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Synopsis

[signed]: p. mleczko 1971.

Item Description

OIL ON CANVAS PAINTING ATTACHED TO WOODEN STRETCHER. 12 x 16 inches. Inscription by artist and later descriptive notes on stretcher frame. P. Mleczko was a Polish prisoner in the Stalag XB POW camp at Sandbostel, Lower Saxony, Germany. A former Nazi internment camp it was first used to house allied prisoners and from 1941 also Soviet POWs, some of whom were grouped into Arbeitskommandos or labour gangs for use in farms or industry. In 1945 concentration camp prisoners from Neuengamme were briefly housed there in appalling conditions before the camp was liberated by the British army. The painting shows a disconsolate group of mostly seated prisoners, huddled in front of red painted wooden huts. In the background are a manned guard tower and a double perimeter fence with barbed wire in the middle. The painting is based on the artist's memory of imprisonment and dates from 1971 when it was created,possibly,as a form of art therapy. The inscription on the top right of the stretcher is original to the painting and reads Stalag XB Autumn by P. Mleczko, to which the date (1943) has been added at some point.