MARIAN WOJCIECHOWSKI

AUSCHWITZ NUMBER 50333

5/14/95 TEMPERANCE, MICHIGAN

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            My name is Marian Wojciechowski. I was born April 25, 1914. I was born in a small rural township, Polaniec; it was approximately 3,000 people. About one third of these people were Polish people of the Jewish faith. The rest were Christians, mostly Catholic. As far as I remember, the cooperation between Christian and Jewish people were very good and as long as I was there, I did not see or hear any problems between the people. The city was Polaniec, a historical site. Known through history since about the thirteenth century, between Warsaw and Krakow. Most of the people did agriculture. There were no good roads, only dirt roads, to go long distances was very difficult, some areas were sand, some areas were clay, and after the rain it was hard to go through. It was an area that was hard to get to and hard to get out. There were no special industries, except a few flour mills and a few wood mills, practically speaking there was no industry in the area. There was a market one day a week with horses or cattle. If demand was high, the prices were higher, if the demand was low, the prices were lower, sometimes there were ducks or geese. In the fall, these things were sent to the slaughterhouses in the bigger cities, first by horse wagons to the closest railway station which was ten to fifteen miles away.

            In the family I was part of, the oldest daughter, was already had her own family and they had a store. My next older sister and her husband were with us all the time, and she was working in a grocery store in Powanics, that belonged to his parents. Then was my brother who had finished school and was living in an area of Poland occupied by Russia. Then there was me. Then my younger brother that is now a Doctor of Sociology in Poland. I had four brothers, plus me, and three sisters. The family was quite large. My father was a small farmer, he did not have much land, so he leased some other land to help support us. He also took jobs for other people like for instance he took geese or ducks and transported them twenty miles. When my parents were in school it was Russia in control and they were only to learn Russian language, but he spoke Polish as well, although that was officially not allowed, that was against the Russian law. My mother understood that the future for the children was their education. My older brother was the first one to go to the high school. Most people only got three- or four-years education, Russia did not want the people educated. Girls should not go to school at all and boys only one or two from the family. The authorities thought that the less education the people had, the harder they have to work, and less time they would have to fight Russia for an independent Poland. The teacher in charge over there, when I was in fifth grade, said stay one year more in the fifth grade then you will be in the sixth grade, and stay one more year in the sixth grade, then you will be in the seventh grade, and then you can go to high school. In bigger cities they had already high schools, but it was five hours each way by wagon ride. They taught French, German, and Latin languages in the bigger cities as well. I admit, now that I look back, I did not want to pass the entrance test, because that would mean I would have to live there in this city with all these strange people I did not know.

I went to that high school, and it was 1928 or 1929. Before I left for the other city my parents told me, whatever you do, do it well, so you won’t have to do it a second time, because you did not do it right the first time. So, I was a good student. My father, in order for me to go to the school, had to sell one cow, to pay for tuition for the whole year, and every two weeks my father brought food, and clean laundry. My cousin went to the school and his father brought the food and laundry the next two weeks; they took turns. We lived in a house with sometimes seven of us, and the lady whose house it was, was paid to cook us two meals a day. After the first year began a depression and prices fell down and my father had to sell one cow every month to pay for my tuition. So, I got a job tutoring other students to earn enough to pay my tuition and expenses.

 During the first vacation, five of us were in what they call here the boy scouts, we went to Krakow, and then two of us went into the Tatras Mountains. We went so high that even in July the snow went up to your belt, almost 3,000 meters. We spent the whole vacation hiking, sightseeing, talking to the people, and I would say, also very educational to see how people lived, living outside in the pastures with the cows and sheep. After we came back, one of my first students was the daughter of the director and was one year lower than me. I teach her, but sometimes, I had three, four, five other students. I was very demanded, and I was very serious. I started sometimes six o’clock in the morning, because I lived in the student housing and would start them before they left for school. Sometimes I came home ten o’clock, eleven o’clock at night and tutored sometimes an hour, two hours, or three hours. I covered my tuition and expenses. My younger brother did not want to go to some other school, he wanted to go where Marian is, so he came to me, so both of us studied together. Later on, he went to the seminary to study to be a priest, and I finished the whole last year in the new gymnasium, they built a new building in the county seat an additional five miles farther. I finished the last year of high school there.

So, after the high school, what to do? Go home, it was still the depression time. I talked to my parents, they said, fine Marian, but we cannot help you. So, what to do? Friend of mine and my really good teachers, and the students that went to the same high school, but already finished studies, convinced me to go to Warsaw. So, I went to Warsaw to study coop commerce. The school was the best school in Poland, it was a private school. They not only had coop education but also, business administration, banking, accounting, and teaching commercial subjects, and so also for administration for governments. I went over there because I was from a rural area and we did not have good agriculture, and no facilities to store the grain, to store the meat, to store anything, so we have to start thinking of how to build it up. The only way to do that in Poland at the time was through the cooperative movement. So, I decided to be in the cooperative movement, but again, I didn’t have money. So, I had to full time work and full-time study. Approximately from eight am until 2 pm I was in school, listening to the teachers. Some of the professors see that you are present, so they thank you. I went to the lectures and made the notes. Approximately from three pm to six pm I was working. I was lucky enough to get a job in the coop movement office. The director over there that gave me the job said, whatever you have to do we will put on this desk over here. We don’t care if you do it during the day or at night, Saturday, Sunday, or any holiday, as long as it is done in two, three, four days. That gave me the flexibility to go to school and to go to work. After six o’clock I ate something, mostly a piece of bread with some bacon, some onion, and tea, because coffee was too expensive. That was three times a day, my food.

 

And then I went to the school back, to the library. I could not afford to buy the books because they were expensive, and the library was open until ten o’clock at night every day. Then it was less than a mile to go back to the dormitory for the students, I had a room for two. A friend of mine was living with me at that time was Polish but was of German descent and spoke German worse than me. His father at home only spoke German and was the owner of a furniture factory. His son was very liberal. When the time I went home, he was studying. I had a piece of bread with the lard and a cup of tea, and I went to sleep. At the time he went to bed, he wakes me, and I studied until the morning about six o’clock. Then I took a shower and shaved myself and took a ride with the streetcar to the school. That was normally, on Saturdays, Sundays, or any holidays, I try to go to the church for the service. Otherwise, I was either studying or working in the office. I got my master’s degree exam and passed in three years. I studied very hard, economics, law, business law, family law, and accounting. I was twenty-three when I got my degree, at that time I got notice in the beginning of September to go for military service, I was supposed to be there two weeks before my exam, so I wrote them a letter asking for a three week delay. I went to the school and showed them the letter that I am going in the military service to ask them if they will allow me to take the exam before the time.

I took the test, I passed, I still had one week, so I went to my father. At that time his health was in bad shape. He had an abscess in his stomach and at that time they did not make the surgery. That was 1937, and he died. I went into the service, they put me in a unit for future professional officers. Why to the cavalry? Wherever else I go, if I go to the army, I have to walk with all your gear on your back, in the cavalry the horse did the walking, just a little bit to rest. I finished the military service.

After I work, the first year I worked in a part of Poland that after the First World War belonged to Germany. They took me to the department where they make a mill to use over there. There were five to seven people steady working. I came to help them and to learn something and they pay me. At the time I came over there, two of them were on vacation and then later on somebody else had a sickness in their family so they went over there and there was an accident and they could not come back. It came to the point where the manager and me stayed both together in the office and wrote the reports, just the two of us, where before five and sometimes seven did the job before. Before I left, they made me an offer to not to go back to school, and they will pay me so much money that I wouldn’t even dream to go outside, approximately three times more than what was paid in the office. I would have to stay there, and I said no. I went back and worked in the office over there. I also helped at auctions and so on and stayed in the house of one of the secretaries of one of the offices over there. After the military service and working over there, the man from the company came over there to Warsaw to tell me the offer stays. He said, will you come to us? I said no, I do not care for money I want to help the people from where I am from, from my area and the poor families. I went to the coop businesses here to audit and see what is wrong and to give them a proposal to improve and see in the next year or two that these improvements were put in place. We were not financially, but morally, responsible for the prospering of this business. We were in the office, we only visited the business once a year, but we got the reports every month. And we had to check them to see how they were doing. I was around twenty-six years old, and I knew these people from when I worked there before. The youngest one next to me was forty-eight years old. He was working there at that time about eighteen years or so. I thought either I fail, which I would not do, or I need to learn to do that fast and do that well. It was about one year before the war started and I was one of the youngest and best auditors.

In the small towns and high school, there was no difference between the Christians and the Jews. We worshipped on Sundays they on Saturdays. We had our holidays, and they had their holidays. We were not so different; I knew some Jewish religious customs and the Jews knew ours. Since there were more Christians than Jews and they were living as Jews, going to the synagogue, and going to the church as well, and they were singing our songs there. When I came to Warsaw to study there was a very small percentage of students whose parents were bigger landowners or higher officials were more inclined to listen to the German or Italian fascist movement against Jews. At that time, there were sometimes fights beating up Jews, but as soon as that started the school was closed. Since school was closed and I could not go, I used that time to do my work in the office. There were people that said things against Jews showing how stupid their whole movement was. They would say Jews go away, but they meant the males, they still wanted to socialize with the Jewish women. It was insulting to the Jews, but once the war started, they saw the atrocities and that awaked them.

Then the war started, and I went to the war, I was called to go, and I was a cadet officer at that time. At that time, I was in eastern Poland near the German border. On September 1st, I remember well, there were about twenty-eight tanks coming towards us. Our weapon power could not reach them, they were to small caliber, there power was tremendous, and they were shooting at us. We had to fall back, and I lost some people from the attack. Our troops were very loyal and were fighting very well to use delaying tactics. We lost against them in one month. At the same time as we were fighting the Germans, the Russians came from the other side of the country, so we were fighting on both sides of the country. So, we gave the horses to the farmers, and we buried all the equipment and ammunition in the ground and got rid of our uniforms. The Russians were already taking the people out and sending them to different parts of Russia. They took me, but I escaped. Then I got close to the German area and was captured by the Germans, but I escaped again. So, I came to Warsaw. In Warsaw at that time, there was still hunger, it had only been a month you know. After the Polish army surrendered, there was still no food coming in. Food had to be brought in and organized. I came to my office over there, what was good was that I was at a German coop. They needed the coop because they needed a distribution center. So, the German in charge said to me, you work in the coop movement, so you can stay here, we will give you our passes, so no one can arrest or harass you. I was known in the coop movement, so a friend of mine and I started to bring some food in to ease the hunger. They gave me the papers and a friend, and I went to a big coop and told them what we want to do. They said, ok, I do not know how long I can do it, but so far no one has asked for an inventory of what I had. We had three horse wagons and we filled them with whatever was normal, like flour and potatoes and we drove day and night back to Warsaw and took the wagons to the office. Okay, what to do with that? So, we determined how many people were in the family, they could purchase so much, and the rest was to help others.

There were lots of people needing help, so we had to distribute carefully. The ladies cleaned the potatoes and made soup in a very big pot. When it was ready four of us carried it to the hospital to be given to the sick people. It did not matter who, everyone was hungry. We gave to the kitchen for the poor, everywhere people were hungry. When I went to the hospital, I saw my superior officer was there sick. Many soldiers were there and wounded. When the soldiers were well, they could go home, but the officers were taken to Germany. I went to my brother that was working in the area and told him we needed ID cards, I told him what for. So, we got a stack of ID cards and took them to Warsaw, it was already October, by then the secret organizations had already started. We told them to make an ID card for this officer. So, we got for the colonel an ID card that said he was a landowner in the area controlled by the Russians, we knew they will not check over there. His ID said he was a regular soldier. There was no electricity at the time, so we had to get lanterns and petroleum to use in the lanterns. We sold spices and other things to get money to buy these things. The Jewish agency in America sent tools so people could work, and what they did was to make and repair umbrellas. At that time when you had to go by horse wagon, if you had to go ten miles and there was heavy rain, you had to have umbrella. The demand for umbrellas was very high and to service them was also very high, because the high winds eventually tear them apart. You went to them and they had the parts to fix them. The people going to them were the poor farmers. Some did not have the money, so they brought to them the eggs, or milk, or cheese, or maybe a chicken and it was exchanged. In this way it was normal life. At the end of November, I was traveling through the forest and I see our whole cavalry unit on horses in the forest. They were fighting, but eventually they were all killed. That was the beginning of the war.

Powanics was very small, and on the corner, there was a building with the county offices. In front of the building was a covered porch and there were benches where you sit down. I go across the street, and I see this German man, and I knew him, because before the war, he bought from us a cow. The village was about one-half mile from my house. He saw me and said, hello, hello. We shook hands and he said, I am living here, third generation, my parents and grandparents are buried here. The church we have, the school we have is German. I do not know if I can live long enough to be buried here. He was at that time maybe seventy, seventy-five years old. The older ones were even scared. His son in law escaped from Poland and went to Germany and joined the SS and was trained, and when the war started, he came back and became one of the worst Gestapo man in the area. He knew language, he knew people, he knew customs, he knew where to go and what to do. He took revenge on anybody that ever wronged him even as a child. Finally, he was killed by the partisans, but that was not until 1943 or 1944.

As long as the people are not taken to the ghetto, they practiced religion, and were more religious than ever, because of the danger, people in danger are usually more religious. However, when they were taken to the ghetto, each move was controlled. So, the Jewish religion was stopped, before they could practice in their house, now in their room in secret. How bad it was, if I say one third of the population of Powanics was Jewish usually, later on it was about four thousand Jews in Powanics. What it was is they took Jews from other areas and put them in the ghetto in Powanics. In October 1942, the Germans killed all the people not able to work. Those able to walk were marched away to another town about twelve miles away, to a bigger town with a ghetto, some of them escaped. Christians could still practice religion, but they arrested and killed clergy that they suspected of working with the underground, or those who were against the Germans before the war. You could go to the church, but the church could not say one word against the Germans, because there was always someone there or suspected of being there.

There were a few cases where people told the Germans things so people would be killed or taken away, so the person collaborating could take over the property. The underground had some Germans working for them in the underground, they were not informants, they were just of German descent. When I was in Radom there was a factory owned by two German brothers that took horses or cows and made leather goods from them. One of the relatives living in Germany was in a high military position, he came to Warsaw to visit. The younger brother was arrested, because he was driving the company truck to deliver weapons from one point to another, for the Polish underground. They sent him to Auschwitz but in Auschwitz there was also a leather factory, and he was made a Kapo, which means he was in charge of things, but he was excellent. I did not know him personally, but later when I was taken to the Gestapo for interrogation, I was handcuffed to him together. I was beaten very badly. They asked me what I knew about him, and they asked him what he knew about me. Later on, they said you can talk about him because he is dead already, but I could not tell them anything because I did not know him. They told him the same thing about me, but he did not know me either. After the war we ran into each other and recognized each other and both of us said, you are still alive? Under normal circumstances we would be dead, but sometimes miracle happens.

I came to Warsaw and started to work in the coop movement again. We at that time got a German commissar, a man in charge, he was a man that worked for me before the war. This was no harsher for the people, we just do the same thing as before the war. We had to take care of all the coops that were already in existence and some of them were new coops, created just after the start of the war, maybe for special purposes, maybe underground coops. Sometime later a friend of mine that worked in the coop office came to me and said, Marian, I want to talk to you about something, confidentially. He thought I could help him. There was one coop created that they know is an underground coop. They had to have everything that is normally done for each one coop. Since I was the youngest one, since I was not married, since I had already had military service, it was riskier for them, than it was for me, so I could take the risk. They had families already and they were already involved with other undergrounds.  He said, you don’t have to give me the answer today, think about it and tell me tomorrow, when you answer I will tell the boss. The next day he said, so what is your answer? I said you knew my answer yesterday it is the same today; the answer is yes. I said, so who is in charge of the coop? I need to give them forms and by laws of the coop. He gave me some names. Some of the names I knew already from previous life. Some of them were sitting in other offices but were also involved over there. One of them had the same name as mine, first and last name, and we knew each other for about three years or so. He had a forestry education and he worked in the coop before the war in a farmer’s organization, he was Polish. So, I said, what do you need for the coop and what do you want to tell me about the underground? He told me what he needed for the coop and then he said, we would like to start issuing an underground newspaper, but we do not have the type setting equipment. I know the type of equipment could be purchased. The Germans took everything under their control, but Warsaw had been bombed, demolished, not completely but most of it. It was easy at the time when they came to the shops to say it was destroyed by the bombs. They could not prove that it was not destroyed but taken out and put somewhere for storage. I know that someone before the bombing took their machinery out to put in storage out in the countryside. But we did not have so much money for that. So, I said, let me see what I can do. During my time, one year before I finished my education, I was going to different coops in the area to audit them and I made some friends and they like me and some because they were young, we could understand each other very well. I was blessed in my life to having to deal with excellent people. With people you have to find a common language. I never took credit for anything; I don’t care who takes the credit. My credit is that that is done. For instance, I am doing an audit and I see something is wrong, so I tell the director if you change the bad method to the good method, I have done my job. Some of the older ones wanted to be important, that they did that and that and that. Sometimes the old people do not know the new method, so they like that and they like me for that. So I got to one of them that I did an audit over there for them, and I told him there is a man that has the same name as me that wants to put over there equipment for issuing an underground paper but they don’t have the money, can you help them? He said, how? If you have the grain and so much spoils that is allowed, if you have eggs, so much breakage is allowed, if you have any type of merchandise you can give to them to stay in your percentage to their coop. At that time, you could sell practically everything on the black market that you have to sell. He said, ok Marian as long as I won’t get in trouble and they will fine me, because I gave too much in losses. I said, I will take half as much as the normal losses so no one can say you had too much.

 So, I discuss it with a friend of mine, shortly after we took two wagons of stuff, merchandise, over there to the co-op in Warsaw and to the man over there and he said they told me you need money to buy, so Marian we sell all that stuff. And so, they make my wagon empty, so I come back home to work. It was based on at this time farmers contract. The farmers party, peasants party divided to groups what to give to the organization. So, what they did at that time, the underground, everyone wanted to prepare themselves, everyone thought that at that time, 1940, that as soon as England and France will fight with the Germans, they would defeat the Germans. So, when at the time when they start fighting in the West over there, so Poland has to be ready to fight with Russia and to whip Germany. So, we thought, no one will give us Poland, offer us Poland, so we have to fight for Poland. Every twenty or twenty-five years there was uprisings, to fight against Russia, against Prussia, Austria, so that was like one of that. It was normal life for children and adult people. So, 1939 or 1940 winter, the street cars circled Warsaw, and I was over there staying. From the very beginning the street cars were the front wagon, car was for transport for Germans all for them and everyone else in the back cars. If a boy was eleven or twelve years old at the time, he was selling newspapers, it was Polish but also printed in German, but so people buy because no one knows, so people want to find out. So, he gets on the streetcar steps they would take newspapers Polish and German, and he was selling them, there was a group of German soldiers and the soldiers from behind kicked him, so he jumped off the step. He said in Polish, so should I give you that back now or wait until after Easter. It was before Easter. People thought that by Easter it would all be over.

There were two types of underground movements, of course each one party they started to make small cells in the underground. Normally for the whole underground they had to take the oath and there was the form of the oath, and it was always the same what they swear to and so on. However, they do not know about him, but he knows about another one. Or children who going to school or classes they are too. So, the whole country belongs to the underground. There were cases where the women with the small child put the small child put the children in a small cart, small wagon, on a blanket, and under the blanket taking in the cart a machine gun. She risked her life and the small child’s life to taking the machine gun from one place to the other. Because it had to be delivered somewhere. I heard only one case, from a friend of mine, where his mother did not allow him to go to the Warsaw uprising, so she took and left somewhere to shoot. The children eight, nine, ten, twelve years old were used as carriers, between the people, the units, because nobody suspect them, even if they were caught, tortured, they will not reveal anything.

In my area where I worked, in my office was in the area called the general government. Poland was divided into three areas, one was the Russian area, one area was included to Germany, and one area in the middle Polish administration was there, businesses were still there, the schools were closed, and the college professors were called to a meeting, and were all arrested and put in a cart and sent to Auschwitz. The coop was in this general government area or was in the German included area. Each one of them had a commissar that was in charge of everything that was put there by the Germans to replace everybody. There came to me a German who I did not know from before the war, and he told me that he is in charge, he trusts me that if you tell me that someone can be trusted, I trust them. He came to me to ask who in each town he could contact from each coop to get food, whatever was needed. The less I know about who is in the underground, the better it is, because even if I was tortured, I could not say anything, because I don’t know anything. I did not know it at the time, but he was with Zegota, Zegota was set up by the government in exile in London to help save Jews. He was on the committee in Warsaw of Christians and Jews, and he was in charge of me. I told him where he could go to buy cheap, in each city. After the war, my younger brother gave me a book that had his picture and told who he was. At that time people tried to help themselves or help the other, Jews or not Jews, people needed help. That was long before the Jewish uprising or liquidation. The friends that I was friends with mostly died in Belsen and Auschwitz. I belonged to this coop and had an apprentice. I had surgery and took a week off and took a car to my brother. When I came back in March 1941, there was a meeting of the whole organization. I did not make it to the meeting, which ended up being a good thing, because the Gestapo was in where the meeting was to take place and were arresting people. I would say, that after they were arrested, they were tortured and the men were sent to Auschwitz and the women to Ravensbruck, all of them were executed. I knew at that time that they knew my name and would be looking for me. A friend of mine was part of another underground organization. I moved then away from Warsaw where they knew my name, about fifty miles away to Radom, where they did not know my name. I moved over there on January 1, 1942. We at that time had good papers, travel papers with photos. We connected with the German authorities over there, the coop, to get them the supplies they requested. At that time, if they arrested people on the street, they sent them to Germany to work, in factories, or farms, or wherever they needed. If I showed my papers, I could not be arrested for that. If you went to the railroad station to buy a ticket, there could be one hundred maybe two hundred people in line and there were only twenty tickets. If I went and showed my papers, I got a ticket right away. That was good for me and good for all the underground organizations because I could get the ticket and take information from one to another and I was not suspected. One day I had to go to a place on the other side of Warsaw. I went to the window and showed them my papers and was given my ticket. At that time the trains were running late, so I was waiting for the train and a man came up to me dressed in a jail guards’ uniform. He said t me, I see you are important, you bought a ticket without any problem, I have to go to work in Warsaw, if I wait in line, I won’t get a ticket until day after tomorrow. I beg you, could you buy the ticket for me? So, he gave me the money and I went to a different window, showed them my papers and they gave me a ticket to Warsaw and back. We were traveling on the same train, and he went his way, and I went my way.

I was asked by a person from another underground organization to help smuggle operatives in and out of Germany to gather or give information. I did that for about a year or so. A person I was helping, on one of her trips, suspected she was being followed, so she started to run. She had a fake ID card saying she was a German. She escaped into the hotel she was staying at. She wrote me a letter telling me how smart she was to escape. She mailed it and I received it, but it had been inspected and copied. At that time, they knew already my address in Warsaw, that same day they arrested her and her family, and went to my address in Warsaw to arrest me, but I was not there. I was staying at a friend’s place in a housing coop. The woman that sent the letter, had sent several other letters, and those people were also arrested. The Gestapo found out through one of them that I had moved to Radom. The next day they came to my address in Radom where I was living. The people I was staying with had a son that had Typhus, and there was a health order that no one should enter until the person had recovered for so many days. The Gestapo came and was knocking hard on the door and telling them to open, it was the Gestapo.  They started to shoot through the window and two of the Gestapo came in through the window. The family tried to escape out the back door, and another person from the Gestapo was there and shot the father in the leg. They said, where is Marian Wojciechowski? They said, behind that wall and pointed. They said, open the door, so they opened the door. They said, where he is? They said we do not know where he is, sometimes he comes here and sometimes he goes other places. At that time, I was at the coop working. They said, where does he work? They gave them the coop information. The next morning, they went to the coop office. They said we know from talking to the workers that the coop said they had so many people working, to protect them from being sent to Germany. So we want to check on each person listed as working here. They went down the list alphabetically, looking at each person and asking what they do. When they came to me, they asked where I was, and they told him he is in another town working. He was at two coops there, one for the big landowners and one for the small farmers. I worked with the German commissars that were in charge to let them know how much of each product was available, which they had to report to the people above them. I gave them usually less than what there actually was, and I wrote the reports in Polish and in German, so I was welcomed by them. A lot of times people that worked in the cemeteries could pass along information.

            I was supposed to train another man how to do my job. He said, Marian the commissar was here and said when you get back you should go to his office. So, I went to the commissar’s office, when I got there, there was a Gestapo man. The commissar said, Marian this man says he has orders to arrest you. I said why, what is this all about? The commissar said, I am trying to explain to him that we need you, you come here to do the job for us. He tried to defend me. The Gestapo man says, ok I will call my boss at my office here in the city. So, I got ahold of the person I was training and told him what he needed to complete. I gave him my briefcase and told him to burn everything in it in the fireplace without looking at what was in there. It contained information of who was in the underground and how things were handled with them. I had more materials with details on me and in the hotel, which I gave him to burn as well, while getting my suitcase. Then we went to Gestapo headquarters, and he said to me, we have to deliver you to the jail in Radom. He put my hands in the back in handcuffs and put me in a car to take me to jail. We came to Radom jail it was late night, and there were no jail activities, but the man from the Gestapo had to sign papers saying he arrested me. He left, and the person that was there was the man who I had bought the ticket for. He asked me, mister, what are you doing here? I said, they arrested me. There was a big iron wood burning stove in the middle of the room. He said whatever you have on you, put it in the stove. Except for the book about the coop, I put everything in there, all the letters, all the telephone numbers, everything. I was clean completely. This way later when they would question me, they could not find out anything from those papers. He then said, who do you want informed about your arrest? So, I gave him the numbers for my two brothers. So, I was at that time put in the jail, but for one or two days, I did not know what for. I was involved with many organizations, but I did not know which one they knew about. For the first two or three days they were allowed to get parcels with food. I was sent to a room that was called political and there was twelve or thirteen people, all of us were Polish. In each room there was someone that was an informant, so you could not talk about any political subject with anyone, to anyone you talk, everyone would listen. In a few days I received a tray of buckwheat. The Gestapo man cut it three or four ways to see if anything was hidden inside. As I was eating, I discovered a small piece of paper, I hid it and, in the morning, when everyone was still asleep, I covered myself with a blanket and read it. It just said that such and such family had been arrested. But I did not know which member of the family was caught doing what, I had no information. I was sitting in this cell for two or three weeks before I was called for an interview. A Gestapo man was there, and he spoke very good Polish and he said, I came here to talk to you. I said, okay, what about? He starts asking me questions about many different people and was writing notes after each one. I could not say I knew anything about anybody, because if I told them something they did not know, they would arrest more people and kill me anyway, so I told hm nothing. He was very polite and said, so you do not know why you were arrested, you are innocent, you do not want to tell us anything. About a week or two later he called me again. This time with him were two, big strong, men. After talking, they took me to the attic, where there was a beam connected to the rafters. They put a rope over the beam and put my hands behind my back and tied them together with the rope and pulled me up two or three feet above the floor, and then they start to beat me and saying, tell us, tell us, tell us. I lost conscious, they poured water on me, and again and again. They took care in how they beat me, they wanted to keep me alive so I will tell them things, they did not try to break my bones. It went on for two hours, they left me hanging and went out for a while, and then came back in and did it again. I prayed at that time for them to kill me, so I die, but I did not want anyone else to die. It was so painful, that in the future when they came and took me from the jail for the second time, to the Gestapo I was finished. It went on for hours again, the same as before. I was not controlling my bladder, I was not controlling my stomach, my heart was beating, just from the sight of them. They changed the beating people, but it was always two. Then the third time, they took me upstairs, the office over there did not speak Polish, but the beating people they spoke Polish. Sometimes they were in Gestapo uniforms and sometimes they took that off, it was May, June, so it was warm. The third time they took me for interrogation it was a man that told me, to me you have to tell. He was from the criminal police, and they could torture people to death. He said you are foolish, they have such and such letter from such and such person, that they wrote and gave you warning, and they have that letter, they know that you know. If you admit, they have the copy if you admit it, the beatings will stop. I said OK, and he took me down from hanging in the rafters and we went down and filled out the papers. I admitted to only that one letter, but what I knew about other things I did not tell them.

            Two years later I was in Gross Rosen, in the fall new people came to the camp. I was working there. I met on the street one of the newcomers, he said are you Mister Wojciechowski? I said yes. He said I am the son in-law of where you used to live in Radom. He told me what happened there, and he told me why I was not killed, because all those other people were killed. He told me that after I was arrested, they only had the copy of the letter, nothing else., since I did not tell them anything, they knew that I knew more than what I tell, but I did not cooperate with them. The coop office paid big money to the Gestapo not to kill me or send me to the camp with order to kill. The money was given to them by the secretary of the commissar in Radom, the commissar of the coop movement.

            When I was still in jail in Radom another week or so, after that they shipped me to Auschwitz. When they shipped me to Auschwitz, they informed my mother that I do not live anymore, they will not give my ashes or bones to her, but they gave her my watch, my identification card, and what I have with me and they say I do not live anymore. My mother, who was a very religious person went to the church and arranges a mass for me. So, the holy mass was held in the church, but my body was not in the coffin, but the coffin was there. They did not tell us we were going to Auschwitz, but we knew from the talk that went on in the jail.  To get to Auschwitz we went in cattle cars, there was only one door, and it was locked from the outside, there was very little air. When they loaded us in the cattle car, they were screaming fast, fast, schnell, schnell, schnell. We were not allowed to take anything with us but what we were wearing. Everyone in that cattle car was a total stranger. Everyone was a political prisoner with a red triangle and letter P. There were no Jews in the car, and in my experiences I had very little contact with any Jews. There were very little conversations going on in there, some prayers. We were very pessimistic, but we did not know much about Auschwitz, but we expected the worst. From Radom to Auschwitz was not that far and we finally got to Auschwitz.

            If I remember correctly, we came to Auschwitz on July 21, 1942. We wondered what was new, we were finally out of prison, out of torture, out of interrogation, at the same time we knew already what Auschwitz was, the question was how long and what. When the door opened there were guards and dogs and they were screaming get out, get out, and beating us to move faster. Everyone tried to do the best they could, even those that could not walk tried to run, to get in line. In a while outside we were counted outside the gate, and then we were allowed to get in. In our train there were only men, so there was no need for separation before entering. Once we were inside it was only anyone sick, is anyone injured, is there anyone that can’t walk, or is not fit for work. Most of the people in our car were underground people. Usually underground people were physically fit, some were disabled from the interrogation, but for the most part they were physically fit. There were not too many older people, mostly younger to middle aged. There were two priests working with the underground, I actually knew four that helped the underground. I knew many of them from my cell in the underground, somewhere between twenty and thirty people in one cell. So now we go inside. We were already told the entire transport would go to Block Eleven. Block eleven was death, block of death. The parcel of land that the block was on was roughly one hundred feet wide, then there was a courtyard and then another block. In that block, Block Ten, where they conducted medical experiments, for men, women, and children. Other parts of the camp had other blocks for medical experiments. Both blocks and the courtyard were about the same size. At the end of the courtyard was death wall, it was a wall where people were killed by shooting them. We were told Block Eleven was for quarantine, and for two weeks. 

            When we arrived and the train door opened, we were met with a lot of lights, and guards, and screaming. As you got out there were two rows of guards, and you ran between them to get to the people that got off before you to get to the gate. They were beating people, not for doing anything wrong, but as a general policy. When we got in, the first thing is we had to get undressed and give our address to all go in a box for our release, this was outside since it was summertime. Next was hair cutting, they used hand shears that we not to sharp or in good repair, it was more like they were pulling out your hair. There were around twenty people cutting hair in a line. Then you went in a group of around one hundred, to the showers. The shower room each shower head was a big circle that up to twenty people could get under. Once we got in, the work being done was being done by other prisoners. When we were done, we had to line up one behind the other and they gave us numbers. They asked your name and who do you want to write a letter to, I had not been living over there for ten to fifteen years. This way they know if you escape where to look for you or where to get information about you, it was also a way of control. My mother had already been informed that I was dead, so I could not write or receive any letters, and if I tried to write one, I would be killed. Then we went in a line into a warehouse, and they threw a uniform at you and gave you wooden shoes. They did not care if the uniform fit, you got a uniform, later we exchanged between ourselves. My number I was given 50,333. Then they took three pictures of everyone, one of the front and one of each side view, for their files. Then we were assigned to a block and mine was Block Eleven. I did not know at the time, that Block Eleven was the death block. Part of the basement was small cells, some so small you could hardly stand-up in. Some were bigger but packed with ten or fifteen people. On the first floor there was bathrooms, men’s rooms, and a sitting room. On the second floor was the room with the bunk beds, three, one above the other, the room slept a minimum of one hundred people. Not all the rooms in the building were for the prisoners, some in the basement and the first floor were for the Gestapo and military court, and administration. I did not hear of one person that was released from the court. They used it to try and get more information from the prisoner, and when there was no information, the judgement was death. When executions were to take place, they took all the prisoners out to the other side of the building, so they could not see what was going on. They took the prisoner to the washroom and had him undress, then escorted him to the Black Wall in the courtyard, after they were shot a commando, would take the body off to the side, while the next one was brought out. There was no resistance to this because it would mean beatings before being shot. Many hollered out, Long Live Poland, or Hitler Is a Pig, or something like that.

            Administration was done by the prisoners, under the supervision of the SS. The block was assigned an SS, who was the block Führer, the leader of the block. He did not stay in the block, he gave out assignments, if there was a problem, he was there, if there was shooting of the prisoners he was there. The other work was done by other prisoners. There were many nationalities of prisoners, but at that time there were not very many Jews in Auschwitz itself. Many of the Germans had a green triangle, criminal, the politicals had a red triangle, not willing to work had black, homosexuals had pink. Polish also had the letter P, French had an F, and so on. By looking at the prisoner you knew what kind of a prisoner he was and what nationality. The Jews, mostly, at that time were in a new camp a few kilometers away called Birkenau which means birch tree, because it was built in a forest of birch trees. Each block had a Block Alteste, the one under the SS, that was in charge of the block, he had control of your life and death. He could kill anyone with no responsibility for it. They were usually German criminals. Murderers became heads of the blocks. I was beaten so bad during my interrogations, that my right elbow hurt so bad I could not reach my mouth with my bread, I had to put it on a spoon to eat it. I was sure I was going to die it was just a matter of how and when. I had no feeling in my fingers, it was so bad I could cut myself, until I was bleeding and not feel that. When they said hat off, hat on, I could do it, but could not feel it. Sometimes I did not get it on properly and it fell on the ground, and I got hit for it. Then there was singing German songs, I knew German so I could learn them quickly, but people that did not know German got beaten for not knowing the songs. If it was not right, or not loud enough, you had to do pushups, and if you couldn’t you were beaten with a stick or kicked. I was not pessimistic, I thought somehow God will save me. I was not optimistic, but I did not give up. A week or so later, they took about 20 of us to the kitchen to get dinner. It was a soup with wheat, it had a few rotten potatoes and a few rotten beets. The kitchen was run by the prisoners also. I knew I did not have the strength to carry the soup barrels, but if I told them that I would be sent immediately to death. So, I worked my way towards the back of the line, so I was with those that did relief carrying. If I was carrying the barrel, it would fall on the ground, and spill the soup, and I would be killed immediately. One moment I looked up and a man was walking towards us, I recognized him, he was a friend of mine who was with me in the military academy for cavalry, officers’ school, he was my roommate. He was in a special camp uniform, better material, nicely tailored, a nicely shined shoes, and he comes to me and says, ‘Marian, you are here.’ We embraced each other, hugged, and he asked, ‘when I came there?’ I said, ‘such and such transport from Radom, and I am in Block Eleven.’ He said, ‘let me accompany you,’ he looked at the person supervising, and then said, ‘I will go with you.’ He asks who the block Alteste was, and he saw him, and they knew each other by name. My friend said, ‘this is my friend, please take care of him.’ The Alteste said, ‘yes, of course I will.’ My friend Dishik, said I will be back, and he left. About a half hour after roll call, Dishik came back with a whole loaf of camp bread and a half pound of margarine, and also, leather shoes, my size. In the wooden shoes if you are called to run, you cannot run, if you are wearing the shoes you are beaten, if you are not wearing the shoes, you were beaten, just to punish or torture the people. After we ate, some water and a potato for dinner, we divided that loaf of bread with some of the friends from the same transport car. Dishik told me, ‘I will try to transfer you to my block. I am the secretary from the block. A few days later, I was transferred to his block. He assigned me to work, go to this commando, every couple of days I was put in a different commando, mostly in the camp, taking care of the streets, or carrying somethings from one place to another. I was not overworked, and no one knew my fingers were bad. The time that I was in his block, it was like a miracle meeting him, no one beat me, or bothered me for no reason or any reason. My first Sunday in the block, I was out and seen some friends of mine from my life before the war. One of them was a tailor from the same street where I was born. His younger brother learned the trade so well he was one of the best tailors in Warsaw. The tailor wrote a letter to his mother that he and his friend Marian were ok. His mother lived three blocks away from my mother and they knew each other. She showed my mother the letter. The tailor had already been chosen to work in the tailor commando in the camp. Most of the prominence in the camp were nicely dressed, he took care of them, no charge, and this way no one beat him, and he would get bread and margarine, he was not hungry. In the wintertime you were in a warm place with no snow or rain on your head. You had to do the job, but you were safe, it was almost a guarantee of survival. He got lice and was sent to a block with people with typhus, because lice carry typhus. He had recovered and could of left the block but a nurse told him he should stay a day or two more to rest. The next day, the SS who thought the sick people were the source of the typhus for other people took everyone from that block, including the nurses, sparing only the doctors, and killed them.

            I was working still inside at that time doing different jobs, because of all the people I met up with in there, that I knew from work and before the war, I had an excellent chance of survival. I got sick with a high fever, so my friends took me to the infirmary. The Jewish doctor told me that they had used up the last of the medicine so he could not really help me, and that he had just gotten out of medical school before they brought him here. He asked me what I did, where I studied, where I learned to speak German, he was very friendly, during the conversation he took my temperature, and my fever was very high. In the middle of the room there was a reception area where they kept the records, next to my bed was a chart showing my fever. An SS man came, an older man, not old, but older man maybe fifties or sixties. He walked around the whole camp every day, where people were working, the hospital, all the buildings and he was marking down numbers of people that were to sick to work or not too fast to be healthy. If he seen someone not working fast, he would think, not too healthy, so he did not say anything to them, he just went to them and wrote down their number. Everyone had their number on the front of their uniform. Later on, he gave these numbers to the Political Department. He looked at my chart and he took my name. The Jewish doctor said to the German, he is sick with high fever and was sent here for observation. Sometimes when the block for medical experiments was too full, they would send people over there for observation.  If the German had asked anymore questions, he would have found out I was not one of them. The doctor risked his life by saying that. If the German would have found out he was not sent from medical experiments, he would have shot them both right there. I was lucky in life, that people risked their life to save me.

            After I left the infirmary, they took me to a block for new Typhus patients. At that time a friend of mine came, I worked with him in the coop movement, he had been so badly beaten during interrogation that his organs were damaged, he was one of our underground. He was very thin; he was thirty-five or forty. He was well known and had many contacts. He said to me. ‘Marian I will die, either from the beatings or they will shoot me, from an order from the Gestapo.’ Many people sent to camps were sent with an order to kill them. A few months later I asked a friend about him, and he said,’ He does not live anymore.’ My fever was bad before I recovered from the Typhus, one of the nurses told me, ‘if you eat before the fever is over, you die.’ There were maybe twenty people in there, but when they brought food they only brought enough food for fifteen or ten. Since only a few people could eat, it was enough food for them. At that time, after the beatings, after the hunger from jail, after the high fever and hunger there, when you see potatoes laying in front of you for an hour or so, and you can’t eat them because you will die, it was torture, but still I didn’t eat, and that is why I survived. I survived and I came back to the block of my friend. He took very good care of me; he told his assistants to leave me a second portion of food. After I eat one scoop of soup, I had another scoop. He brought me an additional piece of bread. I had to work, so a job came open for the camp post office. The camp was not only for killing and slave labor, but the post office was for prisoners, people that worked in the camp, and for military mail in the East. They stored all types of military building supplies there, pipes and fittings and anything that was needed, in charge of that was a civil engineer, not SS, not in uniform, and he needed an accountant. My friend said, ‘okay Marian, I will put you over there as an accountant.’ He knew I was an accountant, and he knew that I knew German language. The engineer was with me, just the two of us in a room in the field with stacks of papers and cabinets. He said, so where are you from, where did you learn accounting, where did you learn German language, what are you there for? I answered the questions and told him I knew someone that may have been involved in the underground, but they took me too. He asked me what I had for breakfast, what I had yesterday for lunch, what I will have today for supper? The next day he left a sandwich, bread, and jam, on my table and he left, he never looked inside while I was eating. Sometimes he was there only in the morning and sometimes twice a day, but he always brought stuff from home and left it on my desk.  It helped so much one piece of bread with jam or two pieces. I was safe with my friend in the block and safe at work. Before I went for that job, my friend said, I will make you an assistant in charge of the block. These people can shoot the prisoners and no ne was accountable to no one. I said, ‘no’. He said, ‘why not?’ I said because at some point I will have to hit someone over the head. Sometimes people behave bad or steal something and you have to punish them for that, I don’t want to do that.’ He said, ‘Marian, while you are here, you are in a position of authority where you will sometimes have to beat them or kill them, or you will be beaten, there is no in-between.’ I said, I will take my chance, I do not want that.’ I turned him down, and he understood that, because he knew me. That is why he found me the job of accountant. It was so fine, I came back a little from the Typhus and said, ok I can survive. We did not work Sundays, part of the day Saturday, but not Sundays. So, Sundays I was in the block free. On Sundays some commandos worked, ne commando Kapo came into the block and said to the Block führer, and Block Alteste I need fifty men. So, the Block Alteste went with his hand, one, two, three, four, five, go until he got to fifty. He took me and assigned me to, outside, there were drainage ditches, and we had to clean them and deepen them, make them deeper. The water in the ditch was up to your knees and it was the second part of November, the water was cold, freezing cold, no ice, but very cold. We worked the whole day in the water up to the knees. At the end of the day, we were sent to the block. The next day I went to work, but I was sick. I was so sick on this day that I could not work at all. I was sick with pneumonia, pleurisy, edema, and inflammation of the kidneys. My friends took me to the block and standing in the doorway was another friend of mine who was an assistant to the tailor, I remember him, short man, very very nice. He had taken over as tailor for the block, the prominent, of the medical blocks. He took me to help me as much as he can. I think, thanks to him, they put me on the bed, in the middle, I had a bed to myself. Many people there were two and sometimes three in a bed. Secondly you need to know, they did not have any medicine, he had a friend in the camp pharmacy smuggle in medicine for me. The third thing you need to know is, I gad water in the lungs from the pneumonia, so they would but a pump in with a syringe and draw the water out. They laid a blanket on the floor and laid me on the blanket and put a blanket over me. They took a barrel that went from my waist to my throat and cut it in half.  They attached a light bulb inside it and put it over my chest and plugged it into the electricity. All this heat from the light bulb, after a half hour the blanket was wet. I had sweat it out, so I survived. This was a brand-new treatment. I still had a high fever and I still sometimes lost consciousness. At the time the Unterscharführer was going through the blocks looking for the people that were to sick to work. He took the names of these people and gave the list to the political department, and they took them to the gas. He came almost every day he came to that block. I remember twice it happened a friend of mine with some other men took me out of the bed and put me on the floor in a corner and told me, ‘Don’t move.’ At the time when the Unterscharführer came to get the numbers of the people too sick to work, I was laying in the corner of the dead. He did not check if I was alive or dead, because who could imagine something like that. After he left they took me from the corner and put me on the bed. That was around Christmas time 1942. At that time, I was feeling half well enough to go back to work.