The current joke was that anyone taking any less might be seen as a miser.
The hardest thing of all is to write about oneself.
To a degree which surprised even me, I could walk past gold and precious stones with indifference.
Today, writing about it back in the real world, I am trying to work out exactly why.
The goods belonged really to no one, which is how the häftlings justified it to themselves.
At the time I was close to agreeing with this justification.
Yet above all I was unable to overcome a distaste for things which to my mind were stained with blood and in any event, even if I had overcome it, I saw no sense in it; why would I do it? Oddly enough, for me these objects had lost their value.
Moreover, I was at the time going through a phase, either under the influence of my experiences or the dictates of my faith, for I am and always have been a believer, when I knew that self-respect was of greater value to me than some stone.
Suffice it to say that if I had forced myself to take gold or jewels I would have been only too aware that I was slipping from the heights which I had so laboriously attained.
Furthermore, the first essential obstacle to looking for gold was the almost tangible feeling that I was doing myself great harm.
That is how I felt at the time, but who knows how I would behave were I once again to find myself in similar circumstances.
People reacted differently.
I didn’t need any money at the time, but when much later I wanted to escape and money would be useful on the road, I approached an inmate named Romek suggesting that we escape together and asking whether he had any money, just in case. He told me that he would count up what he had collected and would give me an answer the next day. The following day he told me that he had over a kilo of gold.
However, an escape with him did not work out. I made it out with fellows who did not have two pennies to rub together. But that would take place much later; for the time being, I had no plans to get out, waiting for the most interesting moment in the camp’s life towards which our whole effort was geared.
For some months now we had been able to take over the camp on more or less a daily basis.
We awaited an order on the assumption that without one, although there would be fine and unexpected “fireworks” for the whole world and Poland, we could not act simply for our own benefit and that of Mr. X or Mr. Y. We could not try such an experiment without orders from [Home Army] High Command.
But our hands itched daily.
We understood well that such action would be confirmation of our centuries-old national weakness. A rush of ambition and eagerness, unrelated to the overall picture and possibly bringing great reprisals throughout Silesia.
Especially since, at the time, it was hard to foretell how things would turn out.
We still had great hope that we would be able to play a part as an organized element in an overall coordinated operation.
Our reports were sent for the attention of the [Home Army] Commander-in-Chief along those lines.
For fear of someone’s thoughtless action on the outside we needed to avoid using any intermediaries when sending out our reports.
We were unclear how deeply German Intelligence had penetrated our networks, even those right at the top of the Underground Movement in Poland.
There was always the chance that if German Intelligence picked up on something, it would again “take out” the most energetic elements here in the camp.
It was then echoes of the pacification campaign in the Lublin region reached the camp.
First of all, one day among the belongings and the poorer worn-out shoes being burned we came across Polish country footwear, large and small, and then Polish peasant clothes, missals in Polish and simple, rustic rosaries.
A sort of tremor ran through our “fives.” We began to hang around in groups. Eyes became hard and fists clenched impatiently...
These were the belongings of Polish families who had been gassed in the gas chambers in Birkenau.
As a result of the pacification of the Lublin region (so our fellows in Rajsko told us) the people from several Polish villages had been brought here for gassing.
That is how things are and there is nothing one can do about it; when the belongings of people brought in from some other country were being burned, these shoes and suitcases had for months for us in the tannery been a terrible thing and an evil echo of crime—but now, when we saw the little shoes, a woman’s blouse and a rosary in their midst, the thirst for revenge became stronger.
Young boys, aged between 10 and 14–15, had been picked out from these Lublin transports. They had been segregated and brought into the camp.
We thought that these boys would survive. But one day, when we learned that a team was to come to inspect the state of the camp and in order to avoid any problems and have to explain where such young inmates had come from, although there might have been other reasons, all these boys got the “needle” with phenol on Block 20.
We had already seen many mountains of corpses in the camp, but this one, composed of about two hundred little bodies, made an impression on us, on even the old inmates, increasing our heart rate...
A number of new members joined from the tannery: 151 [name unknown], 152 [name unknown], 153 [name unknown], 154 [name unknown], 155 [name unknown].
At the same time we set up an advisory planning cell which Colonels 24 [Karol Kumuniecki] and 122 [Teofil Dziama], and 156 [Stanisław Wierzbicki] joined.
In Auschwitz, we often saw one of the fellows getting a letter from home, in which a mother, father or wife implored him to sign the Volksliste [the German People’s Register]— initially these were usually inmates with German-sounding names, or with German names on their mother’s side, or with some family connection or other.
Then the authorities began to make it progressively easier, so that eventually no German-sounding name was needed, just the wish to erase one’s Polish conscience, unless there were some higher considerations.
How often did one see, there in “hell,” an honest peasant whose foreign-sounding name did not prevent him being worthy of the name Pole.
Someone who with emotion said: “Yes, I love my mother, my wife, my father, but I won’t sign the list! I know that I’ll die here... My wife writes: ‘Jasiu dear, do sign’... No! Over my dead body! No one will be able in future to spit on my sense of being Polish, which though recent, is resolute.”
So many such men in Auschwitz died...
...A fine death, for they held out to the end on the ramparts of their Polish conscience.
But will all our compatriots out there, free and with Polish names fight for their Polishness?
What was really needed was some kind of instrument which could check for a Polish conscience, which in different families had taken different paths over these last few years of war.
In the second half of October, our fellows noticed (41 [Stanisław Stawiszyński] came running up with the news) that two of the kapos with the worst reputations (in addition to finishing off inmates they sent denunciations to the political department and its head—Grabner) were wandering around the camp, as if looking for someone, and taking down some of the häftlings’ numbers.
One afternoon, as I was hurrying down the main path from Block 22 to my comrades in the hospital area, I bumped into these two kapos by Block 16.
One had a notebook, the other came up to me with a fake smile and asked: “Wo läufst du? [Where are you off to in such a hurry?]”52 as if for the sake of saying something, and he clearly pointed out my number to the other and then walked away. The other one looked at me and appeared to hesitate, but as they walked off, I too went on my way thinking that there had been a mistake.
On the 28th of October (of ’42), at the morning roll call the schreibers [clerks] on various blocks began to call out inmates’ numbers telling them to go to the erkennungsdienst [the records office] to have their photographs che
cked.
Altogether 240 or so häftlings were called out, exclusively Poles as we later established and mainly from Lublin, with about a quarter of them Poles having nothing to do with the Lublin transports, and were for the time being sent to Block 3, which already made us suspicious, since why not go at once to Block 26 containing the erkennungsdienst, the ostensible cause of their summons?
The bell for arbeitskommando summoned us and we then left the camp as usual, each kommando going its separate way to work.
All the kommandos were abuzz at work; for the moment, we did not know if the others were in any kind of danger.
Then the news came from somewhere that they were to be shot. Two hundred and forty lads, mainly real Lubliners, to whom had been added at random by Grabner’s “dogs” going through the camp the numbers of those who stood out by virtue of their energy and eagerness.
We never discovered the real reason, perhaps it had just been the “whim” of those two thugs.
However, it was also called the “Lublin pacification,” whose echoes had reverberated around the camp.
Brave 41 [Stanisław Stawiszyńki] from Warsaw was among them, he who had first come with the news that numbers were being taken down.
For the time being we did not know if they were to be shot; we thought it might be only a rumor.
They had hitherto never shot such a large number of inmates at the same time. The mask of apparent passivity was a burden, when we were ready and eager for action. Those of us leading the organization were biting our fingernails, gearing up in the event of a showdown.
Had that group rebelled and put up a fight, we would all have sprung into action.
The revolt would have ignited the ranks and would have represented force majeure, thus untying our hands.
On the way back to camp our five “hundreds” of fit indoor workers passed the baubüro [construction site office] beneath which lay a reserve arms store.
In any event, it would not have been difficult; the lads were up for a fight. Everyone was always ready for death, but we would have made the bastards pay for it with blood.
There were only nine miserable little watchtowers and the hauptwache [main gate guard], as well as barely a dozen gemeiners [low-level SS men] who while escorting us carried their arms slung over their shoulders and unslung them only as they approached the camp on account of their superiors, so accustomed were they to our docility.
Had by some miracle just the one word flown in from Warsaw “action”... that day... to rescue the others...
But that was only a dream.
Did anyone even know? Did it even cross their mind? To be sure, with hindsight, one can see that this was just one fragment of the Polish nation’s suffering.
Yet, how very hard it was on us when the news came that afternoon that all of them had been calmly and with no fuss shot.
Sometimes amongst ourselves, on the day of a “shooting,” in the evening we would discuss how different men had gone to their death: had he gone bravely... or had he been afraid?
The lads murdered on the 28th of October of ’42 had known what awaited them. They had been told at Block 3 that they were going to be shot and so they threw cards to their comrades who were not going to die asking them to be sent on to their families...
They had decided to die “cheerfully,” so that they would be well spoken of that evening.
Let no one tell me that we Poles do not know how to die!
Those who witnessed it said that they would never forget the sight.
From Block 3, between Blocks 14 and 15, between the kitchen and Blocks 16, 17 and 18 and then straight on between the hospital blocks they proceeded in a column in fives, their heads held high, some of them even smiling.
There was no escort and they were followed by Palitzsch with his Luger in his belt and Bruno, both smoking and chatting idly.
All it would have taken was for the last five to have done an about-turn and both those thugs would have been no more.
So why did they not do it? Were they afraid? What was there to be afraid of at a moment like that when they were going to their deaths?
It looked like some kind of psychosis... but they did not do it, because they had their own reasons...
It had been announced by the authorities and confirmed by fellows who had recently been brought to the camp that the whole family would be held accountable for any games played by an inmate. It was known that the Germans were ruthless when it came to reprisals and wiped out families, displaying all manner of brutality. And who knew better than us what brutality looked like?
To see, or just to know, that one’s mother, wife or children could find themselves in the conditions endured by the women in Rajsko, was enough to stifle any thought of rushing the swine.
The whole camp was another matter.
To take it over, destroy the files... Who would be held responsible? It would be hard to lay hands on tens of thousands of families at the same time.
After lengthy consideration, we followed orders, given the possibility of reprisals, given the need to coordinate operations.
Accustomed to death, with which we came into contact several times a day, the idea of our own death was easier than the thought of a terrible blow directed at our loved ones.
Not really their death, but the terrible experience which accompanies a hard, ruthless hand taking our dearest from this world, breaking them psychologically and throwing them into another world, into a hell through which not everyone makes an easy passage.
The thought of one’s old mother or father struggling with what was left of their energy through mud somewhere, prodded and beaten with a club... for the sins of the son... or one’s own children going to the gas chamber... because of their father... was much harder than to think of one’s own death.
And even if there was someone for whom this was too high a standard, then he went on, led by his companions’ example.
He was “ashamed”—no, that’s too weak a word—he was unable to break out of that fine column, going so bravely to its death!
So on they went.
By the canteen (a wooden building on the square behind Block 21), still following the path between Blocks 21 and 27, the column appeared to stop... hesitated... almost went straight on, but that lasted only a single short moment, and then it turned ninety degrees left and headed for the gates of Block 11 and into the jaws of death.
Only after the gates had closed behind them and they were left on the block for several hours—they were to be shot in the afternoon—during this waiting for death, various doubts began to emerge and five of the lads tried to convince the others to take over the camp, to start the operation.
They barricaded the gates and something more serious might have happened had the Germans not reinforced the guards; all our kommandos were just waiting for a sign, but the protest against these killings did not spread beyond Block 11.
For apart from those five, the rest did not rise to the bait, and the Silesian, who was an orderly on that block, informed the SS men of the start of a revolt; Palitzsch appeared on the block with several other SS men and dealt with those inmates, shooting them first and leaving the rest for the afternoon.
Their achievement was to rise in our esteem for having died fighting: Captain Dr. 146 [Henryk Suchnicki], 129 [Leon Kukiełka] and three other fellows.
By the afternoon all of them were dead...
From our organization, in addition to the three whom I have already mentioned, that day the following fellows lost their lives: 41 [Stanisław Stawiszyński], 88 [Tadeusz Dziedzic], 105 [Edward Berlin], 108 [Stanisław Dobrowolski] and 146 [Henryk Suchnicki], but there were also others in the organization whom I don’t mention, because I didn’t know everyone personally—an impossibility in Underground work.
On our return to camp after work we scented in the air the smell of our comrades’ blood.
Efforts had been made to take the bodies off to the crematorium before our return.
The road was soaked with the blood dripping from the carts carrying the bodies...
That evening the whole camp was affected grimly by the death of these latest victims.
Only then did I realize that I had myself almost been on that list of names read out that day and, recalling the two kapos taking down numbers, I did not know whether I had not been written down by the kapo with the notebook because I had not looked like a dangerous inmate, or whether Grabner had later made a selection among the excess numbers, rejecting those who had no “political” case against them.
They brought in a new transport from the Pawiak in Warsaw which included my friends and former colleagues in the TAP in Warsaw: 156 [Stanisław Wierzbicki], 157 [Czesław Sikora] and 158 [Zygmunt Ważyński].
They brought me some interesting news.
Comrade 156 [Stanisław Wierzbicki] told me how 25 [Stefan Bielecki] had reached Warsaw from Auschwitz and how he, Wierzbicki, had later driven him in a car to his post in Minsk.
However, 158 [Zygmunt Ważyński] told me in detail that, on receiving the news from me delivered by Sergeant 14 [Antoni Woźniak] about the possibility of inconvenient information about me emerging from the parish register in Z [Bochnia], my sister-in-law Mrs. E.O. [Eleonora Ostrowska] had hurried around to see him. My honest friend 158 [Zygmunt Ważyński] that very same day had taken the train and gone to the little town of Z [Bochnia] where he went to see the parish priest 160 [Kuc] and explained the situation. The priest 160 [Kuc] wrote everything down in pencil in the register next to the owner of my camp alias and promised to take care of the matter. He must have done so, for there was no sign of any activity in my case in the political department.
Comrade 156 [Stanisław Wierzbicki] pointed out to me among the new arrivals Captain 159 [Stanisław Machowski] from [Home Army] High Command in Warsaw—he had been second-in-command in “Iwo II.”
One of our members, 138 [name unknown], knew Captain 159 [Stanisław Machowski] personally, having once served under him, and now as block chief he easily took him under his wing (76 [Bernard Świerczyna] pulled in 156 [Stanisław Wierzbicki], as well as 117 [Eugeniusz Zaturski] already working there).
The Auschwitz Volunteer: Beyond Bravery Page 20