The Auschwitz Volunteer: Beyond Bravery

by Captain Witold Pilecki

  And thus ended my business with the postzensurstelle.

  The following day, I hurried to write my petition on Block 3, where the block chief Koprowiak for a long time could not understand why I had hitherto been writing to Mrs. E.O. and that I was now politely asking the Commandant to change the address to this same Mrs. E.O.’s address.

  However, before I even ended up on Block 3 the following day, a surprise awaited me on Block 15 that same day—7th March.

  I was the only one of those whose numbers had been called out to return to Block 15.

  With a bullet, the executioner Palitzsch had put an end to my comrades’ final journey to the yard at Block 13 via the political department.

  I returned from the postzensurstelle to the sick block at the precise moment when a panel was on the ward examining the patients; anyone not running a temperature was being kicked out into the camp, and sent back to work and to the blocks where they had been before coming to the hospital.

  Now suddenly a “patient” walks in fully dressed from “taking a stroll” around the camp.

  I took a few blows to the stomach and the head and was immediately booted out of the hospital...

  Therefore, the following day I was writing my petition on Block 3a.

  However, the petition was not the issue.

  The issue was how to get onto an indoor kommando.

  Westrych had gone. The small carpenters’ shop on Block 9 (old numbering system) had been closed down. The large one, which Oberkapo Balke [Artur Balke] ran and was expanding, was at Industriehof I.

  I needed to wangle myself indoors immediately. My convalescence was over, but to go to work immediately in the open in the frost would be too hard on me.

  By now each kommando took careful note of the prison numbers of its members, so just getting oneself onto an unsuitable kommando could lead later to problems of “absenteeism,” if one wanted to move to a better work detail.

  So my comrades came to the rescue.

  A few members of our organization were working in the large carpenters’ shop at Industriehof I and one of them, Antek (14) [Antoni Woźniak] was even a master craftsman. Czesiek (9) [Czesław Wąsowski] was by now also working there.

  Antek (14) [Antoni Woźniak] took me to Balke’s office and introduced me as a good carpenter.

  To the question what did I know I replied, following Antek’s instructions, that I was good with machinery.

  It so happened that machines were being brought in and installed in the shop.

  Balke agreed.

  For the time being he left me in the storerooms, which were run by Władek Kupiec.

  The work was hardly onerous.

  Władek Kupiec was an exceptionally fine fellow and a good comrade. He and five of his brothers were there.26

  I now also met a couple of chums, one of them was called Witold (15) [Witold Szymkowiak], the other Pilecki (16) [Jan Pilecki].27

  After a few days working in the carpenters’ shop I set up a second “five” with Władek (17) [Władysław Kupiec], Bolek (18) [Bolesław Kupiec], Witold (15) [Witold Szymkowiak], Tadek (19) [Tadeusz Słowiaczek], Antek (14) [Antoni Woźniak], Janek (20) [Jan Kupiec], Tadek (21) [Tadeusz Pietrzykowski], Antek (22) [Antoni Rosa].28

  After a few weeks working there I heard people saying that Colonel 23 [Aleksander Stawarz] and Lieutenant Colonel 24 [Karol Kumuniecki] were planning a camp revolt: Lieutenant Colonel 24 [Karol Kumuniecki] with the fit inmates would head for Katowice, while Colonel 23 [Aleksander Stawarz] would remain for the time being in the camp with the sick.

  Owing to this plan’s naiveté and the possibility that similar projects might be given away by other inmates, I avoided discussing the organization with these officers and, initially, I avoided bringing in senior officers who were in the camp under their real names (with the exception of Colonel 1 [Władysław Surmacki] whom I trusted completely) for the simple reason that if suspicions were aroused, officers who were known to the camp authorities could be locked in the bunker and tortured and would be hard-pressed to remain silent.

  That is how it was during the initial phases of my organizational work. Later, things were different.

  In April and May of ’41 the great transports of Poles arrived—prisoners from the Pawiak [Prison].

  A great number of my friends arrived.

  I now set up my third “five” into which I bring my former second-in-command in Warsaw, “Czesław III” (25) [Stefan Bielecki]; Stasiek (26) [Stanisław Maringe]; Jurek (27) [Jerzy Poraziński]; Szczepan (28) [Szczepan Rzeczkowski); Włodek (29) [Włodzimierz Makaliński]; Geniek (30) [Eugeniusz Triebling].29

  The organization is now growing by leaps and bounds.

  However, the camp machinery is speeding up the killing process.

  The transports from Warsaw were at the camp’s “sharp end” and were being beaten as we had been and were dying in droves, daily decimated by the cold and the beatings.

  Starting in the spring of 1941 the camp novelty was the orchestra.

  The Camp Commandant liked music, which led to an orchestra being formed of good musicians, of which there was no shortage in the camp, or indeed of any other trade.

  Working in the orchestra was a good “job,” so that anyone who had an instrument at home, had it quickly sent and signed up for the orchestra which, under the baton of Franz [Franciszek Nierychło] (a real bastard) who before had been kitchen kapo, played all manner of compositions.

  It really was a fine orchestra.

  It was the Commandant’s pride.

  If a specialist on a particular instrument was lacking, he was easily found on “civvy street” and brought to the camp.

  Not only the Commandant, but also the inspection teams which would stop by the camp from time to time, were delighted with the orchestra.

  The orchestra played for us four times a day.

  In the morning as we left for work, when we returned for lunch, after lunch when we went back to work and as we were returning for evening roll call.

  The orchestra’s “stage” was in front of Block 9 (old numbering system) near the gate past which all the kommandos marched.

  One really felt the full horror of this scene when the details were returning from work.

  The advancing columns dragged along the ground the bodies of their comrades who had been killed at work.

  Some of the corpses were frightful.

  To the strains of rousing marches, played in quick time, sounding more like polkas or Polish dances than marches, the staggering shapes of beaten inmates, exhausted by work, returned.

  The ranks tried hard to walk in step, dragging the dead bodies of their comrades whose bare bellies had usually been bouncing along the ground for several kilometers over frozen ground, mud and stones, which had pulled off part of their clothing.

  The columns representing the depths of human misery were surrounded by a ring of whippers-in belaboring the ranks with clubs and forcing them to march in time to the cheerful music.

  Anyone out of step was clubbed over the head and a moment later was being dragged along by his mates.

  Everyone was escorted by a double ring of armed “heroes” wearing German army uniforms.

  In front of the gate, in addition to the armed security detachments, stood a group of “supermen”—the camp’s senior ranks—NCOs (on whom in the future one will be able if necessary to put the blame for everything: “what can you expect of simpletons?”).

  All of them were jovial, and with radiant faces they proudly watched the dying, despised race of untermenschen [“subhumans”].

  That is how the kommandos working in the fields returned.

  There were very few “old numbers” among them.

  Either they had already left “up the chimney,” or they had managed to get inside.

  For the most part the kommandos were composed of zugangs.

  The “hundreds” of those who worked in the workshops returned differently: they were strong, fit and walked in dres
sed ranks with a spring in their step.

  The grins of pleasure disappeared from the faces of the gang by the gate. They usually turned away unwillingly. However, for the time being they needed the workshops.

  More than one SS man was having some necessary item made to order for him “on the side” in the workshops, unbeknownst to the authorities.

  Even these senior ranks standing there were having jobs done for them, hiding them from the others.

  Every one of them was afraid to report these things to higher authority.

  Killing people was different: the more one did, the more highly was one regarded.

  These were the very things which, as I have said, took place “not on this earth.”

  What do you mean? Culture... the 20th century... whoever heard of killing people?

  In any case, you can’t get away with things like that on earth.

  Supposedly (though it is the 20th century with such a high level of culture) these people from a great culture...somehow sneak a war through... even justifying it by necessity.

  Aha... suddenly even war... when discussed by civilized people, becomes “inevitable and necessary.”

  Agreed, but hitherto, recognizing the veil drawn over the need to murder one group in the best interests of another, mutual killing was left to some offshoot of society: the military.

  Yes, unfortunately that is how it must have once been. But now that’s in the past, which was more beautiful than our times.

  What can humankind say now—that very humankind which wants to demonstrate cultural and personal progress and rank the 20th century much higher than centuries past?

  Can we from the 20th century look our ancestors in the eye and... laughably... prove that we have attained a higher cultural plane?

  For these days an armed group destroys not some enemy army, the “cloak” of the past having been cast aside, but whole defenseless nations and societies using the latest technical inventions. Civilization’s progress—yes! Cultural progress???—don’t make me laugh.

  We have strayed, my friends, we have strayed dreadfully.

  What’s worse is that there are no words to describe it...

  I would like to say that we have become animals... but no, we are a whole level of hell worse than animals!

  I have every right to say all this, especially in light of what I have seen and what began to happen a year later at Auschwitz.

  The difference between “to be” and “not to be” was so enormous, so greatly did the conditions vary for those who worked indoors in stables, stores or workshops from the mass who were being finished off in the most varied ways in the open air.

  The former were recognized to be necessary; the rest paid with their lives for the need, for the requirement, to finish off as many people as possible in this grinder.

  There had to be a price, a justification for this distinction.

  The price was a skill, or ingenuity in place of a skill.

  The camp was self-sufficient.

  Crops were sown; livestock (horses, cows and pigs) were kept.

  There was an abattoir turning animal meat into items fit for human consumption.

  USHMM/ IPN

  Yad Vashem/ Otto Dov Kulka

  The majority of inmates have to endure endless hours of backbreaking work outdoors...

  Yad Vashem/ Otto Dov Kulka

  Yad Vashem/ Otto Dov Kulka

  ... and in all weather. The lucky ones worked on indoor kommandos—such as the locksmiths, bakers, tanners, woodcarvers, or those in the hospital, kitchens or stables.

  Not far from the abattoir stood a crematorium where human meat was turned into ash, which then fertilized the fields—the only use for this meat.

  The best indoor job was in the pigsty, where the swill was far more plentiful and rich than what was in the pots in the kitchen for the häftlings.

  The pigs were fed the remains of the “supermen’s” unfinished meals.

  Those inmates whom fortune had chosen to be swineherds ate part of this fine food, taking it away from their charges— the pigs.

  In the stables for the horses the inmates had other opportunities.

  I was invited several times from the carpenters’ shop by my friend 31 [Karol Świętorzecki] to the nearby stables, where I would go with my tools supposedly to repair something, thus justifying my presence there to any passing SS man.

  My friend would greet me with a real feast.

  He would give me a mess tin filled with black sugar, which after rinsing with water—to separate out the salt—turned almost white. We would add wheat bran to this. After mixing this, I would eat it as if it were the finest cake.

  Then it would seem to me that I had never before eaten anything so tasty, nor would I, should I ever succeed in returning to freedom.

  My friend also had milk which he took from the portion provided for the stallion.

  However, one had to take great care not to be “found out.”

  Just coming without a specific reason and repair job assignment from a kapo was forbidden.

  My friend 31 [Karol Świętorzecki] had set up a cell of our organization amongst the stable staff.

  On the 15th of May, my friend was released thanks to his mother’s efforts and left for Warsaw, taking my report on our work.

  Much later, my friend 32 [Leszek Cenzartowicz], established with my help in the stables, kept his exhausted body alive milking mares with foal and drinking their milk.

  There was also a tannery, where some of the fellows took advantage of the conditions by cutting off the skin of pigs delivered for tanning, shrinking them in their current shape and cooking a “wonderful soup” from the scraps of skin.

  In the summer of ’41, for the first time I ate dog meat, unaware of what it was, provided by friends in the tannery.

  I later did so knowingly.

  The instinct to retain one’s energy made anything fit to eat, tasty.

  My friend 21 [Tadeusz Pietrzykowski], who worked with the calves, secretly supplied me with raw bran which had been so poorly cleaned that once upon a time my own calves would probably have refused to eat it, and I would put it in the soup which was brought to us in the carpenters’ shop, wondering whether to put in two spoonfuls or one—we were kommandiert [ordered to stay at work], so we did not go to the camp for lunch or midday roll call and were counted in the shop.

  When my friend 21 [Tadeusz Pietrzykowski] managed sometimes to bring more bran, I would simply put a handful in my mouth and slowly, after chewing it as much as possible, swallow it raw in small pieces together with the chaff.

  So it turns out that everything is possible and that everything can taste good.

  Nothing affected me, maybe because I have always had an exceptionally strong stomach.

  I was no expert carpenter and I had to make up for this with ingenuity.

  Initially supported by friends (impossible to do for very long), I then had to face up to the challenges of carpentry.

  So I learnt how to sharpen tools.

  Clearly most carpenters would assume that I had mastered that a long time before.

  In addition to Oberkapo Balke, there were a couple of kapos and a number of master craftsmen in front of whom one had to pretend to be a competent carpenter.

  Under the direction of Władek and a few other friends, I learnt to saw, plane, smear board ends with paste and glue boards into tabletops.

  However, the main work was done—with the eyes.

  At Auschwitz, one’s ears and eyes worked the most, whatever the position or trade.

  One had to be on the lookout so that a momentary rest could be taken when an overseer—a kapo—was not watching.

  But if a supervisor’s gaze running over the shop and its people rests on you, or you are in this gentleman’s field of vision even just in the corner of his eye, then, my friend, you had better be working or cleverly pretending to do so.

  You can’t stand around or rest, even if you have been working away b
efore in this gentleman’s absence.

  If you really had been doing that you would have been careless.

  Beware! Arbeit macht frei! You read that several times a day over the gate.

  You can leave this place “up the chimney,” if you wear yourself out.

  You can be clubbed if you happen to be taking a breather when one of the supervisors is watching.

  Obviously it was different for a first-rate craftsman, who already had a fine reputation.

  He did not have to pretend.

  Others, even if they were really good carpenters, had to be careful.

  There were several hundred slots in the shop—and thousands were dying in the camp.

  New real craftsmen were clamoring to get into the shop.

  “Butterfingers” were removed—and died in the open.

  Hence out of necessity I was slowly becoming a carpenter.

  I could make quite decent joints and I did finishing work.

  I managed to get my friends, who had arrived from Warsaw (April–May of ’41) and whom I had brought into the organization, indoor jobs.

  I got 25 [Stefan Bielecki] and 26 [Stanisław Maringe] into the fahrbereitschaft [motor pool] with the help of our member 33 [Stanisław Kocjan] who ran that kommando like his own.

  I got 27 [Jerzy Poraziński] into the hospital as a nurse, with the help of Dr. 2 [Władysław Dering].

  I got 34 [name unknown] into the hospital as a secretary, with the help of Second Lieutenant 4 [Alfred Stössel], and so on.

  In the spring of ’41, I went around zugang Blocks 11 and 12 (old numbering system), where new fellows were brought in, I went around often looking for friends, picking out fellows for work, getting them indoors, saving them.

  One day there, I met the Czetwertyński family all together: Ludwik, the owner of Żołudek and his two sons, as well as his brother from Suchowola. I also met my friend from the resistance movement in ’39—Officer Cadet 35 [Remigiusz Niewiarowski].

  A few days later I also met two colleagues from work in Warsaw: 36 [Stanisław Arct] and 37 [name unknown].