Krakowskie środowisko artystyczne w latach II wojny światowej

Abstract

Abstract

KRAKOW ART CIRCLES DURING WORLD WAR II 1 September 1939 saw the outbreak of the war and the beginning of Nazi German occupation of the Polish territories. Those parts of Poland’s territory which had not been annexed to the Reich would constitute the General Government, with Kraków as its capital. The Nazi flag with the swastika fluttering over Wawel Royal Castle – the former seat of Polish kings turned into the residence of Governor– General Hans Frank – became the disgraceful symbol of oppression. Future plans for the General Government included its colonization and Germanization. As representatives of the “lower race”, Poles would be treated merely as a reservoir of workforce for the Reich. Polish artists and intelligentsia were thus to be exterminated. Sonderaktion Krakau – the arrest of 183 university staff members (mainly Jagiellonian University professors) on 6 November 1939 and their subsequent imprisonment in Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp near Berlin – was the first example of the practical realization of the Nazis’ plan to physically annihilate Polish intellectual elites. Institutions of higher education, including art colleges, were liquidated, and so were secondary schools. The only kind of schools approved by the Germans as appropriate for Poles were vocational schools which would produce skilled craftsmen and labourers that could be useful for the development of the Reich’s war economy. Institutions of higher artistic education were among the schools whose activity was seriously restricted by the Nazi authorities. The Academy of Fine Arts in Kraków was liquidated and replaced by Staatliche Handwerker und Kunstgewerbeschule (State School of Artistic Crafts) – a secondary vocational school. After the closing down of the Kunstgewerbeschule in January 1943, underground artistic education flourished in Kraków. Artists found themselves in a very difficult situation during the war: the closing down of institutions dedicated to promoting and supporting the development of art and the liquidation of Polish art life put them in dire straits. The situation was saved by the material support provided by the Central Welfare Council, the self-help activities of the „Artists’ Cafe” (Kawiarnia Plastyków) situated at 3 Łobzowska St in Kraków, and the various forms of aid organized by the Polish landed gentry and the Roman Catholic Church. The personal stories of Polish artists during WWII varied from person to person. Some of the artists actively participated in Poland’s Defensive War in September 1939. After the defeat of Poland in the September Campaign those who had not been taken prisoners left their country clandestinely to join Polish Military Forces which were being formed both in the West, and in the Soviet Union at that time. Others played an important role in the resistance movement that formed after the cessation of hostilities in Poland. Artists could be found in a whole range of underground organizations representing each and every political option. Their most impressive field of activity were the acts of sabotage they organized, and the anti-Nazi propaganda they created. Anti-German satire became a particularly eff ective tool, as it raised morale among the Polish people. Satiric drawings filled the underground press (daily newspapers, satirical magazines, one-off issues, etc.), posters and leafl ets. Th is kind of underground activity cost many artists their lives. Art was produced everywhere – even in prisons, concentration camps, and ghettoes. Although the reality of war was occasionally present in the works produced at that time, artists generally tended to avoid such themes. They treated art as a kind of therapy, something that helped them to cut themselves off from the grim, wartime reality. Most of their artistic output constituted portraits, still lifes, flowers, landscapes, and the occasional genre scenes. It was not until the postwar period that they felt ready for the abreaction of their war traumas, which was reflected in the numerous exhibitions organized in the period 1945–1948. Jewish artists found themselves in the most diffi cult situation: they were ghettoized, murdered in labour camps and death camps. Very few of them managed to survive until the end of the war. In most cases, the art produced during the Nazi German occupation was the continuation of earlier formal developments – this general rule applied to representatives of figurative and avant-garde art alik.