The Camp of Disappearing Men; a Story of the Oswiecim [Auschwitz] Concentration Camp (1944).pdf

,.__j

THE CAMP OF DISAPPEARING MEN

A STORY OF THE OSWIECIM CONCENTRATION CAMP, BASED ON

REPORTS FROM THE POLISH UNDERGROUND LABOR MOVEMENT

(.!./. ')

. . ~, ·~:, THE CAMP OF DISAPPEARING MEN

{__; \ ci/)BASED ON A PAMPHLET ISSUED BY THE POLISH UNDERGROUND LABOR MOVEMENT, TRANSLATED AND

PUBLISHED BY THE POLISH LABOR GROUP UNDER THE TITLE, "OSWIECIM -

CAMP OF DEATH".

ALL PERSONAL NAMES IN THE TEXT ARE FICTITIOUS.

Illustrations by JOHN GROTH

Sponsored by NATIONAL CIO WAR RELIEF COMMITTEE

Permission to reprint will be granted by the pvblisher on reqvest.

"POLAND FIGHTS"-POLISH LABOR GROUP-55 WEST 42ND STREET-NEW YORK 7 8-N. Y.

l'utJiidted hp Polit" tabor Gtoup , 55 West 42nd Sfte•t. New York, N. Y., w#ticlt ltor ~l.d o re9isfratio"' statemettf and a cop, of thir prlnlrd moUer ••th tit• D•porfment ol Ju111ce . Wo1lt ·

ington , 0 . C . , ot o" o!fent o# '"• Commirte• of the l'olitll SO<iolilf Portr .Abrood, '"" Repr•tefdotiott o# tlte 'oli tlt 1t ad• UniOft Coun(il Abroad, boffit of londott. f119 lor.d, and the Cett,ol

l~:odf:tship ol the Underground Mon·ment ol the Work ing Monet ol Poland. " somewhere in 'olond. ' ' fllit re9itfration tfofeml'nf is orolloble for PIJblic i nJpedion. The fod of "'i~frotiatt

do.r ,.or ittdiCofe apptO¥ol o' the U. S . Gon'""'•"' ol f~• co,.tenr.r lt•r">f.

:<1.- -

t ~: ~·' '. . ( ; /I' '

"- "- (. .l i, J

'1-<'0 - ..J- J

ROUND-UP

"ALL INTO THE TRUCKS I" barked the Nazi

M. officer.

My friend, Jan Jaworski, and I had been

standing on Solec Street talking when the two

German trucks drove up and stopped. We had

sensed trouble of some sort, although there

was no particular cause for alarm at first . The

driver of one of the trucks got out ana fumbled

wit h the motor. We watched him. Suddenly we

had become aware that there were uniformed

Gestapo men all around us, herding together

all those who happened to be on the street.

We started to run. The trucks blocked the

street. We ran in the other direction. Trucks and

Gestapo men were there, too. A machine gun

was already set up at the intersection.

The hunters had trapped us.

That was the way it happened to us that

August morning in 1940. What we had feared

most ever since the Germans first occupied

Warsaw had come about. "This is the end," I

mumbled to myself. "What a way to have it

happen," said an old man at my elbow, echo-

ing my thoughts.

Panic began to spread among us ... What

about our families! ... Have they too been

caughtl .. . How can we get word to theml ...

"Step along- you swine!" snarled the Ges-

tapo man.

We were pushed into trucks and driven

toward Praga. Rumors flew fast among those

of us in the truck. "It's only a routine check-up,"

offered Jan hopefully, who always took the

optimistic point of view. "They're taking us to

do temporary work on the barracks in the

suburbs," someone else volunteered. "No, it's

dresses scribbled on them.

The truck stopped at a large warehouse on

Skaryszewska Street in Powisle. Inside we were

lined up for examination. The officer on duty

explained nothing as he looked over our iden-

tification papers. To Jan and me he said, "Re-

main!" He pointed to the line on his right, where

most of the helpless herd eventually found

itself. To a few he said, "Free." Such was the

good fortune of a hospital employee, .a street

car operator, a gas worker and several others

from my neighborhood whom I recognized.

Whim, rather than occupation, pge or physical

appearance, seemed to decide whether a man

went free or was condemned to slavery.

All day we stood and waited. All day new

truck loads of human freight were delivered to

the warehouse- men from all over Greater

Warsaw ... from Wola, Mokotow, Zoliborz

... from all the outskirts and from the very

heart of the city . . . thousands of them -

for building fortifications," countered a third.

But the more the theories, and the more em-

phatically their sponsors argued, the more ap-

parent it became that none of us knew why we

had been snatched from the streets, where we

were going, or when, if ever, we would return.

The more practical ones in the truck were

writing notes on scraps of paper and furtively

dropping them out on the street, hoping they

would be picked up and delivered to the ad-

Plik z chomika:

Inne pliki z tego folderu:

Inne foldery tego chomika: