Mural – Prisoner of the Polish Children's Camp – Piotr Saul and Damian Idzikowski, 2016

The mural at ul. Reja 7 in Bałuty depicts a portrait of a prisoner from the Polish children's camp in Łódź. It is one of the works forming part of the series "Children of Bałuty – memorial murals", which since 2012 has been systematically restoring memory of children imprisoned in Łódź during the occupation.

Series Children of Bałuty – memorial murals

The series concept originated from an idea by Katarzyna Tośta, with the Urban Forms Foundation as initiator. The first six portraits were painted in 2012, with further ones added in subsequent years on the walls of pre-war tenement buildings in Bałuty, including on Wawelska, Franciszkańska, Jakuba, Przemysłowa and Starosikawska streets. The series encompasses three groups of children: Jewish from the Łódź ghetto, Polish from the camp on Przemysłowa and Roma from the camp for Roma population. The portraits are created based on archival photographs, which distinguishes this series from purely decorative murals.

Polish children's camp on Przemysłowa

The resettlement camp for Polish children and youth at ul. Przemysłowa operated from December 1942 to January 1945. Approximately 5000 children aged 2 to 16 passed through it, and only around 900 survived. The mural at Reja 7 commemorates one of the prisoners of this camp, whose identity remains unknown. A similar subject is addressed by the mural on Przemysłowa, depicting a boy from the same camp: mural of a boy from the Polish children's camp.

Authors and technique

The mural was painted by Piotr Saul, assistant at the Department of Painting and Sculpture at the Academy of Fine Arts in Wrocław, and Damian Idzikowski, assistant at the Workshop of Fundamentals of Graphic Arts at the Academy of Fine Arts in Łódź. The series portraits were executed in black and white technique, directly on the tenement walls, without division into coloured background and silhouette, which gives them a character close to enlarged archival photography. The same pair of artists also painted the mural at ul. Franciszkańska 24, depicting Salek Berliński: mural of Salek Berliński.

Practical information

• Address: ul. Reja 7, Bałuty, Łódź.
• How to reach it: the mural is located on the wall of a tenement building within the residential development of Bałuty, accessible from the pavement level.
• What to expect: black and white portrait on a building elevation, without an informational plaque at the mural itself.
• Accessible 24 hours as part of public space.