Jacob Macznik

Jacob Mącznik (4 December 1905 – 10 May 1945) was a Polish-French Jewish artist and a young painter associated with the École de Paris until its destruction during the Nazi occupation. Variations of his surname include Macznik, Moncznik, and Montchnik, while alternative forms of his given name include Jakub, Yankel, Jankel, Yakov, and Yank'l.

Édouard Roditi, the poet, essayist, surrealist author, scholar, critic, translator, and art historian, wrote that Mącznik was "among the more prominent artists who died as victims of Nazi extermination camps" and stated that, had he "lived to profit from the post-war international boom in contemporary art," he "might indeed have now enjoyed considerable fame."

Encyclopaedia Judaica notes, regarding victims of the École de Paris: "Among the more prominent artists who died as victims of Nazi extermination camps were [seventeen painters are then listed, including] '... Jacob Macznik 1905–1944 [sic] ...'" The entry continues: "These martyred artists were gifted with such outstanding and diverse talents that it would now be as unfair to try to force them all into a Jewish school as it was, under the Nazi regime, to deny them their human rights because they were Jews."

Early life Jacob Mącznik was born in Łódź, Poland, as the eldest of seven children in an Orthodox Aleksander Khassidic family. During the First World War, the family relocated to Potok, While living in Kielce, Mącznik developed an interest in theatre and performed in amateur productions with friends. In 1921, the family returned to Łódź. There, Mącznik met an art student who inspired his interest in painting and brought him to Warsaw. Shortly after their arrival, the student had to leave for Danzig (now Gdańsk), leaving Mącznik alone in the city. Lemonnier defined it as:

"A reaction founded on the realistic tradition and directed against the literature of analysis. It is a call to an art based on observation and sincerity. It entails sympathy for the chosen subject matter and, in particular, sympathy for the people. It designates, on one hand, any work dealing with the common people, whatever its purpose may be, and on the other hand any book which is a continuation of the realistic tradition and which reacts against preciosity in thought or style. Populism is a return to reason."

In 1932, the critic Raymond Sélig wrote (translated from French): while the other remains in the collection of Mącznik's nephew, Samson Munn (USA). A photograph of Mącznik and Fenster taken in Sandomierz is preserved in the archives of the Museum of Art and History of Judaism (MAHJ); a facsimile is available online. Although Fenster's writings from the trip have never been recovered, two sets of Mącznik's watercolours and gouaches are known to survive. Additional details of the journey appear in Fenster's book.

On 18 January 1945, as Soviet forces approached, Mącznik was forced on a "death march" through blizzard conditions to a train that brought him to the Mauthausen concentration camp. He arrived on 25 January, and was transferred four days later to the Ebensee subcamp, a slave-labour division of Mauthausen.