Written on the 5 of July 2019
In the month of April 1942, in the afternoon hours, prisoners’ commandos were returning from work to the centre of the Auschwitz Camp. On the square between the block, an SS man penal-trained a group of prisoners. In German, he was giving orders: “… down, run for 5 metres, down, up and run, etc.”. After a few minutes, some prisoners couldn’t get up from the ground anymore. The SSman then approached the laying prisoner, kicked him, and, if the prisoner was capable of getting up – he had to continue running. After a few minutes, some prisoners stopped getting up. Some other prisoners were watching this penal training, and I asked one of them, ‘What is this punishment for?’ and was told it was for contacting civilians when labouring outside of the camp. I don’t know how the penal exercises ended, as I had to go to my block 4a as the time for the evening roll call and prisoner count was approaching.
From experience, I know that the labour at the camp was unpaid.
When I was arrested near my home, a man from the Gestapo told me that I wouldn’t be given anything, as I’d get everything there, but he didn’t tell me where I was going. Because I didn’t have any money, I bought the first postcard with a postmark for a piece of bread from another prisoner on an (illegal) camp exchange and sent it to my parents.
I suspect those penal commando exercises were a sanction for informing the family where the prisoner is located.
During my stay at the quarantine in the death block no 11, before I was released from the camp, I met Jan Pudlik, an ex-city mayor of Piekary Slaskie, who told me he had been sentenced to death but told his wife he’d come home.
After I was released from the camp, I was ordered to start working within three days. I was sent to forced labour in Heydebreck (Kędzierzyn), so my Mother informed Mrs. Pudlik of the news from the camp. In Kędzierzyn, I lived in a barrack (infested with bedbugs) for Poles, and if I didn’t report there, I would have been arrested and sent to a camp or transported to forced labour.
In the camp, Karol Kozik from Old Bieruń and Mosur from Wojkowice wished to inform their families that money was waiting at home. I couldn’t fulfil this wish, as above, as leaving the work assignment in Kędzierzyn without a special pass could result in an arrest, and such arrests happen. In Kędzierzyn, Poles needed to carry a yellow square on their clothes, measuring 8x8cm with a letter P, but we didn’t adhere to this. I, as a Pole and ex-concentration camp prisoner in Auschwitz, had to report twice a week to the Gestapo in Kędzierzyn personally. This lasted about half a year.
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