War leaves its mark on every human being, but it is children who carry its burden the longest. Often unable to express their traumatic experiences in words, they look for an outlet in drawings – simple, raw and therefore strikingly real. It is precisely such children’s testimonies, created by the youngest Poles in 1946, that have been included on the prestigious International List of the UNESCO Memory of the World Programme.
“Memory of the World” as a silent testimony to war
In April 2025, the UNESCO Executive Council announced its decision to inscribe the collection ‘Children’s drawings and notes from wartime in Europe: 1914-1950’ to the Memory of the World list. Among the 17 collections from eight countries was a moving dossier from the Archives of New Records, comprising more than 7,000 drawings and notebooks of Polish children who tried to capture their painful memories on paper in 1946, just one year after the end of the war. This extraordinary collection was the result of a nationwide competition announced in the 1940s by the weekly Przekrój with the permission of the Ministry of Education. Over 7,300 children aged up to 13 from various regions of Poland took part. The youngest participant was just 2 years and 3 months old.
Images that speak louder than words
The drawings depict the brutal everyday reality of war: executions, bombings, starvation, deaths of loved ones, escapes and displacements. Some of them document moments of joy after the end of the fighting, but the predominant images are full of dark tones, exaggerated proportions and drama, as the child’s sensitivity did not allow for distance. Technically, the works are very diverse. They were created on wrapping paper, bristol and even parchment. Anything available was used: crayons, ink, watercolours, pens. The format and style were sometimes random, but their message unmistakable.
The educationalist Stefan Szuman, who studied the impact of the war on the psyche of children, emphasised that these drawings are a historical document as important as the testimonies of adults. In a speech to the SEPEG congress in 1948, he said:
“I think that those who still do not know about what happened in our country during the occupation or do not want to believe it, will perhaps be convinced of the truth by the drawings of our children.”
A shared memory of European children
The inclusion of this collection on the UNESCO list would not have been possible without international cooperation. The project was submitted jointly by the Musée National de l’Éducation in Rouen (France) and the International Research and Archive Network for Historical Children’s Drawings from Meisenheim (Germany), with the participation of institutions from Poland, the Czech Republic, Spain, the United Kingdom, Canada, Switzerland and Ukraine.
As Dr Paweł Pietrzyk, Chief Director of the State Archives in Warsaw, points out:
“These are the voices of children who did not have the opportunity to express themselves in words, but left us a poignant picture of the reality of war. Today, their message has been heard and appreciated internationally.”
“Memory of the World” – Poland among the leaders
There are currently 19 objects from Poland on the International List of the UNESCO Memory of the World Programme, as many as nine of which are kept in the State Archives. These include such heritage pearls as Chopin’s manuscripts, the autograph manuscript of Copernicus’ De revolutionibus and the tablets containing the 21 demands of the August 1980 strike. Poland thus ranks alongside Germany, France, the Netherlands, Great Britain and South Korea in the world’s top ranking.
Drawings that save the memory
The collection of children’s works from 1946 is both a unique and poignant historical document and a moving testimony to a collective trauma, the echoes of which resound even more powerfully today. It is also a lesson about the need to remember, about innocence destroyed by war and about the hope that every voice, even the smallest, can speak to the world.
Source: tvn24.pl, nowiny24.pl
Photos: State Archives / Archive of New Files
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