From the Abyss: Memories from the Camp (Z otchłani: Wspomnienia z lagru)

Author: Zofia Kossak

First Published: 1946

Translations: Italian (Il campo della morte, 1947); French (Du fond de l’abime, Seigneur, 1951).

About the Author: Zofia Kossak (1889–1968) was a Polish Catholic writer dealing mainly with Catholic subjects. During World War II she lived in , working for the Polish underground resistance organisation. She was the co-founder of the Catho- lic underground organisation Front for the Rebirth of Poland (Front Odrodzenia Polski) and initiator of the Council to Aid Jews Żegota. On 25 September 1943, she was arrested under the false name Zofia Śliwińska and held captive in the local Pawiak prison. From 5 October 1943 until 12 April 1944 she was imprisoned in the Auschwitz- Birkenau concentration camp. When Nazis discovered her true identity, she was sen- tenced to death, but released through the efforts of the leaders of the underground re- sistance. Kossak lived in England after the war, returning to Poland in 1957. In 1985 she was awarded the honorary title “Righteous Among the Nations” for her involve- ment in Żegota.

Further Important Publications: W piekle (In Hell, 1942; journalism); Wigilia na Pawia- ku (Christmas Eve in Pawiak, 1946; nonfiction); Konspiracja w konspiracji (Conspiracy in the Conspiracy, 1950; nonfiction); Naglące wołanie (Urgent Call, 1953; personal nar- rative).

Content and Interpretation From the Abyss presents the author’s accounts of her seven-month imprisonment in the women’s concentration camp Auschwitz-Birkenau, written in the impersonal form. Presenting the story from the perspective of a Catholic, Kossak frames the ex- perience of suffering by camp prisoners in the context of Christianity. Her memoir opens with the description of the transportation of – mainly political – prisoners from the women’s so-called Serbia Prison (located near the Pawiak Prison in Warsaw) to Birkenau. Alongside descriptions of everyday life in the camp, including incidents of torture and executions, Kossak’s account portrays the inmates’ spiritual life, the world of religious values and the fundamental power of prayer, which enabled many Polish women to maintain their human dignity in the extremely difficult conditions of camp life. In particular, Kossak explores the human dimension of this struggle: the courage required simply to carry on in a world where one’s life is under continuous threat, the love of one’s fellow human being and of the fatherland, the bonds of friendship, and

Open Access. © 2021 Aleksandra Bąk-Zawalski, published by De Gruyter. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 License. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110671056-045 From the Abyss: Memories from the Camp (Z otchłani: Wspomnienia z lagru) 201

above all the role of religion, which made it possible to accept suffering without giving in to despair, resignation or depression, providing recourse to faith at moments of mental surrender. The motif of martyrdom is interwoven with reflections on the strength that springs from Christian faith, on divine providence under extreme cir- cumstances and in a world where the presence of Satan can be felt at all times, on the power of prayer and faith: “If surviving the camp were beyond our power, then God would not demand it, because He knows how much we can take. And if He does demand it, it means that we can take it” (Kossak, 1946, p. 195). Kossak paints a parti- cularly idealistic picture of Polish intellectuals, in contrast to her negative representa- tion of women from the lower classes, characterised by carelessness, naivety, crude- ness and emotional immaturity. Having an ability to keep themselves occupied, to focus on philosophical matters, members of the higher classes endured camp life bet- ter than women with lower class backgrounds. The Polish woman, as described by Kossak, is able to sacrifice herself for others, offer help, show love, and seek the path of forgiveness in a world of inhuman degradation. Kossak’s descriptions moreover reveal a system of values based on one’s dedica- tion to Catholicism, glorifying above all the Polish Catholic prisoners and attributing to them all the characteristics of human integrity and heroism, which cannot be found in Birkenau prisoners of other nationalities. In this way, the author demonstrates her invincible faith in Christian values and the national ethos, values which the Polish po- litical prisoners who are her heroines never cease to display, and who endure suffer- ing at Auschwitz by taking Jesus Christ as their model. Kossak also seeks to explain why the Germans decided to build a women’s camp in Auschwitz-Birkenau with the aim of debilitating its inmates, contrasting this to the example of the women’s camp in Ravensbrück. According to the author, this differ- ence is evidence of “changes in the German psyche” (p. 28): during the early stages of the , the Germans did not yet realise the potential of Polish women to act as their political enemy, or that they would be capable of carrying out a conspi- racy against them. It was this learned “aversion” to Polish women that resulted in the establishment of Auschwitz-Birkenau.

Main Topics and Problems To this day, the reception of From The Abyss remains centred on the Polish perspec- tive, which, according to numerous critics, obscures the truth of life in the camps. Kos- sak’s camp memoir was favourably received by the Catholic circles of its time, but the author was attacked by Tadeusz Borowski, who challenged the veracity of her ac- count, as well as her stylistics, and reproached the author for her commitment to what he considered to be absurd historiosophic ideas. Borowski expressed these views in a 1947 review with the title Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. In this review he expresses his outrage at the auspicious moralism of From the Abyss, in particular Kossak’s efforts to frame her experience of the concentra- tion camp as an act of martyrdom defined by Christian faith, and her attempt to find a 202 Entries

religious sense in her imprisonment. Borowski accuses the writer of ignorance and even falsification, while also pointing to her numerous topographical and lexical er- rors. He took particular exception to the case, presented by Kossak throughout From the Abyss, for the moral superiority of Polish women over their foreign counterparts, due in large part to their friends’ prayers. Zofia Kossak never responded to Borowski’s criticism. Yet she introduced a large number of changes to the second edition of From the Abyss (1958), deleting several passages that described the exceptional status of Polish women and presented nega- tive images of women of other nationalities. Yet such attitudes were not uncommon in Polish Catholic circles or the literary works associated with them: for example, Wanda Półtawska’s memoirs from the Ravensbrück camp And I Am Afraid of My Dreams (I boję się snów). Also omitted from the second edition are Kossak’s stern descriptions of the Jews, replaced by new passages depicting Jewish women as disproportionate targets of Nazi cruelty. Largely modified are those passages which highlighted the superiority of Poles, intellectuals, and – to a lesser degree – Catholics. In this edition Kossak has moreover struck her claim that “Hate can be conquered by love alone.” She most likely made these modifications in response to Borowski’s critical remarks.

Cited Works Bartoszewski, W. (2010). Życie trudne, lecz nie nudne. Ze wspomnień Polaka w XX wie- ku. Kraków: Znak, pp. 96–130. Borowski, T. (1947). Alicja w krainie czarów. Pokolenie, (1), p. 9. Jurgała-Jureczka, J. (2014). Zofia Kossak, opowieść biograficzna. Warszawa: PWN. Kulesza, D. (2006). Dwie prawdy. Zofia Kossak i Tadeusz Borowski wobec obrazu wojny w polskiej prozie lat 1944–1948. Białystok: Trans Humana. Tonini, C. (2005). Czas nienawiści i czas troski. Zofia Kossak-Szczucka – antysemitka, która ratowała Ży- dów. Torino: Żydowski Instytut Historyczny.

Further References Głowińska, D., Szczygieł, A. (1996). Zofii Kossak-Szczuckiej-Szatkowskiej życie i twórc- zość. Bielsko-Biała: Dankos. Heska-Kwaśniewicz, K. (1997). Zwyczajna świętość. Wspomnienia o Zofii Kossak. Katowice-Cieszyn: Macierz Ziemi Cieszyńskiej. Jończyk, D., Pałaszewska, M. (1999). Zofia Kossak. W Polsce Podziemnej. Warszawa: PAX. Pa- łaszewska, M. (1999). Zofia Kossak. Warszawa: Muzeum Niepodległości w Warszawie.

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