Jan Baraś-Komski - Portrait with Sunflower or the Portret ze słonecznikiem (oil on wood), 1937
Jan Baraś-Komski is probably best known for his Auschwitz paintings and drawings. Born on February 3, 1915 in a small Polish town of Bircza, he entered the prestigious Polish Academy of Fine Arts in Cracow - the Akademia Sztuk Pięknych Jana Matejki w Krakowie, in 1934, where he studied painting until 1939.
Like many of the young Poles in the early months of the war, Jan Komski, a Polish Roman Catholic, joined the resistance movement. In 1940 he was arrested while trying to cross the southern border under the assumed name of Jan Baraś in order to join the newly formed Polish
Army in France.
He was first taken to the prison in the town of Tarnów only to be deported to the concentration camp at Auschwitz, arriving there in the very first transport, together with 727 other Polish
men, on June 14, 1940. He was issued the prisoner number 564. The early numbers were not yet tattooed on prisoners' arms.
Jan Baraś-Komski - Arrival
In the camp, Komski became part of the clandestine resistance movement created by Witold Pilecki. On December 29, 1942, he and three of his comrades, Mieczyslaw Januszewski, Boleslaw
Kuczbara, and Otto Küsel, participated in one of the most famous escapes
in the history of Auschwitz. A cart drawn by two horses passed the camp's gate in
the afternoon. It carried Kuczbara, dressed in a stolen SS uniform holding forged papers.
Alongside walked three inmates that appeared to be escorted by the SS-man. The escapees made it to the village of Broszkowice where they were given civilian clothes.
Komski made it safely to the city of Kraków (Cracow), in what was now known as the General Government (Gubernia Generalna) or Generalgouvernement under the Reichsminister Hans Frank.
Jan Baraś-Komski - Eating and Starvation
In January 1943 Komski was arrested in a routine roundup (łapanka) near
the railway station in Cracow and held there in the Montelupi prison, after a failed escape and a brutal beating, till the end of
September. On October 1, 1943 he was deported to Auschwitz for the
second time. Not identified as an escapee, with the help of the underground movement, he was registered under the name of Józef Nosek and assigned prisoner number 152884. He was sent to the camp at Auschwitz-Birkenau and transferred later that month to the concentration camp at Buchenwald in Germany proper.
Komski was moved a few times between different concentration camps and eventually ended up in Dachau where he was liberated by the units of General Patton's army on April 29, 1945. After his liberation he lived in Displaced Persons camps in Bavaria where he met and married an Auschwitz survivor Zdzislawa. He emigrated to the United States in 1949 where he became a citizen. 
Jan Baraś-Komski at work in Virginia
In the United States Komski assumed a career as an illustrator for the Washington Post. He retired in 1984 but continued to draw and paint. His Auschwitz art depicting the unimaginable brutality he witnessed in concentration camps was painted from memory.
To contrast the horrors of his past, he created a vast body of colorful work that depicted the beauty and serenity of Northern Virginia.
Jan Baraś-Komski - Barge on Canal
He painted every day, even at the tender age of 86. Those who knew him reported that he loved life and was very alert, courteous and caring.
Towards the end of his life, Komski visited the memorial museum at Auschwitz and Auschwitz-Birkenau.
He lost his battle with cancer and passed away at the age 0f 87 in Arlington, Virginia on July 20, 2002.
By Dominique Allmon
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