Aknin, Anne

The artist Anne Aknin was born in 1922 into a Polish-Jewish middle-class family. She attended the Lubinski Jewish secondary school in Warsaw. Following the German Wehrmacht’s occupation of Poland in September 1939, her father was physically assaulted when applying for an identity document that would allow him to continue working as a timber exporter. His head was also shaved in a humiliating manner in the shape of a swastika. Her father was sent back to Białystok, and Anne, her mother and her sister Elisabeth, known as Betty, were supposed to follow. However, they were unable to leave Warsaw and were deported to the Warsaw Ghetto. Weakened by hunger, Betty died in the ghetto hospital in March 1942. Her father returned to Warsaw, but suddenly “disappeared” on 13 August 1942. Anne never saw him again. In April 1943, Anne and her mother witnessed the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. In May 1943, they were deported to Majdanek, where she was separated from her mother. From there, she was transferred to a camp run by the arms manufacturer HASAG in Skarżysko-Kamienna. She was assigned to forced labour in a sewing workshop, where she sewed parachutes, among other things. She was subsequently sent to Buchenwald and then to another HASAG factory site in Leipzig, a subcamp of Buchenwald concentration camp for women. She had to get up at four o’clock in the morning and spent twelve hours a day in the factory rubbing screws in vats of hot oil. As a result of this work, during which her arms were immersed in hot oil up to the elbows, she suffered from eczema and skin rashes for decades afterwards. On 13 April 1945, the camp was evacuated and the prisoners were sent on a so-called “death march”. During the night, Anne escaped westwards with two Polish fellow prisoners. Via Chemnitz, she reached a camp for French prisoners of war and was subsequently transported to Paris in a convoy, arriving at the Hôtel Lutetia on 8 May. From there, she was taken to a convalescent home near Grenoble. A few months later, she began studying at the École des Arts et du Bâtiment in Grenoble, completing her studies in 1948. From 1970 to 1975, she studied at the École du Louvre in Paris. In 1959, she became a drawing teacher at the Lycée de Fort-de-France in Martinique and at the Lycée de Pontoise. She travelled extensively, visiting Canada, Mexico and the United States. She received numerous awards and honours. From 1957 to 1962, she lived in the Antilles and contributed to the establishment of the Centre d’Art Antillais, an art institution and cultural centre in the French-speaking Caribbean.

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