UTW 7

Infirm child with middle aged woman in pedicab, Warsaw ghetto

Art: 1992
Media: Ink
Framed, 29 in. H x 37 W

Drawn from a Warsaw Ghetto photo taken in September 19th, 1941 by Nazi soldier Heinz Jost who entered the ghetto with a camera on his birthday as a special gift for himself. His Warsaw Ghetto photos were published in the book In the Ghetto of Warsaw (Steidl Verlag, Gottingen, Germany, 2001 in English & German editions).

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Jost's note for this photo stated: "Where was the rickshaw driver intending to bring this child sick with typhoid fever? Did a hospital for Jews even exist anymore? None of my German comrades could tell me that."

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Pedicabs in the ghetto were both man-powered by pushing as well those that were bicycle-style, akin to rickshaw used in India. Pedicabs were unknown in Warsaw prior to the sealing-in of the ghetto as a concentration-death camp and were used to transport the infirm and elderly. The photo shows a man, standing upright, pushing the pedicab with the child and a woman.

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 This was the first drawing where the wings were drawn to the edge of "the picture plane," i.e. to the edge of the drawing paper.