Note 04

Written on 22nd July 2019

I suggest that the readers of this note acquaint themselves with other people or books with information about the past. I list below some works where such information is available:

• Bobrowniki – memoirs and documentsBacia Tadeusz – information on pages 119, 152, 156, 161, 166, 167, 168, 169, 171, 172, 173, 186
• Bacia Stanisław (brother of Tadeusz) – information on pages 110, 111, 115, 121, 122, 139, 140, 142, 182, 187, 328
• Bobrowniki until the year 1945 (collected by Mrs Halina Gajdzik): Bacia Tadeusz – information on page 171

While in Auschwitz camp, I couldn’t see everything directly. A lot of information could be obtained from guides working in the camp and from the literature.

On this note, I wanted to inform the reader that during my stay there from 20.12.1941 until 02.06.1842, prisoner’s numbering grew from 25,000 to 40,000. According to the information board, which was placed in the canteen there, the main camp held 1200 prisoners, and in Brzezinka (Birkenau), around 8000 prisoners. From the numbers above, one can reason the purpose of the camp. In the number of 40,000 prisoners, one has to include prisoners transferred to other camps, released from the camp or who died in the camps.

People visiting the camps now can see giant trees, which weren’t there during my stay.

One cannot imagine the masses of prisoners returning and carried back in from work, from outside of the camp for the evening roll call. The old prisoners, with low numbers, said that other prisoners were removing bark from the trees and eating it. There was also information that the black barley coffee (the only meal for breakfast) was whitened with powder from ground human bones. I think it was not milk. It was a drink called “RWO”.

I was just a regular prisoner working physically. I tried to say something, and I wondered why older prisoners, who had functions such as block leader, writers (Schreiber), room leaders, and brigadiers, didn’t want to tell and know nearly everything that was taking place. I don’t understand how you can live in the camp for five years, where in my transport, prisoners died after four months.

I have been asked lately, ‘Do you think prisoners should still ask for war reparations?’. I think that to maintain good relations with Germany, we should stop those demands, but I don’t know what the widows and orphans of those husbands who died in camps would say. I remember that widows of miners worked in mines so the kids would be fed and get an education.

I can say that if I were offered a million, assuring me that I’ll live, I wouldn’t want to be there for six months (and that’s how long I’ve been there).