists from around the world, especially from Europe and from North America, visit “Labyrinths” almost every day. As a place of education for young people, the exhibition is also a regular part of the programs of the Centre for Dialogue and Prayer in Auschwitz, of the International Youth Meeting Centre, as well as of the State Museum of Auschwitz-Birkenau. Numerous travel agencies work together with the St. Maximilian Centre in organizing tours of the “Photographic Plates of Memory”. 

In 2003, the “Photographic Plates of Memory. Labyrinths” of Marian Kołodziej were selected to participate in the 5th edition of the Lesser Poland Cultural Heritage Days.

The Kraków Franciscan Province of St. Anthony of Padua and of the Bl. Jakub Strzemię, expressing respect and appreciation for “the indomitable faith in the dignity and greatness of the human person, and showing gratitude for the gift of the heart, that is for the “Photographic Plates of Memory. Labyrinths” offered to the emerging St. Maximilian Centre in Harmęże, as well as bearing in mind the special relationship of Marian Kołodziej, a former prisoner, to his brother St. Maximilian Kolbe, accepted Marian Kołodziej to the circle of honorary Brothers and Friends of their Franciscan Family in 1998”. In 2003, he was honoured as the first person with the statue of St. Francis of Assisi, an award discerned by the Franciscans from Kraków.