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The destiny of a Jewish boy’s drawings

Will it be possible for the Jewish boy’s drawings which have been found after 70 years in Pilzno to be shown to the general public? Not only the coming into being Museum of the History of Polish Jews but also the authorities of Pilzno are interested in having 32 drawings made by an eleven-year-old boy, Mechel Zweig, which were found in one of the private houses in Pilzno as the renovation of the attic took place.

Certainly, those are his works because each has his name and surname on it, and also the date, number, class, which attended the boy last school year before the war, namely 1938/39. It has been proved that the drawings are a part of the drawing lesson program of the interwar period. There are 32 drawings and the total number of art classes on the fourth grade was also 32. The owner of the house would love to give the drawings to the boy’s family but nobody knows whether anyone has survived. According to some historical sources, most of the Jewish residents of this town died in Bełżec.

What will happen to the drawings if the Mechel’s family is not found? The best place would be then the museum. There is also a school in Pilzno which Mechel attended. “However, it is a small and narrow school. I do not think that it is a proper place,” Ewa Gołębiewska, acting as a major of Pilzno, thinks. It would be much better to put it in the local museum. Such a place is planned in Pilzno. “We have put forward a motion for the European funds to renovate a building in which we would like to open the museum. It is a building given to us by a parson. I think that in two or three years’ time we will be able to open the museum,” Gołębiewska says.

The Museum of the History of Polish Jews is also interested in obtaining the drawings. It is also being organized now. Workers started building the museum in June last year and it is planned to be finished in March 2012.