Materiality, Creativity, Testimony: A Wardrobe from Huta Zaborowska

In 2020, the new owners of a house located on a farm in Huta Zaborowska (Mazowieckie Province, Poland) noticed drawings and inscriptions in a wooden wardrobe they found in a storage room. The markings indicated that it may have been a wartime hiding place, most likely for a Jewish child or teenager. In 2022, the wardrobe was presented to the public for the first time as part of the exhibition Hideouts: The Architecture of Survival (Zachęta, Poland). This article presents the authors’ joint research on this object. Additionally they try to explain how this object embodies “awkwardness” and how art history, historical research, and background might be helpful in deciphering the drawings in the wardrobe. Furthermore, the authors show the potential of art history-related research and the uses of an interdisciplinary toolbox when dealing with such objects.