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The Labyrinth
By Sr. Rose Pacatte, F.S.P.
Source: AmericanCatholic.org
A 17
year-old teenager was on the first transport to Auschwitz in 1940. His name was
Marian Kolodziej and he had asked his priest if it was a good idea to join the
Polish resistance. The priest said yes, but Marian was no match for the Nazi
machine. He was captured almost
immediately and the number 432 was
tattooed on his forearm. He says of his first weeks there, “I
built Auschwitz because I arrived there in the first transport. It was also
true that for almost fifty years I did not speak about Auschwitz. But
nevertheless throughout that whole time Auschwitz was present in everything I
did.”
After the war he
married and designed sets for theaters. He also kept silent about Auschwitz
until he had a stroke when he was 72 years old. He fell into a depression and
then one day asked for paper and pencil and began to draw his way to healing.
The tragic images flowed from his haunted memory and became large murals and
panels numbering more than 300. “Until
his death in 2009,” explains filmmaker Father Ron Schmidt, SJ, “Marian kept
adding new pieces and rearranging the drawings as his memory invited him.”
Today the art of
Marian Kolodziej is on display in the basement of a Franciscan church in
Harmeze, about 13 km from Auschwitz, or Oświęcim as the town is called in Polish. As this stunning documentary
shows, Marian arranged the murals in the shape of a classic multipath
labyrinth, the kind that is a maze that is difficult to navigate. “Marian’s
labyrinth metaphor,” Fr. Schmidt added in an interview, “is that as the
prisoners never knew what the Nazis would do next, where they would go or what
they would have to do or how they would be punished, they never saw the end in
sight. Marian’s labyrinth is a maze
where people can wander not knowing where the path will lead them until they
finally reach a stairway that leads to the light outside.”
The narration is by
Roman S. Czarny, whose
mature, Polish-accented English gives the film great authenticity; he makes you
think that Marian himself is guiding you through his experience of the death
camp. The musical score is haunting yet contemplative.
Themes of survival, art as a
healer, the resilience of the human
person, man’s inhumanity, and finally hope, are some of the themes the film
reflects as it leads us through this phenomenal maze of genius.
For more information about this film and to
order a copy of the DVD, visit www.thelabyrinthdocumentary.com
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