Poland Fights Nazi Dragon
Chicago, 1943
Plakat
Burlingame, Kalifornien: Irvin Ungar

Using posters and brochures, the Polish War Relief solicited donations in the United States to benefit Polish war victims and refugees. It also sought to convince Polish Americans to join the army. For the poster Szyk chose the traditional figure of a dragon slayer as personification of the Polish people. Fearlessly, it fights against the National Socialist attacker, which is represented by a dragon.
The lettering on the lance suggests Szyk at the time had hopes that a “People’s Poland” aligned with and fighting alongside the Soviet Union would defeat National Socialism. Stylistically, the artist drew on the woodcuts of the late fifteenth or early sixteenth centuries. He thus alluded to an epoch in which Poland had experienced a period of national greatness.