“THEIR ARCHITECTURE BEARS SILENT WITNESS”: PAVEL BANKA’S TEREZÍN-MANSFIELD/MANSFIELD-TEREZÍN

BANKA, Pavel. Terezín-Mansfield/Mansfield-Terezín. Prague: The National Gallery, 2003. Oblong quarto, original heavy pictorial paper wrappers. $125.

First edition of this souvenir booklet from Banka’s 2003 expedition at the National Gallery in Prague, with 25 full-page photographs, 13 in color.

In these photographs, Banka documents the concentration camp Terezín and the children’s hospital Mansfield, depicting “empty rooms that hold the memory of human presence” (Anne McDonald). As Tomá? Dvorájk notes in the afterword, both sites are “spaces where power and powerlessness manifest themselves conspicuously. Both places have ceased to serve their former functions; now it is only their architecture that bears silent witness to those who suffered within their walls.”

A fine copy.