Mušič’s drawings were discovered by chance in the historic archives of the Partisan Association in Trieste. Foto: Arhiv RTV SLO
Mušič’s drawings were discovered by chance in the historic archives of the Partisan Association in Trieste. Foto: Arhiv RTV SLO

The 23 drawings of his dying fellow sufferers and of corpses were the basis for a series of graphics and paintings titled We are Not the Last, which Mušič created later. The drawings were discovered by chance in the historic archives of the Partisan Association in Trieste.

When the finder saw a drawing of an emaciated body with a tilted head, big glassy eyes and a contorted, gaping mouth, he could not believe it. There were 23 drawings in a cardboard folder, all numbered, 20 of them signed. Mušič had written on them Dachau 1945 and had added gruesome titles to some of them: I am Hungry, One without a Coffin.

Having been kept in a closed folder for several decades, the drawings are well preserved. They had not been exposed to light, which destroys art work on paper.

With the consent of the archive's owners, the finder handed the folder to the Trieste museum, which will keep it for 50 years. With the permission of the three organisations, the works could be loaned to Ljubljana, where part of Mušič's artistic heritage is kept.