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Mystery of Holocaust Book Unfolds

Survivor's daughter turns curiosity about inheritance into international quest

By Sam Gale Rosen,  Newser Staff

Posted Sep 17, 2007 11:04 AM CDT

(Newser) – Meticulous pen-and-ink representations of the horrors of Dachau, drawn by a Polish Catholic artist who spent most of the war in concentration camps, form the backbone of a unique album that's drawing praise and curiosity from Holocaust scholars. The AP traces the history of the handmade book and the tortured souls who created and preserved it.

The book contains an artistic narrative of concentration camp life that scholars say is unprecedented; it's bound with leather that probably came from an SS officer's uniform. "I have a sense of being quite horrified, of feeling my stomach in my throat," says the book's owner, remembering looking through it as a child.

Nazi patches and a cover page with a photo of Arnold Unger are seen in an album of drawings from the Dachau concentration camp by Polish artist Michal Porulski at the International Tracing Service at Bad Arolsen, Germany, Aug. 21, 2007. After her father's suicide in 1972, Shari Klages found...
Nazi patches and a cover page with a photo of Arnold Unger are seen in an album of drawings from the Dachau concentration camp by Polish artist Michal Porulski at the International Tracing Service at...   (Associated Press)
Shari Klages shows a drawing of four prisoners in winter coats carrying suitcases marching toward Dachau's watchtower under guard of two rifle-bearing soldiers, in an album of drawings from the Dachau concentration camp by Polish artist Michael Porulski at the International Tracing Service at Bad Arolsen, Germany, Aug. 21, 2007....
Shari Klages shows a drawing of four prisoners in winter coats carrying suitcases marching toward Dachau's watchtower under guard of two rifle-bearing soldiers, in an album of drawings from the Dachau...   (Associated Press)
Shari Klages shows an album of drawings from the Dachau concentration camp by Polish artist Michal Porulski at the International Tracing Service at Bad Arolsen, Germany, Aug. 21, 2007. After her father's suicide in 1972, Klages found the thick leather-bound album with 30 ink-and-watercolor drawings that convey the brutality of...
Shari Klages shows an album of drawings from the Dachau concentration camp by Polish artist Michal Porulski at the International Tracing Service at Bad Arolsen, Germany, Aug. 21, 2007. After her father's...   (Associated Press)
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