Full text of "WITOLD'S REPORT"

WITOLD'S REPORT REPORT BY CAPTAIN WITOLD PILECKI Translated from Polish for the "LET'S REMINISCE ABOUT WITOLD PILECKI" ("PRZYPOMNIJMY O ROTMISTRZU") initiative, by Jacek Kucharski TABLE OF CONTENTS NOTE: The division of the text into chapters / sub-chapters and the headers are added by the Editor. 1940] Pre-planned arrest] Transportation] Reception and accommodation - "in Hell"] Living conditions. Order of the day. Quasi-food. "To go to the wires".] Camp authorities] Order of the day. Everyday atrocities. Work. Erection of the crematorium] Beginning of the conspiracy organisation] ■"Bloody Alois"] Torture: "Gymnastics", "Death Wheel", etc.] Stove-maker's work. Private life of an SS-man. Contrast of the worlds] Weather conditions. "Job under the roof"] ;"The camp was a gauge which tested human characters"] Work in the fields. Destruction of villages around the camp and expulsion of their nhabitants] Paw cabbage and magel-wurzel as food. Dysentery] Work in the fields. Two-ton construction beams carried by hands] Both dead and alive must be present on roll-calls. Insufficient food] "Well, Tomasz, how do you feel?"] In the woodwork shop] Carpenter's work in block 5] "The bestiality of German butchers". First escapes. "Standing at attention". Barbed wire : ences] The "Volksdeutche": " They used to do away Poles"] "There was an outflow via the crematorium chimney"] "A modern sweepstake"] "A joke in German style" on Christmas 1940] "Punishments in Oswiecim were graded"] ■"No, no! Not food parcels!"] Food supply was illegal] "1941] Further work in block 5] Youngster prisoners and pervert capos] Fired from block 5] First illness. Hospital: a crust of louses on your face. First de-lousing. Happy rescue] ^Convalescence] ["The camp was like a huge mill, processing living people into ash"] [Progress of conspiracy] [Profile of supervisors: butchers and good men] [First inquiry] [In the great woodwork shop. Creation of the second and third 'fives'] ["The 'heroes' dressed in the uniform of the German soldier". The camp orchestra.] ["Old numbers were scarce". A reflection on 20th century] ["Prisoners who met a good fortune to become swine-herds, ate some portions of excellent food taken away from pigs"] [You must keep your eyes open] [New members of the organisation] ["Zugangs"] ["Muslims"] ["Oh! Uncle!"] [Woodwork shop again] [The "Stammlager" and its branches: Buna and Brzezinka] [Releases from Oswiecim] ["An old priest stepped forward and asked the commander to select him and to release that young one from penalty"] ["The camp authorities had special delight, when they collected a larger group of Poles for executions by firing on days, which had been celebrated as national holidays in Poland"] [In the sculpture studio. Conspiracy] [Massacre of Soviet prisoners of war] ["After a short time the bell cracked"] [Those unable to work] [Progress of the organisation. The four "five". The political cell] [Good Oberkapo Konrad, who loved art. "The artistic commando". In the tannery] ["Was it conceivable for a prisoner of Oswiecim to take hot baths?"] [Multi-level beds received, at last] [Beaten for the first time] [Beaten for the second time] [My military promotion] ["Good" positions: musician, hairdresser] [Another "transport of those sent here to be done away quickly - of Poles"] [Death register innovation: "to add 50 numbers a day..."] [Our Christmas tree with the White Eagle hidden inside] [Mortality: "There remained six of us from our hundred"] [The second inquiry] ["Seidler's Week"] [1942] ["The most monstrous" year] ["Change of attitude towards Jews"] [Priests] [Murder of Soviet prisoners of war continued] [Hours of work] [Collective responsibility abolished] [Siberian typhus] [Denunciation mailboxes] [Ordered to sing German songs] [Erection of gas chambers] [Colonel 62] [Czech prisoners] [Bloody Alois again: "What? Are you still alive?"] [Potyomkin-style inspections of the camp] [The conspiracy organisation] [Conspiracy radio transmitter] [Contacts through civilian population] [My colleague 59. Heinrich Himmler's inspection. German commission poured with water.] [Releases stopped in March 1942. The camp orchestra.] [Creation of women's camp. Gas chambers in operation. Massacre of Polish women.] [The new crematorium: "Three-minute electric combustion"] [Beautiful chestnut and apple trees were blooming...] [Transports of women] [A change of policy: phenol injection instead of killing with a spade or stick] 41 [Re-numberings] [Plan of a military action] [To get rid of informers. The 'Volksdeutche'] [Done away by typhus] [Transports to Mauthausen] [Transports of Jews from all over Europe] [The "Canada"] [Beautiful jasmines were in bloom...] [One of escapes: "They drove away in the commander's car"] [Football and box marches] [Unsuccessful escapers. "Humanitarian" ways of murder. Colonel 62] [A reflection] ["Muslim" women prisoners] [Tower of Babel: the camp becomes multinational] [Transports of Jews still arrive. Annihilation. Some of them allowed to live a bit longer] [An escape that failed] [Women's camp. A next massacre of women.] [Toilets and water in blocks] [In the spoon shop] [Typhus] [The conspiracy organisation] ["Life de-lousing"] [Second illness: typhus] [Small air-raid and great panic among SS-men] [Second illness continued] [Plan of the organisation] [In the tannery. Things left by gassed people. Gold] ["For several months we were able to seize the camp almost any day"] [Echo of a "pacification" of the Lublin region. Transport of Poles gassed in Brzezinka] [A murder of Polish children] ["To sign the Volksliste"? ... "No! Never! Nobody will be able to spit upon my Polish national character!"] [A selection to death and a dilemma. "A mutiny would set our ranks on fire - it would be a vis maior to untie our hands. Everyone was ready for death, but before it we would inflict a bloody repayment on our butchers"] [The conspiracy] [Food parcels allowed, at last.] [One of escapes: A revenge upon a butcher] [1943] ["A boy of 1 0 was standing and searching somebody with his eyes"] [Consequences of Christmas gathering] ["Beklaidungskammer"] [Pseudo-medical experiments] ["The authorities acknowledged that so a large concentration of Poles ready to do everything - was a danger"] [In the parcel department. Additional food for colleagues.] [Plan of escape through the sewer system] [Gypsies delivered to gas] [One of escapes: "Barrel of Diogenes"] [Pseudo-Polish SS-men: " such kinds of double-faced and nasty people were useful for us many times"] [Great transportation of Poles to other camps] [The Escape] [Final decision] [Changes in organisation of roll-calls] [Examination of the bakery] [Cases of sexual intercourse] [Cases of "gold rush"] [Easter time. Final preparation] [In the bakery] [Our "take-off"] [Epilogue] [Back in Warsaw. Conspiracy. Assistance for Oswiecim prisoners' families. Meeting my colleagues from Oswiecim] [Warsaw Uprising of 1944] [Estimation of numbers of deaths in Oswiecim] [" Now I would like to tell, what I feel in general while I am among people"] [Editor's Appendix] Glossary of the camp language Glossary - the camp hierarchy Glossary of Polish given names and its diminutives [1940] [Pre-planned arrest] Thus, I am expected to describe bare facts only, as my colleagues want it. It was said: "The more strictly you will adhere to nothing but facts, relating them without comments, the more valuable it will be". So, I will try... but we were not made of wood... not to say of stone (but it seemed to me that also stone had sometimes to perspire). Sometimes, among facts being related, I will insert my thought, to express what was felt then. I do not think if it must needs decrease the value of what is to be written. We were not made of stone - I was often jealous of it - our hearts were beating - often in our throats, with some thought rattling somewhere, probably in our heads, which thought I sometimes caught with difficulty... About them - adding some feelings from time to time - I think that it is only now when the right picture can be rendered. On 19 September 1940 - the second street round-up in Warsaw. Several people are still alive, who saw me walk alone at 6:00 a.m. and stand in the "fives" arranged of people rounded up in the street by SS-men. Then we were loaded into trucks in Wilson Square and carried to the Cavalry barracks. Upon registration of our personal data and taking away any sharp-edged tools (under threat of shooting down if just a safety-razor blade was found on anybody later) we were carried into a manege, where we stayed during 19 and 20 September. During those several days some of us could get acquainted with a rubber baton falling down upon their heads. Nevertheless it was within the limits of acceptable measures, for people accustomed to such ways of keeping law by guardians of order. In that time some families bribed out their loved ones free, having paid huge sums to SS-men. In the night we all slept side by side on the ground. A large reflector placed by the entrance lit the manege. SS-men with machine guns were arranged in the four sides. There were one thousand eight hundred and several tens of us. I personally was upset by the passiveness of the mass of Poles. All those rounded up became imbibed with a kind of a psychosis of the crowd, which in that time expressed itself in that, that the whole crowd was similar to a herd of sheep. I was haunted by a simple idea: to agitate the minds, to stir the mass to an action. I proposed to my companion SJawek Szpakowski (I know he was alive until the Warsaw Uprising) a common action in the night: to get the crowd under our control, to attack the posts, in which my task would be - on my way to the toilet - to "brush against" the reflector and destroy it. But the purpose of my presence in this environment was quite different, while the latter option would mean to agree to much smaller things. In general, he considered this idea to be out of the sphere of fantasy. [Transportation] On 21 September in the morning we were loaded into trucks and, accompanied by escort motor cycles with machine guns, we were transported to the West Railway Station and loaded into goods-vans. Apparently, lime had been transported by those vans before, as the whole floor was scattered with it. The vans were locked up. We were on transport the whole day. Neither drink nor food was given. After all, nobody wanted to eat. We had some bread given out to us on the preceding day, which we did not know how to eat and how to value. We only desired something to drink very much. Under the influence of shocks, lime was getting powdered. It was rising into the air, excited our nostrils and throats. They did not give us any drink. Through interstices of planks with which the windows were nailed up, we saw we were transported somewhere in the direction of Czestochowa. About 10:00 p. m. the train stopped in some place and it continued its way no more. Shouts, cries were heard, opening of railway vans, barking of dogs. In my memories I would call that place the moment in which I had done with everything what had existed on Earth so far, and began something which was probably somewhere outside me. I say it not to exert myself to some weird words, descriptions. On the contrary - I think I do not need to exert myself to any nice-sounding but inessential words. So it was. Not only the gun butts of SS-men struck our heads - something more struck them also. All our ideas were kicked off in a brutal way, to which ideas we had been acquainted on the Earth (to some order of matters, i. e. law). All that fizzled out. They tried to strike us most radically. To break us mentally as soon as possible. The hum and clatter of voices was approaching gradually. At last, the door of our van was opened vehemently. Reflectors directed inside blinded us. - Heraus! rrraus! rrraus! - shouts sounded out, while SS-men's butts fell upon the shoulders, backs and heads of my colleagues. We had to land outside quickly. I sprang off and, exceptionally, I did not get any blow of a gun butt; while forming our fives I happened to get to the centre of the column. A pack of SS-men were beating, kicking and making incredible noise "zu Funfte!" Dogs, set on us by the ruffian soldiers, were jumping at those who stood in the edges of the fives. Blinded by reflectors, pushed, kicked, assailed by dogs being set on us, we were suddenly placed in such conditions, in which I doubt if anyone of us had been placed before. The weaker of us were bewildered to such a degree, that they formed a really thoughtless group. We were driven forward, towards a larger group of concentrated lights. On the way one of us was ordered to run towards a pole aside from the road and a machine gun burst was let off at him at once. Killed. Ten colleagues were pulled out of our ranks at random and shot down on the way with the use of machine guns, under "joint and several responsibility" for an "escape", which was arranged by the SS-men themselves. All the eleven people were being dragged on straps tied to one of the legs of each of them. Dogs were irritated by the bleeding corpses and were set on them. All that was accompanied by laugh and scoffs. [Reception and accommodation - "in Hell"] We were approaching the gate in a wire fence, on which an inscription: "Arbeit macht frei" was placed. Later on we learned to understand it well. Behind the fence, brick buildings were arranged in rows, among them there was a vast square. Standing among a line of SS-men, just before the gate, we had more quiet for a while. The dogs were kept off, we were ordered to dress up our fives. Here we were counted scrupulously - with the addition, in the end, of the dragged dead corpses. The high and at that time still single-line fence of barbed wire and the gate full of SS-men brought a Chinese aphorism to my mind: "On your coming in, think of your retreat, then on your coming out you will get unharmed"... An ironic smile arose inside me and abated... of what use would it be here? Behind the wires, on the vast square, another view struck us. In somewhat fantastic reflector light creeping on us from all sides, some pseudo-people could be seen. By their behaviour, similar rather to wild animals (here I certainly give offence to animals - there is no designation in our language for such creatures). In strange, striped dresses, like those seen in films about the Sing-Sing, with some orders on coloured ribbons (I got such an impression in the flickering light), with sticks in their hands, they assailed our colleagues while laughing aloud. By beating their heads, kicking those lying on the ground in their kidneys and other sensitive places, jumping with boots upon their chests and bellies - they were afflicting death with some kind of nightmarish enthusiasm. "Ah! So we are locked up in a lunatic asylum!..." - a thought flashed inside me. - What a mean deed! - I was reasoning by the categories of the Earth. People from a street round- up - that is, even in the opinion of Germans, not charged with any guilt against the Third Reich. There flashed in my mind some words of Janek W., who had told me after the first street round-up (in August) in Warsaw. "Pooh! You see, people caught in the street are not charged with any political case - this is the safest way to get into the camp". How naively, over there in Warsaw, we tackled the matter of Poles deported to the camps. No political case was necessary to die here. Any first comer would be killed at random. In the beginning, a question was tossed by a striped man with a stick: "Was bist du von zivil?" An answer like: priest, judge, barrister, resulted in beating and death. Before me, a colleague stood in a five, who, upon the question tossed to him with parallel grasping him by his clothes below his throat, answered: "Richter" . A fatal idea! In a while he was on the ground, beaten and kicked. So, educated classes were to be done away first of all. Upon that observation I changed my mind a bit. They were not madmen they were some monstrous tool used to murder Poles, which started its task from the educated classes. We were terribly thirsty. Pots with some beverage were just delivered. The same people, who had been killing us, were distributing round mugs of that beverage along our ranks, while asking: "Was bist du von zivil?" We got that desired, that is wet beverage, and mentioned some trade of a worker or a craftsmen. And those pseudo-people, while beating and kicking us, shouted:... "hier ist KL Auschwitz - mein lieber Mann!" We asked each other, what that meant? Some knew that here was Oswiecim, but for us it was only the name of a Polish small town - the monstrous opinion of that camp had not have enough time to reach Warsaw, and it was also not known in the world. It was somewhat later that this word made the blood of people at freedom to run cold, kept prisoners of Pawiak, Montelupi, Wisnicz, Lublin awake in the night. One of colleagues explained us we were inside the barracks of the 5th Squadron of Horse Artillery. - just near the town of Oswiecim. We were informed that we were a "zugang" of Polish gangsters, who assailed the quiet German population and who would face due penalty for that. Everything, what arrived to the camp, each new transport, was called "zugang". In the meantime the attendance record was being checked, our names given by us in Warsaw were being shouted out, which must be answered quickly and loudly "Hier!" It was accompanied by many reasons for vexation and beating. After the check-up, we were sent to the grandiloquently called "bath". In such way transports of people rounded up in the streets of Warsaw, supposedly for work in Germany, were received, in such way every transport was received in initial months after the establishment of the Oswiecim camp (14 June 1940). Out of darkness somewhere in the above (from above the kitchen) our butcher Seidler spoke: "Let nobody of you think, he will ever go out of here alive ... your ration is calculated in such a way that you will live for 6 weeks, whoever will live longer... it means he steals - he will be placed in the Special Commando - where you will live short!" what was translated into Polish by Wtedystaw Baworowski - a camp interpreter. This was aimed to cause as quick mental breakdown as possible. We put all the bread we had into wheel-barrows and a "rollwaga" carried into the square. Nobody regretted it at that time - nobody was thinking about eating. How often, later, upon a mere recollection of that made our mouths water and made us furious. Several wheel- barrows plus a rollwaga full of bread! - What a pity, that it was impossible to eat our fill, for the future. Together with a hundred of other people I at last reached the bathroom ('Baderaum", block 19, old numbering). Here we gave everything away, into bags, to which respective numbers were tied. Here our hairs of head and body were cut off and we were slightly sprinkled by nearly cold water. Here my two teeth were broken out, for that I was bearing a record tag with my number in my hand instead in my teeth, as it was required on that particular day by the bathroom chief ("Bademeister"). I got a blow in my jaws with a heavy rod. I spat out my two teeth. Bleeding began... Since that moment we became mere numbers. The official name read as following: "Schutzhaftling kr...xy..." I wore the number 4859. Its two thirteens (made out of the central and the edge figures) confirmed my colleagues in a conviction that I would die, but I was very glad of them. We were given white-blue striped dresses, denim ones, the same like those, which had shocked us so much in the night. It was evening (of 22 September 1940). Many things became clear now. The pseudo-people wore yellow bands with black inscription "CAPO" in their left arm, while instead of the coloured medal ribbons, as it had seemed to me in the night, they had on their chests, on the left side, a coloured triangle, "winkel" , and below it, as if in the end of a ribbon, a small black number placed on a small white patch. The winkels were in five colours. Political offenders wore a red one, criminals - green ones, those despising work in the Third Reich - black ones, Bible Students - violet ones, homosexuals - pink ones. Poles rounded up in the street in Warsaw for work in Germany, were assigned, by all accounts, red winkels as political offenders. I must admit, that of all the remaining colours - this one suited me best. Dressed in striped denims, without caps and socks (I was given socks on 8, while cap on 15 December), in wooden shoes falling off our feet, we were led out into a square called the roll-call square, and were divided in two halves. Some went into block 10, others (we) to block 17, the upper storey. Prisoners ("Haftlinge") were accommodated both in the ground and in the upper stories of individual blocks. They had a separate management and administrative staff, as to create an autonomous "block". For a distinction - all blocks in upper storey had letter "a" added to their numbers. Thus, we were delivered to block 17a, in the hands of our blockman Alois, later called the "Bloody Alois". He was a German, a communist with red winkel - a degenerate, imprisoned in camps for about six years; he used to beat, torture, torment, and kill several persons a day. He took pleasure in order and in military discipline, he used to dress our ranks by beating with a rod. "Our block", arranged in the square in 10 rows, dressed by Alois who was running along the rows with his great rod, could be an example of dressing for the future. Then, in the evening, he was running across our rows for the first time. He was creating a new block out of us, the "zugangs". He was seeking, among unknown people, some men to keep order in the block. Fate willed it that he chose me, he choose Karol Swietorzecki (a reserve officer of 13th cavalry regiment), Witold Rozycki (not that Rozycki of bad opinion, this one was a good fellow from WJadystawa street in Warsaw) and several others. He quickly introduced us into the block, on the upper storey, order us to line in row along the wall, to do about-turn and to lean forward. He "thrashed" each of us five blows for all his worth, in the place apparently assigned for that purpose. We had to clench our teeth tightly, so that no groan would get out... The examination came off - as it seemed to me - well. "Mind you know how it tastes and mind you operate your sticks in this way while taking care of tidiness and order in your block." In this way I became room supervisor ("Stubendienst"), but not for long. Although we kept an exemplary order and tidiness, Alois did not like the methods we tried to achieve it. He warned us several times, personally and through Kazik (a confident of Alois) and when it was of no use, he went mad and evicted some of us into the camp area for three days, speaking: "Let you taste the work in the camp and better appreciate the roof and quiet you have in the block". I knew that less and less number of people returned from work day by day - I knew they were "done away" at this work or another, but not until then that I was to learn it to my cost, how a working day of an ordinary prisoner in the camp looked like. Nevertheless, all were obliged to work. Only room supervisors were allowed to remain in blocks. [Living conditions. Order of the day. Quasi-food. "To go to the wires".] We all slept side by side on the floor on spread straw mattresses. In the initial period we had no beds at all. The day commenced for all of us with a sound of gong, in summer at 4:20 a. m., in winter at 3:20 a. m.. Upon that sound, which voiced an inexorable command - we sprung to our feet. We quickly folded our blankets, carefully aligning their edges. The straw mattress was to be carried to one end of the room, where "mattress men " took it in order to put it into a stacked pile. The blanket was handed in the exit from the room to the "blanket man". We finished putting on our clothes in the corridor. All that was done running, in haste, but then the Bloody Alois, shouting "Fenster auf !" used to burst with his stick into the hall, and you had to hurry to take your place in a long queue to the toilet. In the initial period we had no toilets in blocks. In the evening we ran to several latrines, where up to two hundred people used to line up in a queue. There were few places. A capo stood with a rod and counted up to five - whoever was late to get up in time, his head was beaten with a stick. Not a few prisoners fell in the pit. From the latrines we rushed to the pumps, several of which were placed on the square (there were no baths in blocks in the initial period). Several thousand people had to wash themselves under the pumps. Of course, it was impossible. You forced your way to the pump and catch some water in your dixy. But your legs must have been clean in the evening. Block supervisors on their tour inspections in evenings, when the "room supervisor" reported the number of prisoners lying in straw mattresses, checked the cleanness of legs, which had to be put out from under blankets up, so that the "sole" would be visible. If a leg was not sufficiently clean, or if the block supervisor wished to deem it to be such - the delinquent was beaten on a stool. He received from 1 0 to 20 blows with a stick. It was one of the ways for us to be done for, effected under the veil of hygiene. Just as it was doing for us, the devastation of organism in latrines by actions done in pace and by order, the nerve-fraying stir at the pumps, the ever-lasting haste and "Laufschritt" , applied everywhere in the initial period of the camp. From the pump, all ran aside, for the so-called coffee or tea. The liquid was hot, I admit, brought in pots to the rooms, but it imitated those beverages ineffectively. An ordinary, plain prisoner saw no sugar at all. I noticed that some colleagues, who had been here for several months, had swelled faces and legs. Doctors asked by me told that the reason was an excess of liquids. Kidneys or heart broke down - a huge effort of the organism by physical work, with parallel consumption of nearly everything in liquid: coffee, tea, "awo" and soup! I decided to give up liquids of no advantage and to abide by awo and soups. In general, you should keep your whims under control. Some did not want to resign the hot liquids, because of the cold. Things were worse regarding smoking, as in the initial period of our stay in the camp, a prisoner had no money, as he was not allowed to write a letter at once. He waited for a long time for that, and about three months had passed before a reply came in. Who was not able to control himself and exchanged bread for cigarettes, he was already "digging his own grave". I knew many such ones - all of them went by the board. There were no graves. All dead bodies were burnt in a newly erected crematorium. Thus, I did not hurry for hot slops, others pushed their way, thus giving a reason to be beaten and kicked. If a prisoner with swelled legs managed to seize a better work and food - he recuperated, his swell went by, but festering abscesses arose on his legs, which discharged a foetid liquid and sometimes flegmona, which I saw for the first time here only. By avoiding liquids, I protected myself from that successfully. Not yet all had succeeded to take their hot slops, when the room supervisor with his stick emptied the room, which must have been tidied up before the roll-call. In the meantime, our straw mattresses and blankets were arranged, in accordance with a fashion which prevailed in that block, as blocks competed with each other in arrangement of that "beddings" of ours. Additionally, the floor had to be washed up. The gong for the evening roll-call used to sound at 5:45. At 6:00 all of us stood in dressed ranks (each block drawn up in ten ranks, to make the calculation easier). All had to be present on the roll-call. When it happened that somebody was missing - not because he had escaped, but e.g. some novice naively had hidden, or he had just overslept and the roll-call did not correspond to the number of the camp - then he was searched, found, dragged to the square and nearly always killed in public. Sometimes that missing was a prisoner, who had hanged himself somewhere in the garret, or was just "going to the wires" during the roll-call - then shots of a guard in a tower resounded and the prisoner fell transfixed by bullets. Prisoners used to "go to the wires" mostly in the evening - before a new day of their torments. Before the night, a several-hours break in anguishes, it occurred rarely. There was an official order, forbidding colleagues to prevent suicides. A prisoner caught "preventing" went to the "bunker" for punishment. [Camp authorities] All authorities inside the camp were composed exclusively of prisoners . Initially of Germans, later, of prisoners of other nationalities began to clamber up to those posts. The block supervisor (red band with while inscription "Blockaltester" , on his right arm) used to do away prisoners in his blocks by rigour and by stick. He was responsible for the block, but he had nothing in common with prisoner's work. On the other hand, a capo did for prisoners in his "commando" by work and by stick, and he was responsible for the work of his commando. The highest authority in the camp was senior of the camp ("Lageraltester"). Initially, there were two of them: "Bruno" and "Leo" - prisoners. Two cads, before whom everybody trembled with fear. They used to murder in full view of all prisoners, sometimes by one blow of a stick or fist. True name of the former - Bronistew Brodniewicz, of the latter - Leon Wieczorek, two ex-Poles in German service... Dressed differently from the others, in long boots, navy-blue trousers, short overcoats and berets, black band with white inscription on left arm, they created a dark pair, they often used to go together. Yet not all those authorities inside the camp, recruited out of "people from behind the wires" swept dust before every SS-man, they answered his questions not before they had taken their caps off, while standing at attention... What a mere nothing an ordinary prisoner was... Authorities of superior men in military uniforms, the SS-men, lived outside the wires, in barracks and in the town. [Order of the day. Everyday atrocities. Work. Erection of the crematorium] I revert to the order of the day in the camp. The roll-call. We stood in ranks dressed by stick and as straight as a wall (after all, I hankered after the well-dressed Polish ranks since the time of the war of 1939). Vis-a-vis to us a macabre view: ranks of block 13 (old numbering) - SK ("Straf-Kompanie" ) stood, being dressed by block supervisor Ernst Krankemann using his radical method - just his knife. In that time all Jews, priests and some Poles with proven cases went into the SK. Krankemann was in duty to do away the prisoners assigned to him nearly every day, as quickly as possible; this duty corresponded to the nature of that man. If anybody inconsiderately pushed forward for several centimetres, Krankenmann stabbed him with his knife he wore in his sleeve. Whoever by excessive caution pushed back a bit too much, he received, from the butcher running along the ranks, a stab in his kidneys. The view of a falling man, kicking or groaning, made Krankemann mad. He jumped upon his chest, kicked his kidneys, sexual organs, did him away as quickly as he could. Upon that view he got pervaded as by electric current. Then, among Poles standing arm in arm, one thought was felt, we were all united by our rage, our desire of revenge. Now I felt myself to be in an environment perfectly ready to start my job, and I discovered in me a substitute of joy... In a while I was terrified if I was sane - joy here - this was probably insane... After all I felt joy - first of all for that reason I wanted to start my job, so I did not get in despair. That was a moment of a radical turn in my mental life. In an illness it would be called: the crisis had happily gone. For the time being, you had to fight with great effort for survival. A gong after a roll-call meant: "Arbeitskommando formieren!" Upon such signal all rushed to some commandos i. e. to those work groups, which appeared to be better ones. In that times there was still some chaos regarding assignments (not like later, when everybody went quietly to that commando, to which he had been assigned as a number). Prisoners were rushing in various directions, their ways crossing, of which capos, block supervisors and SS-men made use by beating the running or overturning people with their sticks, tripping them up, pushing, kicking them in most sensitive places. Evicted to the camp area by Alois, I worked by a wheel-barrow, transporting gravel. Simply, as I did not know where to stand and had no favoured commando, I took place in one of the fives of some hundred, which was taken to that work. Mainly colleagues from Warsaw worked here. "Numbers" older than we, that is those who had been imprisoned longer than us, those who had managed to survive so far - they had already taken more convenient "positions". We - from Warsaw - were done for in mass by various kinds of work, sometimes by transporting gravel from one pit being dug into another one, to fill it up, and vice versa. I happened to be placed among those, who transported gravel necessary to complete the construction of a crematorium. We were building the crematorium for ourselves. Scaffolding around the chimney was rising up higher and higher. With your wheel barrow, filled by "vorarbeiters" - lickspittles relentless for us, you had to move quickly and, while upon the wooden boards farther off, to push the wheel-barrow running. Every 15-20 steps there stood a capo with a stick and - while thrashing the running prisoners - shouted "Laufschritt!" Uphill you pushed your wheel-barrow slowly. With an empty wheel-barrow, the "Laufschritt" was obligatory along the whole route. Here, your muscles, skill and eyes competed in your struggle for life. You should have had much strength to push the wheel-barrow, you ought to have known how to keep it on the wooden board, you should have seen and picked out the right moment to pause your work to take breath into your tired lungs. It was here where I saw how many of us - of educated people - were unable to get along in the heavy, ruthless conditions. Yes, then we underwent a hard selection. Sport and gymnastics I had exercised previously, were of great use for me. An educated man, who was looking around helplessly and seeking indulgence or aid from anybody, as if requesting it for that reason he was a barrister or an engineer, always faced a tough stick. Here some learned and pot-bellied barrister or landlord pushed his wheel-barrow so incompetently, it fell down from the board into the sand and he was unable to lift it up. There a helpless professor in spectacles or an older gentleman presented another kind of a lamentable view. All those who were not fit for that work or exhausted their strength when running with the wheel-barrow, were beaten, and in case of a tumble - were killed by a stick or boot. It was in such moments of killing another prisoner when you, like a real animal, stood for several minutes, took breath into your widely moving lungs, somewhat balanced the pace of your thumping heart. A gong for dinner, welcomed with joy by everybody, sounded then in the camp at 11:20. Between 11:30 and 12:00 the noon roll-call was held - in most cases quite quickly. Since 12:00 until 13:00 there was time assigned for dinner. After dinner a gong summoned again to "Arbeitskommando" and the torments were continued until a gong for the evening roll- call. On the third day of my work "on the wheel barrow", after dinner, it seemed to me I would not be able to live up until the gong. I was already very tired and I understood that when those weaker than me to be killed ran short, then my turn would come. Bloody Alois, whom our work in blocks suited in respect of order and tidiness, after the three penal days in the camp, condescendingly accepted us to the block again, saying: "Now you know what the work in the camp means - - »Paf3t auf!« your work in block, that I would not evict you to the camp for ever". In respect of me, he soon put his threat into effect. I did not apply the methods required by him and suggested by Kazik, and I got fired crashing out of the block, which I will describe below. [Beginning of the conspiracy organisation] Now I would like to write about the beginning of the job set on foot by me. In that time the basic task was to establish a military organisation, in order to keep up the spirits of my colleagues, by the delivery and dissemination of news from the outside, by the organisation - to the best of our ability - an additional food and distribution of underwear among those organised, transmission of news to the outside and, as the crown of that all - the preparation of our units to seize the camp, when it became the order of the day, when an order to drop weapons or to land troops was given. I commenced my job like in 1939 in Warsaw, even with some people whom I had recruited to the Secret Polish Army in Warsaw before. I organised here the first "five", to which I swore colonel 1 , captain doctor 2, captain of horse 3, second lieutenant 4 and colleague 5 (the key table with corresponding names I will write separately). The commander of the five was colonel 1 , doctor 2 was received an order to take the control of the situation in the prisoner hospital (Haftlingskrankenbau - HKB), where he worked as a "fleger" (officially, Poles had no right to be doctors, they were allowed to work as hospital orderlies only). In November I sent my first report to the Headquarters in Warsaw, by second lieutenant 6 (until the Uprising he lived in Warsaw in Raszyhska 58 street), officer of our intelligence service, bribed out of Oswiecim. Colonel 1 extended our action on the area of the construction office ("Bauburo"). In future I organised next four "fives". Each of those fives did not know of the existence of other fives, it deemed itself to be the top of the organisation and was developing as widely as the sum of skills and energy of its members allowed. I did so out of caution, so that a possible give-away of one five would not entail a neighbouring five. In future, the fives in wide development became to touch one another and feel each other's presence mutually. Then some colleagues would come to me with the report: "You know, some other organisation is hiding here." I reassured them that they should not have been interested in it. But this is the future. For the time being, there was one five only. ["Bloody Alois"] In the meantime, on some day in the block, in the evening after the roll-call, I went to report to Alois there were three sick persons in the room, who could go to work (they were nearly done away). Bloody Alois went mad and cried: "What, a sick one here in my block?!... no sick ones!... all must work and so must you! Enough of that!..." and he dashed after me with his stick to the hall: "Where are?!..." Two of them were lying by the wall, panting for breath, the third of them knelt in the corner of the hall and was praying. - Was macht er?! - he cried to me. - Er betet. - Betet?!... Who taught him it?!... - Das wei(3 ich nicht - I replied. He jumped to the praying man and began to revile upon his head and shout he was an idiot, that there was no God, it was he who gave him bread and not God... but he did not strike him. Then he ran to those two by the wall and started to kick them in kidneys and other places, while shouting: "auf!!!... auf!!!..." until those two, seeing death before their eyes, rose up by the remainder of their strength. Then he started crying to me: "You can see! I told you they were not ill! They can walk, they can work! Weg! March off to your work! And you with them!" In this way he evicted me to work in the camp. But that one who was praying, he took to the hospital personally. A strange man he was - that communist. [Torture: "Gymnastics", "Death Wheel", etc.] On the square I found myself in a suspicious situation. All stood in work commandos already, waiting for march-out. To run to stand up in the ranks as a late prisoner meant to expose oneself to beating and kicking by capos and SS-men. I saw a unit of prisoners stand in the square, who were not included in the work commandos. In that period a part of prisoners who were excessive at work (there were few commandos, the camp was only beginning to develop) "did gymnastics" in the square. Temporarily near them there were no capos or SS-men, as they were busy in the arrangement of work groups. I ran up to them and stood in their circle "for gymnastics". In the past I liked gymnastics, but from the time of Oswiecim my attraction to it has somewhat faded away. Since 6:00 in the evening, we stood sometimes for several hours and were terribly frozen. Without caps and socks, in thin denims, in that sub-mountain climate of autumn 1940, in the evening nearly always in fog, we shivered with cold. Our legs and hands often protruded out of shortish trousers and sleeves. We were not touched. We had to stand and freeze. The cold put the doing away of us into effect. Capos and block supervisors passing by (often Alois) stopped, laughed and with meaningful movements of their hands, to symbolise volatilization, said: "...und das Leben fliiieeegt...Ha! Ha!" When the fog dispersed, the sun flashed and it became a little warmer, while there remained - as it seemed - little time to dinner, then a heard of capos commenced "gymnastics" with us - one could safely call it a heavy penal exercises. There was too much time until dinner for such kind of gymnastics. - Hupfen! - Rollen! - Tanzen! - Kniebeugen! One of that - "hupfen" - was sufficient to be done away. It was impossible to perform "breast stroke" round the huge square - not only because your bare foots got the skin torn off on the gravel till blood was drawn, but because no muscles were sufficient for such effort. My sport work-out of previous years rescued me here. Here again the weak pot- bellied educated men were done for, those who were incapable of "breast stroke" even on a short distance. Here again the stick would fall on the heads of those who would tumble down each several steps. Again a relentless turn of doing people away... And again, like an animal, you snapped an opportunity and took breath in the moment when the heard of stick-men were besetting their some new victim. After dinner - a next turn. Until the evening many dead and nearly-dead bodies, who quickly passed away in hospital, were dragged off. Just next to us, two rollers were "working". Supposedly, the aim was to level the ground. Yet they were working to do away the people, who were pulling them. Priests with addition of several other Polish prisoners up to the number 20-25, were yoked to it. In the second, larger one about 50 Jews were yoked. Krankenmann and another capo stood on the shafts and, by their body weight, increased the burden of the shaft, to press it down into the shoulders and necks of prisoners who were pulling the rolls. From time to time, the capo or Krankenmann with philosophical tranquillity let down his stick on somebody's head, struck one prisoner or another, who was used as a beast of draught, with such strength that sometimes killed him at once or pushed him fainted under the roll, while beating the rest of prisoners to prevent them from stopping. From that small factory of dead bodies, many people were dragged off by their legs and laid in a row - to be counted during the roll-call. At nightfall Krankenmann, walking about the square, his hands behind his back, contemplated, with smile of satisfaction, those former prisoners lying already in peace. For two days I exercised the "gymnastics" called the "death wheel". On the third day in the morning, while standing in the wheel, I wondered what percentage of the remained trainees is weaker physically and less athletic-trained than me, and calculated for how long I could rely on my own strength, when suddenly my situation was changed suddenly. [Stove-maker's work. Private life of an SS-man. Contrast of the worlds] Commandos were marching off to work. Part of them to work within the wires, while another part marched outside (to work outside the gate or fence). Next to the gate the commander of the camp ("Lagerfuhrer") stood behind his desk, with a group of SS-men. He was inspecting the departing commandos, checking the quantities against those specified in the register. Just next to him there stood the "Arbeitsdienst" - Otto (a German who never struck any Pole). By virtue of his position he assigned work for individual prisoners. He was responsible for manning of individual commandos by workers. While standing on the bend of the wheel near the gates I noticed Otto rushing just towards us. I instinctively moved closer. The "Arbeitsdienst", anxious, came running just on me. - Vielleicht bist du ein Ofensetzer? - Jawohl! Ich bin ein Ofensetzer. - I replied off-hand. - Aber ein guter Meister? - GewiB, ein guter Meister. - Also, schnell... He ordered me to take four more people from the wheel and to rush at full gallop after him to the gate at block 9 (old numbering); pails, trowels, brick hammers, lime were given to us and all our five stood in a line before the desk of the chief of the camp, who was then Karl Fritzsch. I looked at the faces of my new chance companions. I knew none of them. - Funf Ofensetzer - Otto reported loudly, panting. They gave us two guarding soldiers and we marched off outside the gate in the direction of the town. It turned out, that Otto was obliged to prepare several master craftsmen to move stoves in the rooms of an SS-man, he had forgotten and, in the last moment, in order to save the situation, in the time when the previous commando was being counted in the gate, he composed the team of our five. Then we were carried to the flat of the SS-man. In one of the small houses in the town, the owner of the flat, an SS-man spoke German, but in a human tone, what seemed strange to me. He asked who was the main master and explain to me he liquidated his kitchen, that his wife would arrive, so he wanted to move the kitchen plate here, while the small stove into that room. He thought there were too many of us, but the point was first of all in that the work should be done well, so we all may work here and if some of us had nothing to do, they should tidy the garret. He would come here every day to check our work. And he went off. I checked if some of my colleagues knew stoves, when it turned out that no one did, I sent my four to carry water, to dig clay, to temper etc. Two SS-men guarded us outside the house. I left alone. What did I do with the stove? - it does not matter. A man in his struggle for life is able to do more than he had thought before. I disassembled carefully, not to break the tiles, I carefully examined how the chimney flues were running and where and how they were vaulted. Then I put up the kitchen stove and the small stove in the places indicated to me. I constructed all that in four days. But when on the fifth day it was necessary to go and make a test fire in the stove, I got lost in the camp so happily that although I heard that an ofensetzer master was being searched throughout the camp, I was not found. No one guessed to search among gardeners in the garden of the commander... The numbers of our five had not been recorded anywhere also. In those times even capos of commandos not always recorded numbers. Also, I never got to know if the stoves worked well or smoked. I revert to the moment, when I was in the town in the flat of the SS-man for the first time. To be sure, I shall write of bare facts only... I had already seen terrible pictures in Oswiecim - nothing could break me. Though here, where I was not endangered by any stick or kick I felt I had my heart in my mouth and it was as heavy as never before... What I mention here were indisputable facts. But this is a fact from my hart and perhaps due to that it is not quite a bare fact. How's that? - so, there is still the world and people live as before? Here some homes, gardens, flowers and children. Merry voices. Plays. There - hell, murder, cancellation of everything human, everything good... There the SS-man is a butcher, torturer, here - he pretends to be a man. So, where is the truth? There? Or here? In the home he puts up his nest. His wife will arrive, so there is some feeling in him. Church bells - people prey, love, they are born, while just next to them - tortures, murders... Then some mutiny arose in me. There were moments of a heavy contest. Then, for four days, on my way to work by the stoves I saw heaven and hell by turns. I felt as if I was pushed into a fire and into water alternately. That's true! I was hardened then. In the meantime our first "five" did "several steps" forward, several new members were sworn. One of them was captain "Y". His first name was Michal. Captain Michal tackled his business in such way that he helped in the morning to arrange fives for work. In the presence of capos he used to rail at colleagues and grumble; while dressing the ranks he spared capo's stick to many prisoners, he alone made much bustle and noise while winking to our companions when capo stood turned back to them. Capos decided he was fitted for a "chief of twenty" and committed him four "fives", making him a "Vorarbeiter". It was Michal who rescued me on the critical day, when I had to disappear somewhere from the sight of capos. He pushed me into the twenty of a friend sub-capo, in one of commandos marching off through the gate to work. I happened to be in a unit working in the fields, just next the villa of the commander of the camp. In the meantime the "Offensetzer" was being searched in the camp, until Otto found another prisoner and the five went to the stoves as usually. It was raining all the day. Working in the field, from which we were making, in quick pace, a garden for the commander, we were getting wet - it seemed - deep into our bodies, it also seemed that the wind was penetrating us right through. We were drenched to the skin. The wind turned us about for a long time (it was impossible to keep standing one side towards the wind), froze the blood in our veins and only our work, quick work with the spade, generated some heat from the stock of our energy. But the energy had to be managed economically, as its regeneration was very doubtful... We were ordered to take off our denims. In shirts, barefoot, in clogs getting stuck in mud, without caps, water streaming down from out heads when the rain stopped, we were vaporising like horses after a race. [Weather conditions. "Job under the roof"] The year 1940, especially its autumn, made a nuisance to prisoners of Oswiecim by continuous rains, first of all during roll-calls. Roll-calls with rain became a chronic occurrence, even on days which could be numbered among fine ones. Everybody was getting wet during a roll-call - those who worked all day in the field and those who worked all day under the roof. First of all, "old numbers" that is those ones who had arrived two or three months before us, had managed to get a job under the roof. Those months made also a huge difference "in positions" (as all ones under the roof were staffed. In general, a prisoner who arrived a month later, differed from his colleagues not in that he was here shorter, but in that did not experience such anguishes which had been applied a month before. Nevertheless, methods were changed constantly and the whole pleiad of supervisors, beaters and other fellows of the deepest dye, who wanted to endear themselves to the authorities, had always a sufficient number of them. ["The camp was a gauge which tested human characters"] It was likewise also in subsequent years. But for the time being, nobody thought of years. "Kazik" (in block 17) told us some time that the first year was worst to be survived. Some laughed heartily. A year? On Christmas Eve we will be at home! Germans will not sustain. England... etc. (Slawek Szpakowski). Others were seized by horror. A year? Who would sustain a year here, where you were playing blindman's-buff with death each day... maybe today... maybe tomorrow... And when a day seemed sometimes to be a year. And, oddly, a day dragged on to infinity. Sometimes, when strength was missing to do a work, which must have been done - an hour seemed to be a century, whereas weeks were passing quickly. It was odd but it was - it seemed sometimes that it was already something wrong with the time or with our senses. But our senses were not like with other people... like with people over there far away. This was certain. ...That is - when after heavy experiences we got closer to each other, and our trials tightened the bonds of our friendship more than it was the case over there on the Earth... when you had your "pack" in which people supported and rescued each other, many a time risking their own lives... when suddenly under your eyes, your brother, your friend was killed, murdered in the most horrible way - then only one thought came to you! To attack the butcher and to die together... It occurred several times, but it always brought about one more death only... No, it was not the solution! In that way we would die too fast... Then, you saw a prolonged agony of your friend and, so to say, you were dying with him together.... you ceased your existence together with him... yet you got revived, regenerated, transformed. But if it happens not once but, let us say, ninety times - it cannot be helped, you become someone else than you were on the Earth... Thousands of us were dying there... tens of thousands... and finally - hundreds of thousands... So, the Earth and people on it, busy with matters so trifling in our eyes, seemed funny. Thus we were re- forged inwardly. But not everyone. The camp was a gauge, which tested human characters. Some of us slide into a moral sewer. Others got their characters cut like crystal. We were cut by sharp tools. Blows painfully cut into our bodies, but in our souls they found a field to be ploughed. All of us went through such a transformation. Like the ploughed soil is put aside to the right, into a fertile furrow - on the left side it still remains to be ploughed in the next cut. Sometimes the plough jumped up on a stone and left a section of soil not processed, barren.... A waste land. All titles, distinctions, diplomas fell off from us - they remained far away, on Earth... When looking as if from the other world at our profiles dressed in those earthly accretions, you saw all our pack in the past: this one with such a title, that one with another, but you were unable to look at that otherwise than with a smile of forgiveness.... We already addressed each other by our given names . By "Mister" we addressed only "zugangs", as they did not yet understand it. Among us it an offensive word as a rule: Colonel R., whom, by a lapse of my memory, I addressed "Mister Colonel", miffed at me "I wish you'd stop that..." How different it is on the Earth. A Ted or a Tom boasts among his colleagues of his privilege to address by bare "you" some person two ranks higher. All that vanished completely here. We became a bare value. A man could be as much important, as high his value was... [Work in the fields. Destruction of villages around the camp and expulsion of their inhabitants] I worked in the commander's garden for two days. We levelled the ground, marked out lawns, alleys. We removed soil from alleys, dug deeply in the ground. We filled the hollows with thickly strewed, crushed brick. We demolished several small houses in the neighbourhood. In general, all houses near the camp, especially in the zone of "kleine Postenkette" (the small guarding chain), that is inside a ring of several kilometres in its diameter, had to be demolished. German supervisors attacked with special doggedness those buildings, erected here by the Polish population. Rich villas and small, but neat houses, for the construction of which some Polish worker had been saving for all his life perhaps, were disappearing, demolished by prisoners - Poles, driven by sticks, beaten, kicked and insulted by various kinds of "verflucht" . During the whole time of those work there was a continuous opportunity for such persecution. Having ripped off the roofs, pulled down the walls, the most difficult work was to demolish the foundations, which had to disappear without trace. Pits were filled up and the householder, if he returned, would have to seek for a long time the place in which his family nest had been placed before. We dug out some trees also. Nothing was left of a whole homestead. During the destruction of one of such homesteads, I noticed a picture of the Holy Virgin, suspended on a bush, which, as it seemed to me, stuck lonely here and remained whole among all that chaos and destruction. Our men did not want to remove it. In the understanding of capos, when exposed to rain, snow and frost, it would be subject to ill- treatment here. So, much later on a snow-covered bush there could be seen a picture covered by hoar-frost, glittering with its gilding, showing though a misted glass the face and eyes only, which, for prisoners driven here in winter to work, among wild shouts and kicks, was a nice phenomenon, to direct their thoughts to their family homes, of one of them - to his wife, another one - to his mother. Wet through during our work, wet through during roll-calls, we used to put our wet denims for the night upon our heads in place of pillows. In the evening we put on such clothes and went barefoot, in clogs slipping off, without caps, again in rain or penetrating wind. It was November already. Sometimes it was snowing. Colleagues were being done away. They would go to the hospital and return no more. Strange - I was not a Hercules, but I did not even catch a cold. After several days of my work in the garden, Michat put me into a twenty, which he was able to select. So he selected it mainly of colleagues already sworn or such ones whose recruitment into our organisation could be expected - of valuable people, who should have been rescued. Our twenty belonged to a hundred, which together with a dozen or so of other hundreds would go to the "Industriehof II" . Capos raged there: "August the Black", Sigurd, Bonitz, "August the White" and others. Among them there were a dozen of "pups" - of "volksdeutche" in German service, which had a joy in beating prisoners in their faces, beating with stick, etc. One of them got out in his reckoning a bit and after several days was found hanged in one of huts, he must have hanged himself, nobody rescued him - such was an explicit order in the camp. Michal as a "Vorarbeiter", with his twenty, got an assignment to demolish one of the small houses in the field. He led all of us there and we were "working hard" there for several weeks. We were sitting among the corners of the foundation of the house and resting after our work, sometimes we knocked our pick axes so that sounds of any work could be heard. From time to time several colleagues carried away, in a hand-barrow, the rubble into which the walls and foundations of our demolished house were turned. The rubble material was used for construction of an alley, at the distance of several hundred meters from us. Nobody of our authorities deigned to drop in to that house, located far away from work area of the remaining hundreds. Capos had so much work upon doing away a dozen hundred of "Polish rabid curs", that they did not remember us, or they did not want to bother themselves to walk through a muddy field. Michat stood on the guard and was observing diligently. If an SS-man or capo was in a close distance, then immediately a pair of colleagues with hand-barrow set off, pick-axes were striking more briskly the cement of the foundation and vaults of the basement. On my work I stood next to SJawek Szpakowski. Our conversation covered mainly subjects of cooking. We both were optimists. We came to a conclusion we had nearly identical tastes of cooking. So, Slawek planned a menu, with which he would entertain me in Warsaw, upon our return from the camp. From time to time, when hunger annoyed us and rain poured down our backs, we took up our work seriously, splitting off large blocks of concrete. In our striped clothes, with pick-axes and hammers, we made a view, to which you could supplement by singing the verse: hammering ore in mines" and SJawek promised to paint - after our release from this hell -a portrait of me in the striped dress, with a pick-axe. Our spirit was kept up by optimism only, as the rest - all the reality - was very black. We were famished. Ah, if we had that bread, which we placed into wheel-barrows in the square, on the day of our arrival to the camp. In that time we had not yet learn to value bread. [Raw cabbage and magel-wurzel as food. Dysentery] In the vicinity of our work, behind the wires placed along the line of the "great guarding chain" two goats and a cow were grazing, eating with appetite cabbage leaves, which grew on the other side of the wires. On our side there were no cabbage laves, all of them had been eaten. Not by cows, but by creatures similar to people - by prisoners - by us. We ate raw cabbage and raw mangel-wurzel. We were jealous of cows - mangel-wurzel was not bad to them. A huge part of us suffered from stomach. Among prisoners, "Durchfall", that is dysentery, seized an ever-growing mass of people and was rife in the camp. I somehow had no stomach complaint. A prosaic matter - a sound stomach was an important thing in the camp. Whoever fell ill, he had to have much strong will to restrain from eating, at least for a short period, at all. Any special diet was out of question. It could be applied in the hospital, but initially it was difficult to get there and to return. You could leave the hospital rather through the crematorium chimney. Strength of will, so much valuable, was not sufficient in such case. Even if a prisoner controlled himself and resigned his dinner, dried his bread for the next day or burnt it into carbon and ate it to stop the dysentery, he was anyway weakened by his continuously disordered stomach, while during the work of his commando, under an eye of his stick-armed butcher, due to his insufficient strength at work he "got into bad books" as "ein fauler Hund" and was done away by beating. [Work in the fields. Two-ton construction beams carried by hands] On our return to the camp for the midday and for the evening roll-call, that is twice a day, we all had to carry bricks. For the initial two days we carried 7 bricks each of us, then for several days - 6 bricks, while in the end the standard of 5 became fixed. In the camp, when we arrived, six multi-storey and fourteen one-story blocks were fenced by wire. Eight new multi-storey blocks were under construction in the roll-call square, while all one-storey blocks were being raised up to multi-storey ones. The material (bricks, iron, lime) was carried by us to the camp from a distance of several kilometres and before the structures were ended, also many prisoners had ended their lives. Work in Michat's twenty saved my colleagues much their strength. Kind-hearted Michat standing on the guard of our safety, outside the small house, got a cold, got pneumonia and got to the hospital. He died in December. When he left us as he went off to the HKB (it was still the end of November) our noses were put into the grindstone as was the case in all remaining twenties and hundreds. A full-scale murder was commenced again. We unloaded railway vans rolled into side- tracks. Iron, glass, brick, pipes, drains. All materials necessary for an expansion of the camp were delivered. Vans had to be unloaded quickly. So, we made haste, carried, tumbled and fell down. Sometimes, the load of a two-ton beam or rail squeezed us. Even those who did not fall, exhausted their reserve of strength, accumulated somewhere in the past. It was more and more a surprise for them that they were still alive, they still could walk, when long before they had crossed the limit of what a man was able to withstand. Yes, on one hand some great contempt was born for those, who due to their body had to be numbered into people, but also an acknowledgement was born for the strange human nature, so strong in spirit that - as it seemed - it included something of immortality. [Both dead and alive must be present on roll-calls. Insufficient food] To be sure, tens of dead bodies denied that. We four dragged one, while going for the roll- call to the camp. Cold legs and hands, by which we held the dead bodies, bones clothed with livid skin. Now indifferent eyes looked out of livid-grey-violet faces with traces of beating. Some corpses, not yet cooled, their heads broken to pieces by a spade, were swinging in time with the march of the column, which had to keep pace. Our food, sufficient to vegetate in idleness, was by far insufficient to preserve energy in hard work. The more so, that this energy had to heat one's body, chilled during outdoor work. In the "Industriehof II", when we lost Michal, we put our wits in motion and manoeuvred smartly between sticks, so that we could work in a bearable group. One time, unloading railway vans, another time in a "StraBenbau" commando with "August the White". On our way to work in that commando, when it happened we were passing a warehouse, our sense of smell was struck by pork-butcher's products. That sense, sharpened by hunger, was amazingly sensitive then. In our imagination, rows of suspended hams, smoked bacon, fillets, passed smartly. But - it's not for us! The stock was surely for the "superior men" . Anyway - as we made jokes - that sense of smell was a proof that we were people no longer. We were about 40 meters from the warehouse, so it was rather a sense of smell of an animal and not of a man... One thing was always a helped us - our good humour. Nevertheless those conditions altogether began for good to do for us. When I carried bricks to the camp, especially in the evening, I walked with steady gait - but outwardly only. In fact, I sometimes lost my conscious and made several steps quite mechanically, as if sleeping, I was somewhere far away from that place... everything went green before my eyes. I very nearly got stumbled... When my mind commenced again to operate and record my mental state - I woke up... I was penetrated by the command: No! You must not give up! And I continued to walk, driven by my will only... The state of passion was slowly passing away... I entered the camp through the gate. Yes, now I got to understand the inscription over the gate: "Arbeit macht frei" ! Oh, yes, really... work makes free... liberates from the camp... from my consciousness, as I had experienced just a while before. It liberates the spirit from the body while directing that body into crematorium... Yet something should be invented... should be done to stop that process of loss of strength. ["Well, Tomasz, how do you feel?"] When I met WJadek (colonel 1 and doctor 2), WJadek 2 always asked: "Well, Tomasz, how do you feel?" I used to answer, with a good-humoured look, that I felt well. In the beginning they were amazed, later they got accustomed and finally they believed that I felt excellently. I could not answer otherwise. As I wanted to conduct my "job" - despite that my colleagues set about that seriously, and one of them managed to consolidate his position in the hospital, where he began to be of some importance, while another one was expanding his five in the construction office - I still had to suggest that even here our job was quite possible, and to fight a psychosis which no 3 was beginning to suffer. What if I complained that I felt bad or that I was weak and, in fact, so pressed by my work that I sought a solution for myself, to save my own life... Surely, in such case I would not be able to suggest anything to others, neither to require anything from anybody... So I felt well - for the time being, only for others - and then, which I will describe below, things came to such a point that despite continuous dangers and strained nerves, I became to feel well actually and not only in my words addressed to others. In some measure, a division took place. When the body was continuously in anguish, spiritually you felt sometimes - not to exaggerate - wonderfully. Pleasure began to get nested somewhere in your brain, both due to spiritual experiences and due to the interesting game, purely intellectual, which I was playing. But first of all you ought to save your body from being killed. To get under some roof to avoid being done away by horrible outdoor weather conditions. [In the woodwork shop] Stawek's dream was to be accepted to the sculpture studio of the woodwork shop. He intended to try to bring me there afterwards. There were two woodwork shops in the camp already. A large one in the "Industriehof I" , and a small one right in the in block 9 (old numbering). My colleague from my work in Warsaw, captain 3 whose name was Fred, had already contrived to get there. Upon my question he informed me that maybe I would get there if I could persuade the Vorarbeiter of the woodwork shop in some way. He was a volksdeutsch - Wilhelm Westrych - from Pyry near Warsaw. He was here for illegal trade of foreign currency and he expected to be released soon. Westrych, although a volksdeutsch, served two masters. While working for Germans, he sometimes rescued Poles, if he felt it might be of some benefit in future. He willingly rescued some former prominent persons, so that later, when Germany lost the war, in order to whitewash those years of collaboration - to adduce the rescue of a prominent person by him. Then I decided to play vabanque. My colleague, captain 8, promised to dispose well our Vorarbeiter and to take him in the evening before block 8 (old numbering) where he lived. Here our conversation took place. I told him briefly that it was no wonder he did not remember me, as who could have heard of Tomasz.... Here I mentioned my "camp" second name. "Well, I am here under a false name". Here, the Parks took the thread of my life in their scissors - I thought after Sienkiewicz . I was risking my life. It was enough that the Vorarbeiter could make a report or confession to someone of the herd of SS-men and capos, in which he used to mingle, that there was somebody with a false name and I would come to my end. I will not describe how I enticed Westrych in our further conversation. I succeeded. He began to address me by "Mister" , which had no offensive flavour in the mouths of a Vorarbeiter addressing an ordinary prisoner, just on the contrary. He told me he must have seen my face somewhere... maybe on some pictures of receptions in the Warsaw Castle and - what was most important - he told me he always rescued honest Poles and he himself, as a matter of fact, felt to be a Pole, so I should come to the (small) woodwork shop on the next day and he would settle the matter personally with capo. I would be accepted to the woodwork shop for sure and he presumed I would appreciate it in future... The conversation took place on 7 December in the evening. On the next day, 8 December, after the roll-call I got to the woodwork shop. Until then, when I worked in the field, I wore no cap or socks. Here, under roof, in warmth, what an irony, I received socks from Westrych on 8 December and a week afterwards - a cap. He introduced me to the capo of the woodwork shop as a good carpenter (poor ones were not taken at all), who nevertheless should be taken for a trial time. Capo looked at me and nodded his consent. My workday passed in quite different conditions. Here it was warm and dry and the work was clean. Punishment here was not beating, but the mere fact of removal from such a place - the expulsion from the woodwork shop into the nightmare of the camp again. Nevertheless one had to know something in order to work here. I was not short of abilities in my life - but unfortunately - 1 had no knowledge of carpentry. I stood by the workbench of a good carpenter, later a member of our organisation, corporal 9 (his name was Czesiek). I followed him and under his direction I trained my hand in movements typical of an actual carpenter. Capo was present in the shop and knew the work. So all movements should be followed in a professional way. Initially, I did nothing valuable. I shaved planks or sawed together with Czesiek, who declared I did fairly well for the first time. Next day, capo gave me an individual work. Here I had to produce some effect. Fortunately, it was not difficult and with the help of Czesiek I succeeded quite well. On that day we also pushed Stewek into the shop, as capo was just seeking a sculptor and I together with one colleague mentioned him. After several days capo gave Czesiek a new work. Assigned to his workbench, I helped him in his work according to his instructions. He was quite satisfied with me. But the capo himself was not satisfied with the way Czesiek had solved his carpentry task and we both got fired crashing out of the woodwork shop. Czesiek - the master, and I - his assistant. "... and it so happened that... so a good carpenter, but made a mistake in zincs" - our case was told about by carpenters. Czesiek did not make any mistake in "zincs" but understood that the capo did not want to have them with the ordered product. Anyway - our case was a hard one. For an infringement in our work we were fired into the camp for a punitive work by wheel-barrows, at the disposal of senior of the camp. That wheel-barrow day began for us from a heavy morning. "Bruno" and Lagerkapo (a capo assigned to keep order in the camp) had no indulgence for us. It was huge frost, but the Laufschritt did not allow us to feel any cold. But it was worse with our strength. Czesiek, who had worked for a longer time in the woodwork shop, had gathered more strength. My reinforcement was several days of rest spent in warmth, by which I had gathered some strength. But we had been in the camp not for one day. Czesiek contrived to get off as early as in the forenoon, I - in the afternoon, and we hid ourselves, each of us in another block. We began to have some connections in the camp, which a Zugang could not afford to do without the risk of beating. That day passed somehow, but what next? Czesiek did not return to the small woodwork shop. I met him later in another place. But Westrych took care of me seriously... He informed me through Fred (captain 8) that I should come to the shop in the evening after the roll-call. There on the next day he explained to capo that I had only executed what Czesiek ordered me to do, that I was a tolerably good carpenter and capo agreed that I would continue my work. In order not to get into capo's bad books again, Westrych devised a carpenter work for me outside the shop. Here, capo used to look at carpenters' hands and movements, so Westrych led me to block 5 (old numbering) and put me in charge of block supervisor Baltosihski, telling him I could do boot wipers, coal box, repair the window frame and do similar small work, for which no extraordinary carpenter was needed. Additionally, he instructed Baltosihski (I got to know it later from Jurek 10) to take care of me and give me additional food, because it could be useful in future as I was not a first comer. [Carpenter's work in block 5] In block 5 I worked in room no 2, which supervisor was Stasiek Polkowski of Warsaw (hairdresser). I made the above mentioned articles in this block. I repaired or produced new cabinets for room supervisors, out of parts of old cabinets carried from the woodwork shop. I received additional food in the rooms. Baltosihski would send me a bowlful of „second" soup - I began to regenerate my strength. So I worked all December and the beginning of January 1941 , until the incident with Leo, which I will describe below. ["The bestiality of German butchers". First escapes. "Standing at attention". Barbed wire fences] The year 1940 ended. Before I pass on to the year 1941 in Oswiecim, I would like to add some camp pictures, which belong to 1940. The bestiality of German butchers, which emphasized in a degenerated way some instincts of juveniles, criminals, formerly - some teen-age prisoners of German concentration camps, at present - those who formed our authority in Oswiecim, was shown here and there in various modifications. In the SK the butchers enjoyed themselves by crushing testicles - mainly that of Jews - by a wooden hammer on a stump. In "Industriehof II" an SS-man, nicknamed "Pearlie", trained his dog, a wolf-hound, in assailing people, using for that purpose some human material in which no one was interested here at all. The wolf-hound assailed prisoners running by during their work, brought the weakened victims down to the ground, bit into their bodies, tear them with its teeth, jerked their sexual organs, strangled them. The name of the first prisoner who gave a slip Oswiecim though at that time single fence of wires not charged with electricity, was spelled - as if just to spite the camp authorities - exactly: Tomasz Wiejowski . The authorities went mad. After the absence of one prisoner had been ascertained during the roll-call, the whole camp was retained on the square, standing at attention. Of course, no one managed to stand at attention. At the end of the standing, the condition of the people deprived of food, deprived of any opportunity to go to the toilet, was lamentable. SS-men and capos ran among the ranks, beating with sticks those who were unable to keep standing. Some simply fainted of tiredness. Upon an intervention of a German doctor, the commander of the camp replied: „l_et them die. When half of them is dying, I will release them!" This doctor began to go through the ranks and persuade to lie down. When a huge mass of people was lying on the ground and capos were unwilling to beat, the end of standing at attention was announced at last. In the next months the fence was worked upon. The second fence of wire was erected around the first one, at a distance of several meters from it. On both sides of the wire fences, high concrete fences were constructed, to secure the camp against being viewed from the outside. Much later the wire fences were charged with high voltage. Round the camp, between the concrete fence and the wire one, wooden turrets were put up, which controlled the whole camp by their location and machine guns, by which SS-men stood on guard. So, escapes were attempted not from the camp, but from work places, to which prisoners would go outside the wires. Gradually, repressions for escapes became less stern to such a measure that we stood on roll-calls as long as - if it was an evening roll- call - to eat cold food just before the gong for sleep. Yet there were no rules in it, and sometimes we lost our supper or dinner. But punishments for attempts of escape did not became less stern. Such a prisoner always paid with the loss of his life, being killed just upon his capture or put into the bunker or hanged in public. Prisoner caught during his unsuccessful escape was dressed in a dunce cap and other pieces of frippery were hanged on him, in derision. A plaque was hanged in his neck, with an inscription "this is an ass... he tried to escape..." etc. Additionally, a drum was tied to his waist, and the might-have-been escaper, dressed like a comedy actor, beating the drum, conducted his last march on Earth, among his colleagues standing in rows in the roll-call - to the joy of the "dogs" of the camp. The blocks, dressed for the roll-call, met this macabre comedy with deep silence. Before such a delinquent had been found, blocks had been "standing at attention". Several hundreds of prisoners commanded by a herd of capos with a heard of dogs set off to search the escaper (escapers), who mainly were hiding themselves somewhere in the area between the small and the large chain of guard posts, unless they managed to cross the large chain of guards. Posts on turrets of the large chain of guards had not been withdrawn until the number of prisoners of the evening roll-call was equal to the number of prisoners in the camp on the current day. Some time on an evening roll-call on some exceptionally rainy and cold day, when it was raining and snowing in turn, a horrible siren sounded out - an ominous forecast of "standing at attention". Two missing prisoners were recorded. Punitive turn of "standing at attention" was ordered, until the escapers were found, who must have hid somewhere in the "Industriehof II". Capos, dogs and several hundreds of prisoners were sent for search, which lasted for a long time. Snow, rain, tiredness of work, insufficient clothing of prisoners, was doing for us on that day very painfully during the standing. At last a gong announced that the escapers had been found. Only inert dead bodies of those poor men returned to the camp. Some capo, mad due to prolonged work day, transfixed one of the men from the back with a sharp narrow plank right through his kidneys and stomach, and he, fainted, his twisted face blue, was carried by four tall fellows into the camp. Yes, the escape did not pay to those prisoners and it was an act of great egoism, as the "standing at attention" of thousands of their colleagues in the cold resulted in more than a hundred of dead bodies. They died of sheer cold, lost their strength to live. Others were taken to the hospital, where they died during the night. Sometimes, although nobody had escaped from the camp, but the weather was foul, we were retained on the roll-call for a long time - for several hours, as supposedly they could not get the count of our exact number. The authorities went off somewhere under a roof, supposedly to make the count - while we were done away by cold, rain or snow and the pressure to stand motionless in one place. You had to defend yourself by your whole organism, to strain and release your muscles to generate some heat to rescue your life. During roll-calls, an SS-man "Blockfuhrer" received a report from the block supervisor, a prisoner. Having received several reports, the SS-man went before the desk of the "Rapportfuhrer" who was SS-Obersturmfuhrer Gerhard Palitzsch, whom SS-men themselves feared like fire. He used to punish them with the bunker for any trifle; an SS- man could go to the front for his report. So he was a terror for everybody. When Palitsch appeared, silence would hang over. [The "Volksdeutche": " They used to do away Poles"] Some people began to climb up to supervisor positions, whom I previously considered to be Poles but who, in a large percentage, had renounced their Polish nationality here - they were Silesians. I had held the best opinion of them previously - but here I could not believe my own eyes. They used to do away Poles and did not consider them to be their countrymen, while they considered themselves to be some German tribe. One time I called the attention of a Vorarbeiter of Silesian origin: "What are you beating him for? After all, he's a Pole". He answered me: "But I'm not a Pole - I am a Silesian. My parents wanted to make me a Pole, but a Silesian means Germany. A Pole must live in Warsaw and not in Silesia." And he continued beating with his stick. There were two Silesians - block supervisors: Skrzypek and Bednarek, who were, maybe, even worse than the worst German. They did away so many prisoners with their sticks, that even the "Bloody Alois", who in the meantime had taken a bit "for retention", was unable to keep on a level with them. Every day, while standing in the evening roll-call you could see, on the left wing of the blocks, next to those butchers, some wheel-barrows full of dead bodies of prisoners. They boasted with their work to SS-men, whom they reported the numbers. Nevertheless it cannot be generalised, because also here there were some exceptions from this rule, as was the case everywhere. A Silesian who was a good Pole was rare here, but if such one appeared, you could safely entrust him with your life. He was a true friend. There was such block supervisor - Alfred Wtodarczyk, also there was Symyczek, there were Silesians in our fives, about which I will write later. ["There was an outflow via the crematorium chimney"] The "Bloody Alois", whom I had mentioned, was no longer a block supervisor. Block 17a (old numbering) was turned into a warehouse for bags of prisoners' clothes. Transports of prisoners continued to come in, getting the serial number higher and higher, but the number of people present in the camp was not increasing at all. There was an outflow via the crematorium chimney. But the "effects" - bags of our property - were stored with care. They took up the whole free place in block 18. So the premises of the warehouse of the "Effektenkammer" were extended by one whole storey in 17 (block 17a); all prisoners were moved in various blocks. Since 26 October I lived in block 3a (second storey), where Koprowiak was block supervisor. Somebody used to say very positively about his past in some prison. Here I sometimes saw him beating - perhaps his nerves broke down then. Nevertheless, he used to beat mainly when a German was looking. Perhaps he wanted to shirk his life, perhaps his position. In his post of a block supervisor, he was one of the best supervisors for Polish prisoners. In block 3a I lived in the first room, the supervisor of which was Drozd. A kind- hearted type, his attitude to colleagues of that room was cordial - no beating. The block supervisor gave him free hand in this respect. ["A modern sweepstake"] One time, from the second storey of that block I saw a scene, which stuck in my memory for long time. I remained in the camp during the workday. I went to the ambulance, called there by a written note. Upon my return I remained in the block. It was drizzling and the day was gloomy. The SK was working in the square, transporting gravel, which was being thrown out by spades from a pit. Additionally, some commando was present, freezing and exercising gymnastics. Near the pit, several SS-men were standing, who, while they could not depart the commandos in fear of Palitsch or of the commander, who on that day was walking about throughout the camp, invented an entertainment for themselves. They bet something, each of them put a banknote on a brick. Then they buried a prisoner in sand, head down, and carefully covered him. Looking at their watches, they counted how many minutes he would move his legs. A modern sweepstake, I thought. Apparently, that one who was nearest the truth in his prediction for how long such a buried man would be able to move before he was dead, swept the money. ["A joke in German style" on Christmas 1940] So the year 1 940 came to an end. Before I managed to get into the woodwork shop and take advantage of its benefits, that is additional food in block 5, the hunger, which tortured me, had been intensified so much that I began to devour with my eyes the bread received in the evening by those, who, placed in their "positions", were able to save part of their bread until morning. I fought probably the heaviest fight against myself in my life. The problem was, how to eat something immediately and save it until the evening... But I would not explain hunger to satiated people... or to those who received parcels from home or from the Red Cross, while living without any compulsion to work, later complained they had been very hungry. Ah! The intensity of hunger is spanned along a whole scope of graduation. Sometimes it seemed to me that I was able to cut off a chunk of the body of a dead man lying by the hospital. It was then, just before Christmas, when they began to give us pearl barley in place of the "tea", which was a great benefit and I do not know, to whom we were indebted for that (it was continued until spring). For Christmas holiday, several beautifully illuminated Christmas trees were put up in the camp. In the evening, capos put two prisoners on stools by the Christmas tree and thrashed 25 sticks each of them, upon a part of their bodies called the "soft" one. It was intended to be a joke in German style. ["Punishments in Oswiecim were graded"] Punishments in Oswiecim were graded. The lightest punishment was beating on the stool. It was done in public, in face of all colleagues standing on a roll-call. A "piece of execution furniture" was ready - a stool, equipped with holders for legs and hands on both sides. Two tall fellows of SS-men stood (often Seidler personally or, sometimes, a senior of the camp, Bruno) and beat a prisoner in unclothed part of his body, so that not to destroy his clothes. Beating was done with a leather whip or, simply, with a heavy stick. After a dozen of blows, the body was cut apart. Blood began to stream and further blows struck as if minced collops. I witnessed that many times. Sometimes 50 blows were received, sometimes 75. One time, with a measure of punishment of 100 blows, circa the 90th blow a prisoner - a starveling - ended his life. If the delinquent remained alive, he had to stand up, make several knee-bending to regulate his blood circulation and, standing at attention, to thank for the right measure of punishment. The next punishment was a bunker, of two kinds. A simple bunker - it was a set of cells in the basement of block 13 (old numbering), where capos and SS-men were mainly kept until their interrogation, at the disposal of the political department, or serving their punishment. The simple bunker cells included 3 parts of the basement of block 13, in the remaining 4 part there was a cell similar to those ones, but deprived of any light - called a "dark" one. In one end of the block, the basement corridor turned right at a square and ended immediately. In this branch of the corridor, there were small bunkers of quite different kind. There were three so-called "standing cells " (Stehbunker). Behind a rectangular opening in the wall, through which only a bowed man could go, there was a quasi-cupboard of 80 x 80 centimetres, 2 meters high, so that you could stand freely. But to such a "cupboard", four prisoners were pushed in with the help of a stick, and, the door locked with bars, they remained there until morning (from 7:00 p.m. until 6:00 a.m.). It may seem impossible, there are witnesses alive until now, who served a "Stehbunker" punishment in the company of their colleagues, pushed into such "cupboard" in the number of eight men! In the evening they were released and taken to work, but for the night they were again pushed in, like sardines, and locked with the use of iron bars till morning. The measure of punishment reached usually up to 5 nights, but sometimes it could be much higher. Whoever had no connections with the authority in his work place, he usually ended his life at his work, due to lack of strength, after one or several such nights. Who was able to rest in his commando in the daytime, he could happily survive that punishment. The third kind of punishment was a simple "post", borrowed from Austrian methods of investigation. With such a difference, that those hanged, tied by their hands in the back, were sometimes swung for fun by a supervising SS-man. Then the joints were creaking, ropes were cutting into the body. It was good, if "Pearlie" with his dog did not come in. In such a way investigations were sometimes conducted, while the hanged man was given juice of pickle to drink, in short - vinegar, so that he would not faint too early. But the fourth and most heavy kind of punishment was an execution by firing: death afflicted quickly, how much more humanitarian and how much desired by those having been tortured for a long time. An "execution" is not a right term, the right one would be shooting dead, or just killing. This was also done in block 13 (old numbering). There was a yard there, confined by blocks (between 12th and 13th block). From the east closed by a wall, which connected the blocks and was called the "wailing-wall". From the west there was also a wall, in which there was a gate, mainly closed, which shut out the view. It opened its double door before a living victim or to throw out dead bodies covered with blood. Passing that place, you smelled an odour like in a butchery. Red stream was running along in a little gutter. The small gutter was repeatedly white-washed, but nearly every day the stream was meandering again among the white banks.... Ah! Were it not be blood... human blood... Polish blood... and also the best one... then perhaps you could delight in the mere composition of colours... That was in the outside. In the inside, very grave and terrible things took place. The butcher Palitzsch - a handsome boy, who did not use to beat anybody in the camp, as it was not his style, inside the closed yard he was the main author of macabre scenes. Those doomed, in row, stood naked against the "wailing- wall", he put a small calibre rifle under the skull in the back of their heads, and put an end to their lives. Sometimes he used a simple bolt used to kill cattle. The spring bolt cut into the brain, under the skull, and put an end to their lives. Sometimes a group of civilians were brought in, who had been tormented by inquiries in the basement, and were given to Palitzch for fun. Palitch ordered the girls to undress and to run about the closed yard. Standing in the centre, he would choose for a long time, then took aim, fired and killed - all of them by turns. No one of them knew who of them would be killed immediately and who would live for a while or perhaps be taken for an investigation... He was training himself in accurate aiming and shooting. Those scenes were seen from block 12 by several room supervisors, who were on guard, so that no prisoner could approach the windows. Windows were secured by "baskets", but not tight enough - so it was seen in details. Another time, from block 12 it was seen a family carried here, which stood in the yard against the "Wailing Wall". Palitsch shot at the father of the family first and killed him under his wife's and his children's eyes. After a while he killed a small girl who was holding her pale mother's hand with all her might. Then he wrenched away from the mother a small child, whom that unhappy woman was pressing tightly to her bosom. He clasped the legs - broke the head by the wall. In the end he killed the mother half-conscious of pain. It was a scene related me by several colleagues - witnesses, so precisely and so identically, that I cannot have any doubt, that it was exactly in this way. ["No, no! Not food parcels!"] On Christmas of 1940 prisoners for the first time received parcels from their families. No, no! Not food parcels! Food parcels were not allowed at all, not to make us too happy. So, some of us received their first parcel in Oswiecim - a clothes parcel, containing things prescribed in advance: a sweeter, scarf, gloves, ear-protectors, socks. It was not allowed to send more. If a parcel contained underwear, it went into a bag in the "Effektekammer" under the prisoner's number, and was kept in store there. So it was in that time. Later, we succeeded to reach everywhere though our organised colleagues. The Christmas parcel was the only one during a year and although it did not contain food, it was indispensable due to warm clothes and nice feeling, as it was from home. [Food supply was illegal] During Christmas, Westrych together with the capo of the woodwork shop contrived to get additional pots of excellent stew from the SS-men kitchen and a revel took place in the woodwork shop; carpenters, who turned up by turn, were treated. Such pots came in several times, delivered in deep secret by SS-men who received money collected by Westrych from us. [1941] [Further work in block 5] The year 1941 commenced for me with a further carpentry work in block 5, where I continued to devise some work. The block supervisor did not interfere in my work. I met colleague Gierych here, son of a pair of my acquaintances, whose flat I had used in Orzet in 1916/1917 for the purpose of conspiration. Senior of the camp, Leo, came to block 5 nearly every day (prisoner's number 30). Upon the entry to the room, of an SS-man or a senior of the camp, a shout "Achtung!" and a report were obligatory. I did it perfectly, adding in the end of my report: "...ein Tischler bei der Arbeit." It suited Leon (Leon Wieczorek). He was not interested at all what I had been doing here for so long, and he left the room like a peacock. [Youngster prisoners and pervert capos] Block 5 was a block of adolescents, boys of 1 5 - 1 8 lived here, whose the Third Reich still hoped to gain over. They had a kind of courses here. Leo came here every day, he liked youth, but he liked boys... too much. He was a pervert. He chose victims of his perversion here. Fed them up, regenerated, compelled to submission by welfare, or threatening with a punitive commando, and when he was fed up with the boy, so that not to have an inconvenient witness of his forbidden conduct, he hanged his victim, mainly at night in the toilet. [Fired from block 5] About 15 January I stood by the window, when Leo came in to the room. I did not notice him and did not shout "Achtung!", as my attention was drawn by the view of a "Zugang" through the window pane. At the same time, I noticed colonel 11 outside the window. It was visible that Leo was dissatisfied. He approached me and said: "You are here in the block too long. Mind you not to come here any more." I told Westrych of that, yet he ordered me to go there. So on the next day I went again to block 5. Soon after me Leo came and went mad: "Deine nummer?" - he shouted but - strangely - he did not strike me: "Rrrraus mit dem alles!" - he pointed my tools. I took myself away quickly enough, while he was noting my number and shouting behind me I would be fired from the woodwork shop as quickly as today. In the shop I told everything to Westrych. Just after me Leo burst in. Happily, the capo was absent. He was substituted by Westrych, who let Leo shout at will and then explained that this carpenter had reported of all that had happened the day before, but he ordered him today to go to block 5 to take all his tools away out of there. And Leo regained his composure. Nevertheless I continued to be a carpenter, just in case I worked in the second room occupied by this woodwork shop in the same block 9. After several days Westrych ordered me to take my tools and to follow him into the camp. He led me to block 15 (old numbering). It was prisoner hospital. The hospital supervisor, a little crazy German in general, wanted to keep order in his block after all. Westrych had advised him the day before to frame straw mattresses with wooden slats. There were no beds there. Ill people lay side by side on the floor, in horrible conditions. Straw mattresses thrown upon the floor (those ill lay their heads to the wall), not always in-line, made the picture worse. It was decided to apply slats at the ends of straw mattresses laid in two rows by the walls. Those slats, running along the room, would leave a straight-framed passage on the floor. Block supervisor scrutinized me and asked if I was able to do that work. For my ba