It was then that the supervisor and the kapo in the parcel department asked what had happened to Olek 167 [Aleksander Bugajski], who had been working there and who was no longer there; was he sick?
They ran off to the schreibstube [office] and discovered that Olek was now in another block and working in another kommando—and since he had transferred to another job and an outside one at that without informing them or getting a card from the arbeitsdienst [work assignment office], and since he had some serious business with the political department—they came to the conclusion that he must be planning an escape, so Olek was punished by a transfer to the Penal Company.
Just in case, I had been preparing an escape through the sewers for quite some time.
This was by no means easy. The network of sewers shown on the diagram from the baubüro [construction site office] ran in different directions, but for the most part consisted of pipes 40 to 60 cm in diameter. Only in three directions from the most convenient entry for me, near Block 12, were there branches with a 60 cm diameter on the vertical sections and 90 cm on the horizontal ones.
I tried once to get in and open the grate blocking entry into the sewers just beyond the manhole. But I was not the only one showing interest in this.
Some of the other lads were aware of this route too.
I reached an understanding with them; they were 110 [Andrzej Makowski-Gąsienica] and 118 [name unknown]. A couple of others also had their eye on the sewers.
The issue was who would make up his mind to use them.
When, before the most recent Christmas a group from the arbeitsdienst were to have got out, 61 [Konstanty Piekarski] was also burning to be away and I showed him this route, and possibly a couple of inmates might have used it on Christmas Eve, when predictably the guards’ vigilance would be relaxed.
But on Christmas Eve itself, a second Christmas tree was put up right by the spot where they were to climb out, and the tree and the surrounding area were brightly lit.
When later I was working on the night shift in the parcel office there was a manhole nearby. It was then, at night, after donning some overalls on Block 3, that I twice scrambled into the stinking sewers.
In the manhole, the hinged grate which had once been locked with padlocks, now broken and covered in silt, appeared from above to be locked.
The route now branched in three directions using wider pipes. One ran between Blocks 12 and 13, 22 and 23, then broke left and ran by the kitchen and then, beyond the final watch-tower, near Block 28 it turned slightly right and came up beyond the railroad tracks.
This pipe was very long, about 800 meters. It had one great advantage, a safe exit, but it also had a great disadvantage: it was dreadfully silted up. I followed it for barely 60 m to see how easily one could move inside and I climbed out, completely exhausted.
It was an ideally dark night.
I was filthy; I washed and changed on Block 3. I must admit that I lost interest for some time.
Going the other direction, the sewer was dryer and it was easier to move along it; it was also much shorter.
It ran between Blocks 4 and 15, 5 and 16 and then continued straight as far as Blocks 10 and 21 and straight on.
It rose upwards—it had less water and waste matter from the blocks. But it came up two meters beyond a watchtower.
The slab covering the exit beyond the fence, even if prepared by colleagues during the day outside by the gravel pit, was difficult to raise at night without making a noise, and it was right by the soldiers in the watchtower.
The third branch remained, the shortest at about 40 meters, and an extension of the previous one.
It contained the most water. It ran between Blocks 1 and 12 and went under the wire between the administrative offices and a newly erected building. It came up on the road and was pretty visible, especially from the hauptwache [main gate guardhouse] in the light.
They had once put up a Christmas tree for us there. But now there would be no tree.
There was also the so-called underground “submarine” with a permanent crew, but I could not include it in my plans.59
I could now take the risk of escaping, but I continued to feel that this was not the right time for me to get out.
One evening, we came to the conclusion that a full-scale war was being waged against us.
We usually got our information from the political department, the Commandant’s office and the hospital through SS men who were working for both sides, and would send it on to us through the Volksdeutschen and Reichsdeutschen working alongside us.
Some of the SS had formerly been NCOs in the Polish Army,60 who clearly wanted us to know that, in the event of something happening, they would be with us and would even give us a key to the armory.
In fact we would not need to wait for their keys, since our lads in the locksmiths’ shop had already made copies of all of them—and though the NCOs were two-faced and unpleasant people, even they had their uses, often warning us of the authorities’ planned moves and always doing so accurately.
Apparently, Grabner no longer trusted his own people and tried to keep things hush-hush up to the last minute, with the list of those to be shipped out held a secret. He shared his decisions with Palitzsch.
A blocksperre [block lock-down] was held on the 7th of March.
The lists were sent over to the blocks and the blocks were suddenly locked. Inmates’ numbers, exclusively Polish ones, were now called out and they were ordered to prepare for a transport.
Only the numbers of those whose cases had been wrapped up, or in whom the political department no longer had any interest, were read out.
The transports were to leave for other camps, which supposedly were very much better than Auschwitz.
We learned secretly that the first ones would go to the better camps; the later ones to the worse ones.
There was a mixed reaction on the blocks. Some were glad to be going to better camps and that they were not to be shot here. Others worried that they were not going, that their cases were still open and that they might be shot. Meanwhile, others were very unhappy to be leaving, for here they had got a good job after years’ of hard work, and there they would again have to be a zugang, with only the fittest surviving, and they might not make it to the top again.
However, the general feeling was that going was a good thing, for nowhere else could there be a hellhole like this one.
In any case, no one asked us.
Had it been daytime and the blocks open, we could have done something about it.
Someone wanting to remain could “fall sick,” but nothing could be done at night.
My number was read out early on the first night (7th–8th).
We were ordered to get our things and move to Block 12, now deliberately quite empty, and so off we went with our stuff.
Block 19 was similarly filled and numbers were read out there three evenings in a row (the 7th, 8th and 9th of March); altogether about 6,000.
We were also locked up in Blocks 12 and 19, and could communicate only through the windows.
Dr. 2 [Władysław Dering] came to the stairwell and through the glass in the door indicated that if I wanted to stay, I would have to be sick.
Given my underground work and my status in the inmates’ work world, this was worth consideration.
On the 10th of March (of ’43) they had us out by 6:00 a.m. in fives, in columns, on the “Red Alley.”
Here German military doctors conducted a medical examination of those inmates who had been selected by the political department to be shipped out.
I was standing near Colonel 11 [Tadeusz Reklewski] and Kazio 39 [Pilecki’s nephew, Kazimierz Radwański].
My brain was turning over feverishly, working out who was going and who was staying behind.
A tightly knit group of lads with whom I had been working was to leave. My instinct was to go with them.
The medical commission was amazed at the health and excellent physical condition
of the Polish inmates, for the most part well fed (with the exception of the newly arrived zugangs), shaking their heads and saying: “Where have these people been?”
In addition to “Canada” and parcels, to a certain extent our organization deserved credit for this—now the results were there for all to see...
But my responsibility was the continuity of our work here... Who would I be with?...I began to discuss the issue with some of the other fellows...
Colonel 11 [Tadeusz Reklewski] and Kazio 39 [Pilecki’s nephew, Kazimierz Radwański] were glad to be going. They had been assigned to Buchenwald, supposedly one of the better camps.
My friend Colonel 11 [Tadeusz Reklewski] felt that, despite everything, my duty was to stay on in this hellhole.
I had plenty of time to think it over. The examinations were going very slowly.
We stood the whole day and part of the night.
With Colonel 11 [Tadeusz Reklewski] and Second Lieutenant 61 [Konstanty Piekarski] we reached the head of the line about 2:00 a.m.
Long before, I had decided to try to stay in Auschwitz.
From 169 [Stanisław Barański], who was able to move about freely, I had got a truss from the krankenbau, even though I did not have a hernia.
By 2:00 a.m. the commission was tired.
Colonel 11 [Tadeusz Reklewski], over a dozen years older than me and a weakling in comparison, was passed as fit for work by the commission and put on the transport.
But when I stood naked before the commission with my truss over my nonexistent hernia, the doctors waved me on saying: “Weg! [Move along!] We don’t need chaps like him!” I was not accepted for the transport.
I marched off to Block 12 and after reporting in with my card excusing me from the transport, I was immediately sent off to Block 6 back to my own bunk, and the following day I went back to my normal job in the parcel office.
On the 11th of March, after rejecting those unfit for work, or those who tried to pretend that they were, they shipped out five thousand healthy Poles (with a few others to increase the numbers).
The main schreibstube [office] sent over to the parcel office a detailed list with the numbers of those inmates who had been shipped out, so as to be able to forward any food parcels coming for them; we were therefore able accurately to confirm that these five thousand Poles had been sent in five different directions, more or less a thousand to each of the following camps: Buchenwald, Neuengamme, Flossenbürg, Gross-Rosen and Sachsenhausen.
Our organization’s basic leadership had managed to wriggle out of this transport—and so our work went on.
A week later, on the first Sunday, we again received a surprise.
In order to avoid a last-minute rush of work just before a transport, it was decided to do it calmly ahead of time.
That day, all the remaining Poles on every block had to present themselves to a medical commission, which put next to each inmate’s number the letters A or U,61 indicating his category as “fit” or “unfit” for work.
This was sprung on us, preventing any of the dodges hitherto used.
I wondered what to do about it. To get an “A” meant leaving on the next transport and to worse camps, since I had not gone to the better ones.
Although we were told that those unfit for work would be sent to Dachau where they would be in the hospital and so on, knowing the authorities at the time, I felt getting a “U” would probably lead to “the gas and the chimney.”
I had to find a way out.
In any event I decided against the truss. The medical commission to which I presented myself, without a closer examination, sent me on my way putting the letter “A” by my number on the list.
I looked in good shape.
The German military doctors, looking at the Poles’ fine physiques, once again expressed surprise saying loudly: “We could field a fine regiment with men like these!”
Now that I was goods to be shipped out, I had to come up with something, for I didn’t want to go to a “worse” camp, given that I had not gone to a “better” one.
SS men heading kommandos with specific duties very willingly requested Polish craftsmen. They always preferred to work with the Poles, who were the best workers. However, owing to the authorities’ directives at this time, they could not be seen to be doing this too obviously.
It was also hard to pretend to be a craftsman in the parcel office. Yet somehow, with the help of Dr. 2 [Władysław Dering] and 149 [name unknown], I was requested by the head of the parcel office among an overall number of five who were considered essential workers.
Nor was I included in a new transport which left in two waves (on the 11th and 12th of April). Both to Mauthausen.
They shipped out 2,500 Poles.
Altogether then, in March and April (of ’43) they shipped out 7,500 fit Poles.
It was then that I decided that to stay on was becoming too difficult.
After more than two and a half years I would have to start all over again, with “new boys.”
On the morning of the 13th of April I went to the cellar in Block 17, where Captain 159 [Stanisław Machowski] (from HQ in Warsaw) was working in a separate little room. I knew him by sight; he had been pointed out to me several times by Second Lieutenant Stasiek 156 [Stanisław Wierzbicki] (who had been shot) and Major 85 [Zygmunt Bohdanowski], but I had not yet spoken to him, for he had been put in the care of our member 138 [name unknown], and we spoke for the first time.
I told him: “I have been inside for two years and seven months. I have had a job to do here. Lately I have had no instructions. Now the Germans have shipped out our best people with whom I’ve been working. I would have to start from scratch. I can see no further point in staying here. Therefore, I’m going to leave.”
Captain 159 [Stanisław Machowski] looked at me in some surprise and said: “Yes. I can see that, but can one pick and choose when one wants to come to Auschwitz and when one wants to leave?” I replied: “One can.”
From that moment on all my energies were directed at finding the best way to escape.
I then spoke to Major 85 [Zygmunt Bohdanowski], who at the time was in the hospital with Dr. 2 [Władysław Dering]; supposedly ill, he was resting there and had thus been able to avoid the transports, for they had not been taking the sick for the time being. He was an “A,” but before getting out I managed to fix him up with a job in the parcel office.
I went to see him as someone who knew the Auschwitz/ Oświęcim area well, asking which way he would go and which direction he recommended. Zygmunt looked at me in disbelief saying: “If anyone else had said that, I would have thought he was kidding, but since it’s you, I’m sure you’ll get out. I’d head for Trzebinia and Chrzanów.”
I pulled out from under my jacket a 1:100,000 map of the Oświęcim [Auschwitz] area, which I had got from 76 [Bernard Świerczyna], and showed it to him.
I intended to head for Kęty.62
We said goodbye warmly. I turned over to him, “Bohdan”— Major 85 [Zygmunt Bohdanowski], responsibility for everything, should it come to a fight.
I went to see my friend 59 [Henryk Bartosiewicz] and turned over to him the organizational side of things, relying too on the naturally brave Colonel 121 [Juliusz Gilewicz], who was the organization’s official head and a friend of 59 [Henryk Bartosiewicz].
Now it was time to go... really go...
There is always a difference between saying you will do something and actually doing it. A long time before, many years before, I had worked on myself to be able to fuse the two.
But above all I was a believer, and I believed that if God wanted to help me, I would definitely make it...
There was also another reason hastening my decision. I learnt through Dr. 2 [Władysław Dering] from zugangs who had come from the Pawiak that 161 [Bolesław Kuczbara], who had escaped from Auschwitz with the “arbeitsdiensts,” had been picked up in Warsaw and was now being held in the Pawiak.
Having little confidence in th
e man—and because of rumors about his past and because of his unscrupulous work here collecting gold from dead people’s crowns and because of the business with the “decorations” which he had painted in honor of Colonel 121’s [Juliusz Gilewicz’s] and 59’s [Henryk Bartosiewicz’s] work for us—I felt that to save his own life, he might agree to cooperate with the Germans and start spilling the beans.
I spoke to Dr. 2 [Władysław Dering], 59 [Henryk Bartosiewicz] and 106 [name unknown] about this, and felt that those whom he knew to be the organization’s leadership needed to get out.
In mid-March my colleague and friend 164 [Edmund Zabawski] had informed me that one of our colleagues, whom I knew by sight, Jasiek 170 [Jan Redzej], was planning to get out of the camp and that if I wanted to send out a report, he could take it.
I got to know Jasiek and took an immediate liking to him.
I liked the constant smile on his mug, his broad shoulders and his direct manner. In a word, a first-rate fellow.
I told him about the possibility of using the sewers as a last-ditch approach and asked him how he was planning to get out.
He replied that going into town on a dray to get bread from the bakery, he had often seen the civilian bakers’ bicycles standing by the bakery. If there was no other way, he’d grab a bike and just “go for it.”
I was against this. After a while he came to see me with the news that if we could get into the bakery, there was a huge, heavy, studded door with two leaves which could be opened.
In order to have a good look at this door, with the permission of the kapo of his own brotabladungskommando [bread-unloading kommando], Jasiek transferred for a few days to the bakery, supposedly to fill up on bread.
At the time Jasiek weighed 96 kg.63 The kapo liked him as an experienced and cheerful worker.
It was the end of March.
After five days in the bakery, Jasiek returned downhearted. The work at the bakery was very hard.
Over the course of five days Jasiek had sweated off 6 kg. He now weighed only 90 kg. But worse than that, he had come to the conclusion that the door could not be opened... A mighty lock in one of the leaves which, when locked with a key, slid a large pin into the other leaf, might not be a problem if the bolts (four in all) on both leaves were slid back, but there was also an outside hook which held the leaves together when the door was closed.
The Auschwitz Volunteer: Beyond Bravery Page 23