Donate for Winter Help

The propaganda poster by self-taught painter Jože Beránek (1913-1945) bearing the slogan Donate for Winter Help was created to address the people on the streets of Ljubljana during the winter of 1944. We have chosen it as this month's archivalia for several reasons. We wish to draw attention to the importance of preservation of our cultural heritage on the one hand, while highlighting the significance of a specific artefact as such on the other.  

Beránek’s posters clearly demonstrate the author’s remarkable talent, particularly when considering he was in principle a technical drawer, who at the start of the war had already been making illustrations for the newspaper Slovenec and exhibiting his work at the Jakopič Pavilion art gallery. During the war, he sought artistic advice from both Marjan Tršar and Božidar Jakac, and in 1944, he also attended France Gorše’s painting school. In the autumn of 1944, he joined the propaganda department of the Slovenian Home Guard, where he created illustrations for the journal titled Slovenian Home Guard. Today, he is perhaps best known for his posters encouraging men to join the Home Guard, although he was also an established creator of lifelike, dynamic and realistic depictions, perfectly reflecting the prevailing mood and atmosphere of that time. We are aware that Beránek’s work is relatively unknown to the public, largely due to his decisions during wartime. His choice to join the Slovenian Home Guard sealed his post-war fate. A handful od documents preserved at the Archives of the Republic of Slovenia reveal that as an anti-communist and Home Guard propagandist, Beránek became of interest to the Liberation Front intelligence already during the war. Despite this, he refused to flee to Austria once the war was over, believing that, just as a propagandist, his life was not in any immediate danger. After being summoned by the military authorities, he appeared at the partisan Headquarters Ljubljana at the end of May 1945 and was imprisoned in the camp in Šentvid nad Ljubljano. He returned home after a week; when he left for the second time, he never came back. Although the prison records of the post-war secret police state that he was released on June 2, 1945, according to some information he was killed on Mount Krim. His family never found out where exactly he had died, and it was only in 1969 that he was officially declared dead and entered into death register. Only a decade ago were his works finally included in the exhibition on the history of Slovenian posters, which was held at the Museum of Architecture and Design.

Since the poster presented here is a propaganda poster, it is worth mentioning its importance in the context of wartime propaganda; drawings, illustrations, caricatures, and graphics are an indispensable part of any war propaganda. The power of illustration in this sense seemed unparalleled and visual propaganda spoke to the public in a much more subtle way than, for example, the one included in wall newspapers. The poster depicting a pale, sad and frightened deportee girl is not the only poster of the Winter or Social Help campaign, but it is perhaps the most expressive. It seems to depict stories that go beyond just providing aid to the poor and those in need during war. The gloomy background can be perceived as a hint at the historical events that had taken place before the poster was created; occupation of Slovenia by the Axis powers, armed resistance of the part of the population, revolution, collaboration, divided nation, and the burden of entirety of the Second World War.

The girl appeals to people to donate to Winter Help, the only form of social or humanitarian help of that time, which was established already in the Drava Banovina in 1939. After Italian occupation, the founding of the Province of Ljubljana, and its annexation to the Kingdom of Italy in May 1941, Italian occupation authorities founded the Provincial Support Office and implemented their own social security system, while banning Winter Help, along with all other forms of charitable assistance outside the scope of the Provincial Support Office. The campaign Winter Help was eventually restored in the winter of 1943/1944, following the German occupation of the Province of Ljubljana and a broad propaganda campaign in public media and through posters and leaflets. At that time, Winter Help was organized as an independent office under the Head of the Provincial Administration in Ljubljana. In April 1944 it was succeeded by Social Help, which operated initially under the supervision and eventually as part of the Provincial Support Office. Winter Help played a significant role, particularly in providing for refugees fleeing from the partisans (as did the Diocesan Charity Office since July 1942) and for those who until the end of 1943 had been supported by the Charitable Union societies (such as Vincentian and Elizabethan Conference, Railway Station Mission). The efforts of these charitable associations were initially directed towards helping anti-communist individuals and their families who were affected by the war. By the time it was abolished at the end of March 1944, Winter Help had received almost 10,000 applications, which they first needed to verify. They managed to do so for just over a third of them, paying out 1,425 financial supports.   

Despite its political context, the poster presented here carries a universal message: the greatest victims of all wars are children. Out of almost 1.5 million people who lived in the territory of the present-day Slovenia during the Second World War, at least 5868 (0.4 % of the population) of those who lost their lives due to war-related violence were minors, 1635 of whom were under the age of ten. As suggested by the poster Donate for Winter Help, they were not the only victims of the war; minors could also be found among the injured, the disabled, the surviving internees, those returning with their parents from exile or forced labour, among the stolen children, war orphans, those returning to their burned-down homes, or among those suffering in other ways. This is why the image of a pale girl on the poster is timeless and can be displayed at any of the past or present war zone. We seem to be living in unstable times, where one in every five children resides in areas torn by war conflicts, the number of which is the highest since World War II. Beránek’s poster serves to demonstrate how societies, and especially its most vulnerable part, are affected by war.

The poster was created during the conditions of the war and was most probably exposed to light and other environmental factors. Also important here is the fact that it was printed on paper made of wood fibres. Such paper is of a lower-quality and contains high percentage of lignin, which when exposed to light causes the paper to turn yellow and brown, breaking down the molecular bonds in cellulose, which leads to weaker mechanical properties, and, ultimately, to disintegration of the material. It should be stressed that photochemical reactions continue even after paper is no longer exposed to light, which is why it keeps deteriorating despite being stored properly in archival repository. This process is evident when comparing the current state of Beránek’s poster with the reproduction of it taken in 2009. According to experts from the Conservation and Restoration Centre of the Archives of the Republic of Slovenia this type of deterioration cannot be stopped even by conservation-restoration treatment. However, with proper storage, the process can be slowed down. Damage caused by the light are irreversible and cumulative, which is why it is crucial that we minimize the exposure of such materials to light. Any further exposure can accelerate the browning of the paper and the weakening of its mechanical properties, ultimately leading to loss of information. For this reason, we also keep a digitized version of the poster, showing the state of the poster before (2009) and after the conservation treatment (2025). Senior conservator Mateja Kotar first dry cleaned the poster, filled in the missing parts using Japanese paper, and strengthened the fragile medium by lining it with starch and thin Japanese paper. Finally, she also retouched the added parts.

Anja Props

Tadeja Tominšek Čehulić