Image of the Virgin Mary carved of bread

An image of the Virgin Mary carved of a rhomboidal piece of prison bread. The Virgin Mary is shown half-length. She wears a crown and is surrounded by a nimbus. Her hands are folded over her chest in a gesture of prayer. The image is a piece of memorabilia of the Polish prisoners held in the Soviet camps during World War II.
During the 15 months of the Soviet occupation of Poland, around 475,000 citizens of the Second Republic of Poland fell victim to the Soviet violence. The number includes people who were imprisoned, convicted and deported to forced labour camps, prisoners of war, young people forced to join the Red, and everybody who was sent, through more or less coercive measures, to work in the Soviet factories and mines. Until the signing of the Sikorski-Majski agreement which resulted in issuing by the Soviet authorities of the Amnesty Act (August 1941) for the deported Polish citizens, over 58, 000 of Poles in the Soviet labour camps, forced settlements, mines and in exile, starved to death, or died of cold, diseases and exhaustion caused by hard physical labour and relegation to the margins of the Soviet Society.