" *CZARNECKI, JOSEPH P.*
Art was not a cultural frivolity to the inmates of Auschwitz; it
literally kept their spirits alive. It was self-expression in the
teeth of the annihilation of the self. It was an expresison of the
the need to retain psychological coherance in a malebolent ambience
whose essential purpose was the destruction of the psyche of its
inahabitants. The words 'I am' written on a wall are the epitaph of
someone about to die....Picasso said that 'painting is an instrument
of war to be waged against brutality and darkness. "

― Joseph p. Czarnecki