KQED 9: Sun, Apr 7, 2013 -- 6:30 PM

Memory, art and hell collide as an Auschwitz survivor finally confronts the horrors of his past after 50 years of silence. Marian Kolodziej was on one of the first transports to enter Auschwitz. He survived five years imprisonment and never spoke of his experience until after a serious stroke in 1993. He began physical rehabilitation by doing pen and ink drawings depicting his memories of the horrific experience at Auschwitz 50 years earlier. Marian's drawings and art installation, which he called The Labyrinth, fill the large basement of a church near Auschwitz.
In the documentary, The Labyrinth, Marian takes the audience on a journey through his drawings and art installations. Through the blending of his testimony and graphic drawings, we explore the memories and nightmares that were buried for years. Marian's story of survival and persistence, of life before, during and after Auschwitz are a testament to the human spirit. Marian continued to draw and to speak about his experiences until his death in 2009. Why would a confrontation with death trigger the need to record his long-suppressed memories? Why in this graphic, metaphorical way?
The Labyrinth raises these questions in a visually stunning way. This documentary is eyewitness testimony that is unique in the annals of documenting the Holocaust. Marian is Polish Catholic,who used his drawings to give testimony to the horrors of Auschwitz and whose body of work provides a testament to suffering and inhumanity. And yet, it is a story of survival and human resilience.