David Olère (January 19, 1902, in Warsaw – August 21, 1985, in Paris) was a Polish-born French painter and sculptor best known for his explicit drawings and paintings based on his experiences as a Jewish Sonderkommando inmate at Auschwitz concentration camp during World War II.
[2] Olère also lived in Munich and Heidelberg [3] before moving to Paris in 1928 and settling in Montparnasse, where he designed costumes and publicity posters for Paramount Pictures.
[1] On February 20, 1943, Olère was arrested by French police, under the Marechal Pétain, during a round up of Jews in Seine-et-Oise and placed in Drancy internment camp.
[1] Olère remained at Auschwitz until January 19, 1945, when he was taken on the evacuation death march, eventually reaching Mauthausen concentration camp, then the Melk and Ebensee subcamps,[4] from which he made five unsuccessful escape attempts.
[1] Olère felt compelled to capture Auschwitz artistically to illustrate the fate of all those that did not survive.