Belsen and Nuremberg at Topolski Century

Belsen and Nuremberg is based on Topolski's visit to Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in north-west Germany two weeks after its liberation in April 1945, attached to a unit of the Polish army. Later in the year, he was an official war artist at the International Military Tribunal in Nuremberg. From the end of 1944 as Allied forces advanced on Germany the Nazis evacuated thousands of Jewish prisoners to Bergen- Belsen, where conditions rapidly deteriorated. When the British army liberated the camp they found thousands of dead and dying prisoners and despite their best efforts, more than 10,000 prisoners died after liberation. Topolski has painted one of the mass graves he saw at Belsen. Unusually for him, he photographed some of the scenes he witnessed, feeling that his drawings might not be believed.