To everyone’s astonishment, the remaining Jews were pulled out of the Penal Company and, together with new Jewish arrivals, zugangs, were placed in good conditions in indoor jobs: in the sock storeroom, the potato shed and the vegetable storeroom.
They even became more important than us.
They did not suspect that this was a terrible, devious scheme.
The issue was their letters home in which for several months they wrote that they were working in workshops and that conditions were just fine.
That these workshops were located in Auschwitz—why, the name of this small town meant nothing to Jews in France, Czechoslovakia, Holland, Greece, or wherever those letters went.
When even Poles in Poland knew little about Auschwitz and were still rather naive about someone’s time there.
Our Polish Jews were usually finished off at Treblinka or Majdanek.
Jews from almost the whole of Europe were brought here—to Auschwitz.
After a few months of writing letters about the good conditions which they were enjoying, the Jews were suddenly rounded up from their jobs and quickly “finished off.”
Meanwhile, Jews arrived daily by the thousand from the whole of Europe and were sent straight to Birkenau, where the construction of camp huts (like those built in the initial phase) had been completed.
The attitude towards priests had also changed some time before, but for another reason.
On the basis of some Vatican influence on the German authorities, by way of their ally Italy, priests were sent to Dachau. The first time, at the start of 1941, and the second such transport of priests from Auschwitz to Dachau left in July 1942.
At Dachau priests apparently had quite reasonable conditions, compared to those here. In the interval between those two transports I came to know in Auschwitz a few very brave priests, including Father 87 [Zygmunt Ruszczak] who was our organization’s chaplain.
We held mass and confession away from prying eyes. We received communion hosts from clergy on the outside through contacts among local civilians.
The beginning of 1942 saw the rest of the Bolshevik prisoners of war finished off.
The pace of murdering increased.
The blocks were needed for other things.
A new nightmare was about to begin here.
The corpses of Bolsheviks, killed at work on building sites and digging ditches in the Birkenau area, were brought to roll call on carts.
At every roll call there were several fully laden carts.
Some of the prisoners simply froze to death, since they lacked the energy to work and thus warm themselves up a bit.
One day, there was a revolt during work. The Bolsheviks attacked the kapos and the SS.
The revolt was put down bloodily and the whole unit shot.
The corpses to be counted by the authorities at roll call were brought in on carts in several waves.
After they had all been finished off (February ’42), with the exception of the few hundred whom I mentioned earlier, the fence between our camp and the POW camp was quickly dismantled.
Meanwhile, a fence was being built in another direction and for another reason.
Ten blocks to house women were fenced off from us by a large wall made of concrete blocks.
This was a first.
In its initial phase the camp had also worked on Sundays, then Sundays were supposedly free, with the caveat that blocks had so-called blocksperre [confinement to blocks] until lunch.
Now, to reduce our ability to get together and organize, two more hours of our Sunday free time were withdrawn.
After lunch, between 13:00 hours and 15:00 hours, a häftling had to undress and sleep.
Block supervisors checked the rooms.
This block sleeping time was checked by the Lagerältester [Head Inmate] or the Lagerkapo [discipline kapo], since an inmate who did not sleep was after all (irony of ironies) failing to conserve energy which was needed by the Third Reich and thus was a “saboteur.”
On the 18th of January (of ’42) 45 inmates were locked up for the night in the “black hole” owing to a lack of space in the overcrowded bunkers.
A little later that evening, in the cellars of Block 11 (new numbering system) a loud hammering on the door was heard as well as shouts for the duty SS man to open the door.
They came from the 45 who were suffocating and, using their teeth, fists and knives, they fought for access to the door where a little air came in through the cracks.
In the morning, out of the 45 locked up alive the previous evening, there were 21 corpses who had been suffocated or killed in the struggle. Of the remaining 24 barely on their feet, 9 were taken to hospital more dead than alive and the remaining 15 were sent to the Penal Company for having failed to die in the “black hole.”
They included Konrad, the former carpenters’ shop oberkapo.
A witness of this dreadful scene was Kapo “Jonny” [Jonny (sic) Lechenich] doing time in the stehbunker [standing bunker] for what the authorities called “dealings” with Poles.
In February (of ’42), the political department received a letter from the party authorities in Berlin forbidding collective responsibility and the shooting of 10 inmates for a single escape.
Supposedly, this had led to similar reprisals in some [Allied] camp for Germans.44
At around the same time, an order was officially read out forbidding the beating of inmates (it would be interesting to know whether that was as a result of our reports).
Thereafter, there were no great reprisals against the remaining inmates for escapes.
Thus, the idea of escape took on a new lease of life and our organization began to gear up and prepare to send reports to Warsaw by means of organized escapes.
The Bolsheviks had left behind lice and a terrible strain of Siberian typhus for which large numbers of our fellows began to sicken.
The typhus swept the camp, creating havoc.
The authorities rubbed their hands, calmly watching this ally finish off häftlings.
We then began to cultivate typhus-infected lice in the krankenbau [hospital] laboratory and release them onto the coats of SS men at every parade or inspection of our blocks.
A mailbox was hung outside Block 15 and it was announced in every block that letters, either signed or unsigned, with information on overheard conversations should be left in the box.
A häftling would be commended for any information of use to the authorities.
They meant to take measures against our organization’s work.
Anonymous tips and denunciations poured in.
Then, with the help of Captain 88 [Tadeusz Dziedzic], we would open the box every evening and review the reports in it, before Palitzsch opened it at 22:00 hours.
We destroyed the ones that were unhelpful or dangerous for us, and we would leave denunciations of harmful individuals.
A paper war began.
We were ordered to sing German songs in our blocks and on the way to work.
Several times the whole camp had to sing during roll call parade.
In Rajsko-Birkenau, gas chambers were being hastily built and some were already complete.
What I had once been afraid of—bringing into the organization officers who were in Auschwitz under their real names—had its raison d’être. For if there had been any suspicions that an organization existed, they would first of all have picked up the officers.
One day, they took Colonel 62 [Jan Karcz] and locked him into a bunker prison cell, taking him off daily to the political department for interrogation from which he would return pale and barely able to stay on his feet.
I began to fear problems.
One evening over a fortnight later, Colonel 62 [Jan Karcz] came over to me and comrade 59 [Henryk Bartosiewicz] and said: “Congratulate me, they’ve let me out. They wanted to know whether there was any organization in the camp,” and he turned to me to say goodbye, for the bed gong had sounded and said: “Don’t worry, I haven’t said a word. I’ll
tell you the rest tomorrow.”
JG
The dimly lit interior of a gas chamber.
ABM
Colonel Kazimierz Rawicz (Pilecki's comrade—code no. Colonel 64)—Inmate No. 9319.
But the next morning they took off Colonel 62 [Jan Karcz] and moved him to Rajsko, apparently so that he could not tell us anything.
Colonel 62 [Jan Karcz] was a brave man.
Over one hundred Czechs were brought in. They were all intellectuals, from the “Sokół” [Falcon] organization.
They put them in our room (Block 25, Room 7).
They began to finish them off in short order.
On behalf of our organization I got in touch with their representative 89 [Karel Stransky] (he is alive and living in Prague).
After receiving Colonel 64’s [Kazimierz Rawicz’s] agreement, I take my friend First Lieutenant 29 [Włodzimierz Makaliński], whom I trusted greatly, around all our organization’s cells in the camp.
I’m doing it in case anything should happen to me.
First Lieutenant 29 [Włodzimierz Makaliński] reports to Colonel 64 [Kazimierz Rawicz] that we have visited 42 cells.
One morning a group of Silesians (about 70 or 80) are moved from our stammlager [main camp] Auschwitz to Birkenau (there was a rumour that they were to be finished off), including my friend 45 [Stanisław Gutkiewicz].
He had been greatly worried the previous evening and, sensing something, his whole body shook during the night.
He asked me to send news of him to his wife and little boy Dyzma.
He never returned from Rajsko.
Every one of these Silesians was finished off.
Some of them had been there from the camp’s beginning and felt that they were going to survive.
The remaining Silesians in the camp now clearly began to show an interest in working against the Germans.
One morning, visiting some workmates, I was in Block 5 (new numbering system), and running quickly to roll call through the now empty corridors I came face to face with Bloody Aloiz who, recognizing me although more than a year had passed, stopped and shouted in some surprise and yet with what seemed to me an odd pleasure: “Was? Du lebst noch? [What? You’re still alive?]”... he grabbed my hand and shook it.
What was I to do? I did not pull away. He was an odd man.
Of the bloodthirsty types from the early days, of which he was one, a number were no longer alive.
The camp authorities began to try to show the camp in a slightly better light for visiting inspection teams (which included a number of gentlemen in civilian suits).
They were shown new blocks and only ones with bunks.
That day the kitchen would produce a good lunch.
The orchestra was in fine form.
Only the healthy and strong kommandos, the workshop types, returned to camp from work.
The rest of the kommandos, the zugangs and other miserable-looking fellows, waited outside for the inspection team to leave, taking with it a completely unrealistic impression of the camp. When, needing to show the camp in a better light, the sight of some of the tyrants from the early days was no longer appropriate, the authorities decided to move a number of kapos to another camp, including Krankenmann and Sigrod.
After loading them into freight cars at the station, the SS men supervising the inmates let the häftlings know that they would have nothing against the inmates taking their revenge on Krankenmann.
That was all the inmates needed; they scrambled into the cars and hanged Krankenmann and Sigrod with their own belts.
The SS men turned away for a moment and did not intervene.
Thus did the murderers perish. Every witness to the killings sanctioned by the camp authorities was inconvenient, even if it was a kapo and a German.
So these two were witnesses no more.
Our organization continued to grow.
Together with my friend 59 [Henryk Bartosiewicz], we recruited Colonel 23 [Aleksander Stawarz], Lieutenant Colonel 24 [Karol Kumuniecki], as well as some new people: 90 [name unknown], 91 [Stanisław Polkowski], 92 [Wacław Weszke], 93 [name unknown], 94 [name unknown], 95 [name unknown].
That marvelous human being, 44 [Wincenty Gawron], helped a great number of fellows, giving them his own food while he painted a portrait of someone in authority, receiving food as payment.
A transport from Warsaw (March of ’42) again brought in a great number of friends as well as information about what was going on.
Major 85 [Zygmunt Bohdanowski] arrived, as well as that fine man 96 [Tadeusz Stulgiński], who had endured a record number of beatings at the Aleja Szucha and the Pawiak.
I learnt from them that Colonel 1 [Władysław Surmacki] had been rearrested and was in the Pawiak.
Colonel 1 [Władysław Surmacki] had told 96 [Tadeusz Stulgiński] to get in touch with me.
I got 97 [Jan Machnowski], who had already joined our organization, to get him into his kommando.
We were also building up in two other directions, bringing in 98 [name unknown] and 99 [name unknown] from the baubüro [construction site office], and 100 [name unknown] and 101 [Witold Kosztowny] from the hospital.
Meanwhile Professor 69 [Roman Rybarski] died.
As if on pillars, our organization reposed on two departments: the Krankenbau [hospital] and the Arbeitsdienst [work assignment office].
If one of our fellows had to be saved from a zugang transport and given an indoor job, or someone had to be got out of a kommando where he was beginning to “flag” or kept attracting some bastard’s attention, or we had to set up our network in some kommando, then we would go off to see Dr. 2 [Władysław Dering] saying: “Dziunko, so and so will come to see you tomorrow and you must admit him to the hospital for a time.” (Or we arranged it with Dr. 102 [Rudolf Diem]).
And when it happened (in a kapo’s mind a häftling was already a dead man, for very few people returned from the hospital alive), then we would go off to 68 [Mieczysław Januszewski] saying “Give us a card for so and so for such and such kommando,” or sometimes we would go off to 103 [name unknown] with equally good results and it was all fixed.
In this way we prepared too for 25’s [Stefan Bielecki’s] and 44’s [Wincenty Gawron’s] escape.
Both were first-class people and both were in the camp for arms possession. Their cases were clear-cut and they would definitely be shot. The only question was how soon their cases would catch the eye of Grabner in the political department.
By some miracle they were still alive.
No. 44 [Wincenty Gawron] painted portraits of SS men and it was possible that his case was being delayed, but things could not continue like that for long.
Using the method described above, in February of ’42 we got 25 [Stefan Bielecki] moved to the Harmense kommando, to the fish ponds. The inmates worked at the ponds several miles from the camp and lived there.
Much later, in May, comrade 44 [Wincenty Gawron] went there; and the very day he arrived, bringing from me for 25 [Stefan Bielecki] the instruction not to wait for me but to “move out,” both of them “did a runner,” escaping from a hut through the window and taking my report to Warsaw.
In Erik Grönke’s empire, the tannery, the kommando of woodcarvers and selected carpenters went through a crisis after Konrad had been bundled off to the bunker.
At this difficult time Tadek Myszkowski was standing in for the kapo.
Instead of the gentle gaze of Konrad, the art lover, we now had Erik’s wild-cat, piercing eyes.
Soon wanting to destroy what Konrad had put together, calling the woodcarvers’ existence a luxury, he scrapped the woodcarving shop and had us making spoons.
He gave us as kapo “Hulajnoga” [“Scooter”]—a nasty idiot.
He ordered the carpenters making artistic jewelry boxes to produce cupboards and very simple objects.
In the spoon shop we started off making 5 spoons a day each, then 7 and finally 12.
At that time former member of Parliame
nt 104 [Józef Putek] was working there.
I then brought into the organization 105 [Edward Berlin]; 106 [name unknown]; 107 [name unknown]; a former soldier in my resistance group (from ’39)—108 [Stanisław Dobrowolski]; as well as Second Lieutenant 109 [name unknown]; 110 [Andrzej Makowski-Gąsienica]; and 111 [name unknown].
Amongst those painting the toys which we made (where Colonel 62 [Jan Karcz] had been working for a short time, before going to the bunker), Officer Cadet 112 [Stanisław Jaster] joined us, recommended to me by Captain 8 [Ferdynand Trojnicki] who had been released.
We had taken over all the kommandos, but there was one we could not penetrate.
Finally, in February (’42), having been kommandiert [ordered to stay at work] I returned late to the camp, and when I reached the block I learnt from 61 [Konstanty Piekarski] that 68 [Mieczysław Januszewski] had been around. The funkstelle [the SS garrison’s radio room] needed two cartographer-draftsmen, and that he, 61 [Konstanty Piekarski], had given his own number and that of our former commanding officer, 113 [Sokołowski].
Within a day or two it turned out that 113’s [Sokołowski’s] hands shook, so we had him transferred to the SS potato kommando where he was guaranteed good food, and I got myself into the funkstelle in his stead (after squaring this in the woodcarving shop with 52 [Tadeusz Myszkowski]).
I worked with 61 [Konstanty Piekarski] in the funkstelle on maps for a few weeks and, after taking stock of the situation, since training courses were held there in addition to the normal work on the SS radio station, with the help of 77 [Zbigniew Ruszczyński], I managed to get hold of some valves and other parts, for which we had been hunting fruitlessly for months.
Using spare parts to which our häftlings had access.
The result was that after seven months we had our own transmitter, which Second Lieutenant 4 [Alfred Stössel] worked on in an area which the SS men entered most unwillingly.
Until, in the autumn (of ’42), one of our fellows’ big mouth was the cause of us having to dismantle the radio station.
We broadcast details, repeated by other stations, on the number of zugangs and deaths in the camp, and the inmates’ state and their conditions.
The Auschwitz Volunteer: Beyond Bravery Page 15