Bilingual caricature album in Ukrainian and English with preface by the artist, published by Hanns Lindner-Munchen 23. Soft cover with monochrome illustration of Auschwitz in green square.

Amongst those marked for extermination by the Nazi regime were individuals deemed politically dangerous, such as the author of this book of life in Auschwitz. A Ukrainian nationalist in eastern Poland after the joint invasion by Germany and the USSR in 1939, the pseudonymous Paladij Osynka was hunted by the Soviet and later the Nazi intelligence services. Captured and sent to Auschwitz, Paladij was one of only forty to survive the camp out of a population of 15,000 Ukrainian prisoners. While there, Osynka produced a number of sardonic sketches of camp life caricaturing prisoners and guards alike: according to the artist, the reality of life in the camps was too horrible to portray in naturalistic fashion and such nightmarish events could only be conveyed truthfully through satire. Paladij's experiences did not dim his ardor for a free Ukrainian state: in his preface to this album he dedicates his work to the Ukrainian people as a tribute to their suffering for their highest ideals.
8 x 6 in (20.3 x 15.2 cm) (1)