POLISH SOURCE INSTITUTE IN LUND Strömsnäsbruk, 10 June 1946

Testimony received by Institute Assistant Ludwika Broel-Plater transcribed

Record of Witness Testimony 482

Here stands Ms Janina Grabska born on 7 March 1906 in Czarnokońce Małe, Tarnopol , occupation clerk religion Roman Catholic , nationality Polish parents’ forenames Antoni, Bronisława proof of identity provided known personally [to the Institute Assistant] last place of residence in current place of residence Strömsnäsbruk who – having been cautioned as to the importance of truthful testimony as well as to the responsibility for, and consequences of, false testimony – hereby declares as follows: I was arrested in Brzeziny Śląskie, Bytom on 1 September 1939. I was held in the following prison (ghetto, labour camp, etc.): Bytom – Brzeziny.

I was interned at the concentration camp in Majdanek from 18 January 1943 to 21 April 1944 as a political prisoner yes bearing the number 4571 and wearing a red -coloured triangle with the letter P. I was later interned in Auschwitz from 21 April 1944 to 30 September 1944; then at Ravensbrück from 1 October 1944 to 22 March 1945; ″ ″ Watenstedt labour camp from 22 March 1945 to 5 April 1945; and then again at Ravensbrück from 5 April 1945 to 22 April 1945.

Asked whether, with regard to my internment in the prison, ghetto, or concentration camp, I possess any particular knowledge about how the camp was organized, how prisoners were treated, their living and working conditions, medical and pastoral care, the hygienic conditions in the camp, or any particular events concerning any aspect of camp life, I state as follows: The testimony consists of a twelve-page manuscript plus two pages of replies to supplemental questions. It describes the following: 1) Arrest under false charges. 2) The witness’s building coming under fire during combat along the border. Beating of prisoners under escort. Prison and combat in Brzeziny. 3) POW camp in Gliwice. 4) Germans sympathizing with the communists. 5) Soldier Weneger and protection from the Gestapo. 6) Prison in Rawicz: two weeks of interrogations, day and night. 7) Prison in Leszno. Executions by shooting. Death and pardoning of Fr Popławski. Beatings during days of national celebration. Release. 8) Evacuation of the population. 9) Re-arrest. 10) The camp in Majdanek. Absence of windowpanes, bedding, water, and toilets. The Polish women’s work establishing hospital blocks and organizing camp life. Jewish transports. SS men shooting

BLOM’S PRINTING, LUND 1946

cont’d overleaf at children. Selections. Children being taken away. Crematorium. Public hanging. Mass executions by shooting. Polish women beaten on Holy Thursday. The sadist Eugenia Piekarska. Beating, standing, and starvation punishments. Self-defence by the prisoners. Bolstering morale. M. Żurowska. Aid from the Polish Red Cross and Rada Główna Opiekuńcza [Central Welfare Council, Pol.].

Ludwika Broel-Plater

[stamp] POLISH SOURCE INSTITUTE IN LUND [/stamp] [stamp] 1. POLISH SOURCE INSTITUTE IN LUND [/stamp]

Testimony of Janina Grabska, born in Czarnokońce (Tarnopol Voivodeship) I was arrested on 1 September 1939 at my home in Brzeziny Śląskie, near Bytom. At that time, I was working as a clerk [correction made by the witness, hereinafter ‘correction’] at the Orzeł Biały mine [/correction]; apart from this, I was also running a Polish Army culture and education centre in the military forts. Owing to my contact with the military, I was aware of the threat facing the country; nevertheless, I was surprised when gunfire broke out below my window at 4 a.m. From the banging of the machine guns and exploding grenades, I could tell that our entire building was under fire. Bullets were coming into the apartment, so I flung myself to the floor and out of harm’s way – as did two men who had taken cover in my room during the shooting. They were acquaintances of mine: an engineer by the name of Czaplicki and a chemist, Stanisław Kuzdrzał [?]. Shots were still being fired and we were still lying on the floor when six civilians wearing swastika armbands burst into the room. They ordered us to rise and stand with our hands up while they set about searching [correction] my [/correction] room. They confiscated three revolvers from my two associates. They beat them right in front of me and marched us with our hands raised to Bytom, which is [correction] two [/correction] kilometres from Brzeziny. Reportedly, the men continued to be beaten along the way [correction] according to Czaplicki, who was released [/correction]. One of the Gestapo men present accused me of shooting and killing, with a revolver, a German soldier who had been outside on the opposite side of the building. It is my belief that the soldier was felled by a bullet that had passed through my apartment, exiting on the opposite side from the shooting. My accuser was an office colleague named Marcoll who had been passing himself off as a Pole but now turned out to be a German and a Gestapo agent. The six Gestapo men were led by a man called Cove [?], the son of a local restaurateur. He had crossed over to Germany and become a Nazi [correction] German [/correction].

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Along with the other residents of that building, who were Giesche company employees, I was herded into the cellar. We were told that the building was going to be bombed. German aeroplanes were circling low above the ground. At two o’clock, all of us were evacuated to the station in Bytom. We travelled by bus. There were [correction] approximately 150 [/correction] people altogether. After arriving at our destination, I was separated from the larger group and taken [note written above crossing-out] driven [/note] to Gestapo headquarters, where I was held until 7 p.m. Then I was driven to the prison in Bytom or Brzeziny [correction] [note] (where exactly it was located, [/note] I cannot say as I don’t know Bytom well) [/correction] and incarcerated in an isolation cell. The dimensions of the cell were three metres by two metres by one and a half metres [correction]; there was a bunk and small locker attached to the wall, as well as a stool, bucket, and water jug. [/correction] At 3 a.m. insurgents retook Brzeziny. The prison command and staff fled, but we were locked in the cells and had no way of getting out. I could hear the fighting: bullets were slamming into the wall while reports came in over the radio, which the fleeing authorities had left on in their haste. After a while, everything went silent. Two hours later the Germans came back. Every day for the following three days, we were taken to the Gestapo station for interrogation, but owing to a lack of time no interrogation ever took place. After two weeks’ imprisonment, forty men and I were driven to a POW camp set in woodland near Gliwice. There, deliberations took place on what to do with me, because I was the only woman among them. In the end, I was quartered in the personnel barracks. Every night, I could hear people being executed by gunshots near the block. In contrast, I saw the Germans positively doting on and Russians who had [note written above text] previously [/note] been arrested for communism. I had no news of the situation the country was in, apart from joyful announcements by the German personnel in my block about the capture of Poland and about Rydz- Śmigły fleeing to . The camp radio broadcast excerpts from the defence of Brześć and exhortations to surrender addressed to Kostek-Biernacki. The conditions I had

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at that time were good – a room to myself and food from the soldiers’ pot. I had work from 4 a.m. to 6 p.m. with [correction] a fifteen-minute break [/correction]. My job involved scrubbing floors, washing kitchen linens, and cleaning the personnel block. Only my nights were sleepless at first, because the German soldiers would come in, stand in the middle of my room, and stare at me. Disconcerted by my calm demeanour, they would leave my room without committing any transgressions. When I complained to the German officer in charge of the camp, they stopped bothering me. After two weeks at that camp, I was transported to a prison in Rawicz with the same group of forty men [correction above text] plus one hundred others [/correction] with whom I had arrived at the POW camp. I was told that I was going for execution. The men were loaded aboard freight wagons which were sealed shut, while I and the German personnel were placed aboard a passenger carriage. Throughout the journey, I was guarded by two soldiers wielding rifles fitted with bayonets. Along the Gliwice–Rawicz line our train stopped at stations whose names I can’t recall, but I distinctly remember Gestapo men boarding our wagon at those stations and looking me over. They were going to beat me because they knew that I was accused of killing a German soldier. Yet the soldiers escorting me – and in particular a Viennese soldier by the name of August Weneger – stood firm in my defence; this led to arguing and almost came to blows. Weneger justified his defence of me by saying he had orders to deliver me to Rawicz and therefore had to defend me in order to fulfil those orders. In the face of such an argument, the Gestapo relented. In Rawicz, we were loaded aboard uncovered lorries and ordered to sit with our heads below waist level while holding our hands over our ears. If anyone raised their head,

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it was struck back down with a truncheon. In this manner we drove through town amid tremendous hubbub and arrived at the prison. There, I was taken into a women’s cell where there were four of us altogether; in the neighbouring cell was one woman, and two in the one after that. Once a day, they would let us out of the cells for water. We had to fetch it by running one at a time. Apart from this, we were locked inside at all times. While in that cell, I was interrogated for two weeks as follows: a Gestapo man would enter the cell at any hour of the day or night to ask me a single question. And he had announced at the start that I was going to be shot dead. After those two weeks, the men were transported away and the prison came under civilian administration. My conditions changed at that point; I began to work. I would go to [correction above crossing-out] to sort and [/correction] peel potatoes. We did this work standing ankle deep in water. Two weeks later, we were taken to Leszno. This was a remand prison. As I was walking down a corridor there, I saw [note written above text] twenty [/note] men standing barefoot with arms raised. During my stint there, Father Popławski was shot dead; his release order came two days after his execution. Executions [by shooting] were a daily occurrence. A mass beating of prisoners was organized for November 11 [Poland’s Independence Day]. [The Germans] beat them all night; they beat every man until he was unconscious or, in many cases, dead. One prisoner was left behind in the cellar, forgotten after the beating. He remained there for three days without anything to eat or drink; prison personnel stumbled upon him by chance while he was still alive. On 5 December they were all the prisoners [correction written above crossing-out] five people including myself [/correction] were summoned to the Gestapo station. When I presented myself, the authorities there expressed surprise at my presence and asked how I had got there; they had no evidence pertaining to me. After questioning, I was released. As I was taking my leave, I was asked where I intended to go. I stated that I would go and stay with a former cellmate; at that point, the Gestapo interrogator warned me that if things went badly for me there I could come under their care. I left to join my friend in Jutrosin [correction] forty kilometres from Rawicz [/correction], and three weeks later I located my sister and went to Wisła [correction] in Cieszyn Silesia to join her [/correction]. Janina Grabska

[stamp] 5. POLISH SOURCE INSTITUTE IN LUND [/stamp]

Testimony of Janina Grabska, born in Czarnokońce (Tarnopol Voivodeship), cont’d In Jutrosin, I witnessed the evacuation of the local population: underdressed for the temperature of -15°C, people were loaded onto uncovered carts; among them were women who had just given birth, a little three-day- old baby, pregnant women and elderly people. They were expelled and dispossessed of their property, ordered to leave their homes at ten minutes’ notice. They left at 4 a.m. aboard a train headed towards Warsaw. In July 1940, I left for Warsaw. During the following two years [correction] I spent one year working in the Konieczny–Kamiński soap shop in Pruszków, and the other year running the Konieczny–Miller soap wholesaler’s in Warsaw. [/correction] On 16 June 1942, I was re-arrested. At 4 a.m. three Gestapo agents came to my home, performed a search, and ordered me to go with them. [correction] I was able to guess at the reason for my arrest. [/correction] I was placed in the women’s section of the Warsaw prison known as ‘Pawiak’. I was held there for seven months [correction] in cells number 10, 23, 27, and 32; I worked in the [correction] potato peeling labour detail [/correction]. In January 1941, I was sent away on an eastbound transport of 308 prisoners and 400 people from a street round-up. Aboard the train, I learned that we were all going to Lublin. There, we were disembarked at the station at 10 p.m. The men were separated from the women and everyone was herded on foot to Majdanek in the freezing cold; it was twenty degrees below zero. We were the second transport to arrive there. Two weeks before us, a transport had arrived from Radom bringing 120 women. We were split up into separate blocks. The accommodation conditions there were horrendous. The windows were unglazed; [correction] there were no mattresses [illegible crossing-out] and each block comprised a single open space. [/correction] We received food at one o’clock after two and half days eating nothing. We slept uncovered on the bare floor. It was only the next day that we were issued some straw and two blankets per person. We slept side by side on the floor. There was no water or any toilets. The well wasn’t repaired until after the ground thawed in March [correction] (one [was repaired then; there was] another one only for kitchen use) [/correction]. Polish women were employed in large numbers as blokowas and sztubowas [chief prisoners of each block and block section, respectively; from Ger. Blockälteste and Stubenälteste]; they participated actively and energetically in organizing the camp. In my third week there, a sewing workshop and a camp laundry were established. [Female] Polish doctors set up a hospital block.

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Russian women arrived at the camp in March, and Jewish women in April. The Russians brought typhus with them and the number of hospital blocks consequently increased; at that point, there were four hospital blocks and later this number climbed even higher. The Polish doctors worked in these four blocks. As illnesses grew more and more widespread, the blocks were divided by disease category: there were three typhus blocks, one general one, and one for children. Frequently recurring diseases were tuberculosis, starvation-related oedema, and typhoid among the children; erysipelas, typhoid, and various other illnesses among the adults. In 1943, the hospital blocks were categorized as infectious or non-infectious. The infectious blocks were divided into wards which grouped together people affected by typhus, typhoid, scarlet fever, measles, tuberculosis, and mental illness; this was in September of the same year. It wasn’t until 1944 that tuberculosis was isolated from the other diseases and two TB blocks were established. One block housed patients with active tuberculosis; German and Russian women predominated there. The other block was for less severe cases, and it was mostly Polish and Russian women there. In April 1943, transports of arrived from the , bringing many women and children. Those starving children were a pitiful sight to behold. Even now, replaying before my eyes is a horrific scene that unfolded as scant food rations were being doled out: sobbing children pressing up to the pot of hot soup and the SS man in charge of keeping order shooting them with his revolver. The crying mothers, the shouting wounded, and the SS men’s brutal treatment of their defenceless victims will remain indelibly etched in my memory. Around that time began the first selections and mass murders of Jews, both those already present in the camp and those who continued to be brought in. The selections would take place as follows: after Appell [roll call assembly, Ger.] the Polish and Russian women would be ordered back to the blocks while the Jews remained behind in the yard; then the so-called ‘crematorian’ [‘krematorzysta’, Pol.] SS man would choose vic-

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tims according to his whims. Women chosen by him would be led to the bathhouse, where they were made to shower before being admitted to the . From there, their corpses would be tossed outside and carted over to the crematorium for burning. [struck-through gap in the text] Polish blokowas and police provided assistance during selections. [correction] Their assistance consisted in arranging the women in ranks of five and keeping them from fleeing. For the most part, the blokowas pretended not to see anything. [/correction] In the bathhouse were German SS men. The carting away of corpses was done by Czech Jews: they would load the corpses onto carts, drag the carts, and dump the corpses in front of the crematorium block. In August 1943, Jewish mothers had their children taken away from them. Sick children were also taken from the camp hospital. They were loaded onto a lorry and driven away to the crematorium. The children were gassed beforehand [correction] were [sic] gassed and then incinerated. [/correction] There might have been over one hundred of them. In May 1943, a Jewish woman was caught who had escaped from the camp three months earlier. A gallows was erected in the middle of the main yard; a general Appell was called; and she was hanged right before our eyes. On 3 November 1943, the patients were removed from the Revier [infirmary, Ger.] in Field 5. A path to the crematorium was made and lined with ditches dug by [correction] Jews [/correction]. Then Jews from the men’s compound and the Lublin area were rounded up there. They were led into the bathing block, where they were made to strip naked. Next they were taken to the crematorium area and lined up along the ditches facing [correction] the ditches [/correction], and then they were mowed down with machine guns. This operation was performed by SS men [correction] according to a Mr Bargielski [?] who was working in the camp storehouses; he witnessed it. [/correction] After the execution the ditches were filled in, and it wasn’t until March or April 1944 that they were re-excavated and the bodies were removed and incinerated. That operation was performed by [correction] Russian [/correction] prisoners. Remaining in the camp after this execution were 300 Jewish women who had been spared; in 1944, they were sent to Auschwitz and incinerated there. On Holy Thursday 1943, a stool was placed in the main yard and a dozen or so Polish women were called forward after Appell. In the presence of the oberka [correction above text] whose name I don’t remember [/correction], the auzjerkas [the chief and rank-and-file female guards, respectively; from Ger. Oberaufseherin and Aufseherin] and all the rest of us, they were beaten by an SS man [correction] whose name I can’t remember but who was commonly known as Kogut [Rooster, Pol.] [/correction]. Each woman received twenty-five lashes; during this punishment, they were held down

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by Lagerälteste [chief prisoner of the camp, Ger.] Eugenia Piekarska, a degenerate Serb whose husband was a German with a Polish surname. She distinguished herself by her cruelty towards children and other prisoners. In August 1943, the secret correspondence of two Polish women was intercepted. Both of them got a flogging (twenty-five lashes each) and twelve hours’ standing punishment [every day] for three weeks, between the barbed-wire fences. The wire was electrified, and the gap between the first and second fence was seventy-five centimetres wide. They were both young women, still in their early twenties. They had to stand regardless of high temperatures or bad weather, and there were heatwaves and occasional storms at that time. The sun bleached their striped prison uniforms and burnt their skin completely; they were dirty and made a gruesome sight to behold. They were only able to endure this punishment thanks to the fact that we seized the opportunity to feed them in secret during their thrice-daily toilet breaks. When their punishment was over, they were very unwell and lay in the Revier. I used to speak with them because I was employed in the Revier at that time. In September 1943, the Lublin Red Cross and Rada Główna Opiekuńcza obtained permission to provide parcels exclusively to Polish prisoners. This aid was essential, for we were dangerously exhausted by then. Despite our misery, starvation, and moral oppression, among the prisoners were brave individuals who tried to lift our spirits and shore up our faith in an Allied victory and the recovery of our freedom. To this end, national celebrations were observed, talks were held, and political communiqués received from outside the camp were shared in secret. On the initiative of Marysia Żurowska, a New Year’s Eve costume show was even organized to welcome in the coming year; we prepared the costumes using materials ‘organized’ [camp slang for ‘pilfered, stolen’ from Ger. organisieren] from the camp sewing workshop. The following characters appeared in the show: Kordian, the Boor, Mr and Mrs Dulski [figures from contemporary Polish literature]; there was also an Eve holding an actual apple – and we even had a stage technician. Marysia, for her part, being the caregiver that she was to so many sufferers, Janina Grabska

[stamp] 9. POLISH SOURCE INSTITUTE IN LUND [/stamp]

Testimony of Janina Grabska, born in Czarnokońce (Tarnopol Voivodeship), cont’d dressed up as the Father of the Plague-Stricken [the eponymous Job-like figure from a poem by Juliusz Słowacki], and, instead of exiting the tent, she made her appearance from the scabies block, which amused us greatly. Another well-received character was ‘Rumour’ [correction] who had a dress made of paper on which good and bad news – all of it fabricated – had been written. [/correction] The twenty-fifth of March 1944 was a very solemn day for us, for we secretly received Holy Communion then. It was shared out among trusted individuals in our block. In April, it was announced that the sick would be transported to Auschwitz, and the healthy to Ravensbrück. I volunteered as a nurse on the Auschwitz-bound transport. I was registered straight after arrival and spent the first night on the damp bathhouse floor. While lying there and peering out the window, I saw three men lift themselves up from a pile of corpses that had been made ready for the crematorium. One sat up, bent forward, and pounded his chest; the second crawled out from under the pile of corpses; and the third glanced around as if begging for help. After a while, the pile of corpses and these not-quite-dead bodies were covered with blankets to hide them from view. At dawn, they were all incinerated in the crematorium furnace. At Auschwitz, I worked in the Revier. In September, I was sent onward to Ravensbrück on a transport of around one thousand people. Upon arrival, we stood all night long in the street [correction] while it rained [/correction]. Our exhaustion and starvation [correction] were intense; every so often someone would lose consciousness. [/correction] It wasn’t until around 2 p.m. that we went to Block 29, where we underwent quarantine. I served as a nurse in the block during that time. In January 1945, I transferred to Block 1 and worked in what was called the Schälküche [lit. ‘peeling kitchen’, Ger.]. [struck-through gap in the text] In March, we were designated for transport and spent two days in the Strafblock [punishment block, Ger.], which was crowded, lice-ridden, and filthy. From there, we were rehoused in a transport block – No. 32. Then after a selection was carried out, we were designated for transport to an aeroplane parts factory in Watenstedt, near Braunschweig. When we arrived, it turned out that the factory had been bombed – there was no work – so we spent two weeks there with nothing to do. Then

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we rode a terribly crowded train, without food, amid bombing and strafing by aeroplanes; all we were fed was a piece of bread (one-eighth of a loaf) and a little water. We travelled all over Germany like this. No one anywhere would take us in, because the English were making inroads everywhere. In the end, we returned to Ravensbrück, where we spent the final two weeks. At last came the twenty-second of April 1945, on which day we set out once more on a transport. This transport was different from the previous ones. We travelled aboard a freight train unattended by German personnel and the triangles and numbers had all been unstitched from our clothing. The throng filling the wagons harboured various moods that were fuelled by wide-ranging comments as to our destination. The prevailing attitude to our future was one of pessimism; having had our hopes for liberation let down so many times already, we rejected any such rumours that were circulating. After eight days’ travel, we arrived in Lübeck – which was reportedly captured by the Allies the following day, after we had departed for Denmark. We were very warmly received in Denmark, and it was only there that we became fully convinced that our journey really was a journey to freedom. Riding to Sweden, we now had a feeling of joy in our hearts, full of hope that this hospitable land would grant us if only a moment’s respite in which to gather our strength for the work lying before us in a free yet utterly war-ravaged homeland. God willed otherwise, however; our country is still not free. Thus, at the end of the hospitality period granted to us by Sweden (which I spent in a camp in Hallaryd), I took up work at a paper mill in Strömsnäsbruk; and although at first it was difficult for me to adapt to doing manual labour,

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I do it gladly, not wanting to be a burden to this industrious society. And I bear even the hardest conditions in good cheer, for hard is the lot of every Pole who is unwilling to compromise with the invader; who fights at all times and in all places for my country’s right to sovereignty, which is the guarantee of true, unadulterated personal liberty for Polish citizens; a liberty which is, in turn, the foundation of the truly democratic principles that have been instilled in us generation after generation; a liberty for which our fathers and grandfathers died while fighting a stronger and ruthless enemy, who throughout the ages has assumed various names and guises and who has descended on my country from various directions, yet who is always the one and same barbarian riding roughshod over others’ beliefs and others’ liberty. To conclude these recollections from my time in the hell of Nazi barbarism, I wish to express recognition and gratitude to Swedish society, and to its representative Count Folke Bernadotte, for saving my life and giving my spirit the opportunity to be reborn in an atmosphere of healthy and authentic civic freedom.

Read, signed, and accepted by

Ludwika Broel-Plater Janina Grabska Institute Assistant [stamp] POLISH SOURCE INSTITUTE IN LUND [/stamp]

Opinion: The testifier – whom I know personally thanks to the rather long time that we were both at the rest camp in Hallaryd, Sweden – is a person of extremely thorough, virtuous character and deep religiousness. Her mind is completely lucid and her testimony is completely trustworthy. The recollection of her experiences caused her great

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distress and required an enormous exertion of willpower, which is why the record has been written in a fragmentary fashion. This is the origin of the insertions and corrections written directly into the text by the witness, and of the answers to questions raised by the text that were sent to the witness for revision and confirmation. Ludwika Broel-Plater

Comments: The record was drawn up partially as a dictation of the witness’s words and partially as a reconstruction of them which I made from memory and then posted to the witness for her to edit and approve; it also comprises replies written by the witness herself. Her current job at the paper mill and the domestic demands of her household, shared by a group of Poles living together with the witness, made it necessary to limit her replies to the questions asked pertaining to details of camp life. Ludwika Broel-Plater

[stamp]

POLISH SOURCE INSTITUTE

IN LUND

[/stamp]

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Questions for Ms Janina Grabska’s record of testimony

1/ Was the running of the culture and education centre for soldiers a paid or honorary position? 2/ Draw a diagram of the shoot-out at the apartment building. (sketch) 3/ Where is Jutrosin located? (powiat, voivodeship) 4/ Draw a diagram of the block and compound at Majdanek. (sketch) 5/ Describe the diet provided at Majdanek at that time. 6/ Provide details about working conditions in the Revier at Auschwitz: Accommodation conditions, medical care, sanitary conditions. Were there experimental operations? When? Describe characteristic scenes. 7/ Had discipline been stepped up in the Ravensbrück Strafblock at that time? Was there a dark cell [ślepa komórka, Pol.] in the dormitory at that time? Was there beating? Who was blokowa? 8/ Provide more precise details about the ride to Lübeck.

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Lund, 15 July 1946

Dear Janka,

[marked-off passage] As was promised to you, I have set about recording your recollections, which are valuable historical material and as such must be drawn up as a formal record. The festive atmosphere did not permit such an undertaking, and many things were left unsaid which I have tried to flesh out from memory, yet I fear that this may have meant some inaccuracies slipping into the text. Therefore, I have written the passages reconstructed from memory in pencil, and I am sending the entire text for you to review, edit, complete, and sign. Please be so kind as to take this trouble upon yourself – no small effort, I know, given how busy you are. Each sheet must be signed at the bottom of the last page. If you wish to have a copy, kindly inform me of same. Apart from the manuscript, I am sending a sheet of questions to supplement your testimony and request a reply to these as well. [/passage] I should also like to take advantage of this official correspondence to send you a few words regarding our personal matters. Above all, I would like to thank you and all the ‘Family’ once again for the pleasant days spent in your company; they are fondly remembered, as is the warmth of your genuinely familial home, where affection bonds together and smooths over all differences. The situation involving Helenka and company and that accusation was one that required a lot of understanding and good will. I am curious – how has it panned out? And has it led to any further unpleasantness for you? Czesio [Czesław] wrote to me and sent me some gorgeous photographs which I will thank him for personally, because I am going to write a letter to him anyway regarding [his] testimony record. In his letter, he mentions that it will be difficult for the whole group of you to make it to the opening of the education and culture centre, but this is progressing slowly and will probably drag on until autumn. Perhaps something can be done, or saved up, by then? Imagine – I presented a small paper here in Swedish. I was tongue-tied but I muddled my way through it somehow. Now I’m getting formal Swedish lessons; they’re courses organized by the office for the archivists, which is the line of work I’m in. I am the only Pole in the Estonian group, so I’ve picked up not one but two languages, which along with my basic English is making for a veritable Tower of Babel. My cousin came from Poland all the way to Denmark. Imagine the irony: having made it

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so close to me, she can’t see me in person because neither of us can obtain a visa. While spending Sunday on the beach in Lomma, I gazed sorrowfully at the panorama of inaccessible Copenhagen, where she has been staying for several days. A few days ago, we had a visit here from an English member of the court looking into Gestapo atrocities. He was interested in [prisoner] treatment at Ravensbrück. The material he found in our collections impressed him both in terms of its content and form, and we had the genuine satisfaction of seeing how significant our work is. We share the credit for this with all of you who, with such understanding, take the trouble of providing us this material via your testimonies. We held in our hands an album of criminals who are in prison awaiting judgement. Top of the list are Binz, Rosenthal, and Oberheuser, followed by a whole slew of other such scoundrels. The time will come for Auschwitz and the other camps, so if justice is to be done it’s extremely important for us to have material that is as extensive and precise as possible. For the time being, the interest is in Ravensbrück. If, while reviewing the paper that’s been sent to you, you should remember any other details, please spare no time and energy in adding them to it. Should the rest of the ‘Family’ have the opportunity and inspiration to write anything from their own recollections, it will always be very welcome; but I do know that it’s hard for you to summon such an effort on your own, so I will wait until I am able expedite some help in this area. That little fellow Kazio [Kazimierz] presented his recollections in a very interesting fashion – we’re hoping to print them as a feature article. I’m waiting for the next instalment, but in the meantime I propose that he be drafted into the ‘Family’! I must finish now, my dear Janka. Please send my love to all the daughters and thank them for the nice time we spent together. Full, as ever, of maternal sentiment towards kind fellow countrywomen and men, I send warm regards to my boys as well.

Ludwika Broel-Plater

13. [stamp] POLISH SOURCE INSTITUTE IN LUND [/stamp]

Testimony of Janina Grabska, born on 7 March 1906 in Czarnokońcach

Replies to questions about my record of testimony

1) The running of the culture and education centre was an honorary position. 2) The diet provided at Majdanek in 1942 was much more nutritional and substantial than it had been at Pawiak. It grew considerably worse in 1943; if it hadn’t been for the help of Rada Główna Opiekuńcza and the Red Cross, many people would have been at risk of the starvation-related oedema that affected the Russian women, who weren’t within the reach of those institutions. 3) The work of the nurses at Auschwitz, which was under the direction of [female] Jewish doctors, was limited to the constant washing of floors and certain receptacles. We took care of how the block looked, not the patients. There was no medicine at all, because the Jewish doctors used to barter it away. The nurses also used to have to load corpses onto a lorry at roughly 11 p.m. It was only after a separate Jewish block was established and the Jewish doctors were assigned to it that decent nursing care began to be provided to the patients in our blocks. There was very little medicine to be had, but we would ‘organize’ it whenever we could. Quite often, we had to falsify the temperature readings on patients’ fever charts, as otherwise they would have to go back to camp, regardless of their health. I will refrain from providing detailed description, for such accounts can already undoubtedly be found at the Institution. Read, signed, and accepted by Janina Grabska Ludwika Broel-Plater

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Supplementary questions about Janina Grabska’s record of testimony 1) The insurgents fighting for Brzeziny in 1939 – were they a local group of some kind or was this word used in error? 2) What is the source of the information that the Jewish women spared at Majdanek were incinerated at Auschwitz? 3) Provide the date of re-arrest and transport to Lublin. 4) Confirm the date of departure from Ravensbrück to Sweden. 5) [Elaborate] on the communist prisoners in Brzeziny.

Enclosed with letter sent on 30 October 1946 Ludwika Broel-Plater

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1) Initially, resistance was mounted by a local group of insurgents; only later, that is, around twelve o’clock, did the military join the fight and recapture Brzeziny Śląskie. I had already been arrested by then; thus, I only know this story through the eyewitness account of an engineer named Kwieciński. 2) The 300 Jewish women were brought to Auschwitz along with us. First, we were registered, tattooed, and bathed. Then we were placed in quarantine, which was located at Birkenau. There, we occupied four barrack blocks and another five blocks housed these Jews, who had also been registered and tattooed. The same day that they were placed in the block next door, three hours or so later a Blocksperre [block lockdown, Ger.] was ordered and the Jews were taken away to the crematorium. Through a window, I could see them being led away; and when they put up a fight with the SS, through the door I could hear terrible shouting and the sound of bowls and stools being thrown about. There were also gunshots. The Lagerältester, a Silesian, told us about it; I don’t remember his name. 3) I was re-arrested on 16 June 1942. I was incarcerated at Pawiak, where I was held until 18 January 1943, on which day I was transported to Majdanek. 4) The date the transport left for Sweden was 22 June [sic, April] 1945. We travelled for eight days and on 1 May we were in Sweden. 5) Regarding the Polish and Russian communists, things were just as Maleńka [lit. ‘Tiny’ (Pol.), presumably a woman’s nickname] described them.

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