Polish Victims

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• Joseph Stanley Wardzala describes forced labor in Hannover

  Joseph and his family were Roman Catholics. After Germany invaded Poland in 1939, roundups of Poles for forced labor in Germany began. Joseph escaped arrest twice but the third time, in 1941, he was deported to a forced-labor camp in Hannover, Germany. For over four years he was forced to work on the construction of concrete air raid shelters. Upon liberation by US forces in 1945, the forced-labor camp was transformed into a displaced persons camp. Joseph stayed there until he got a visa to enter the United States in 1950.

• Wallace Witkowski describes harsh living conditions for non-Jews in Poland

  Wallace and his family were Polish Catholics. His father was a chemical engineer and his mother a teacher. The Germans occupied Kielce in 1939. Wallace witnessed pogroms against Jews in 1942. Wallace was active in the anti-Nazi resistance, acting as a courier between partisan groups. In 1946, in liberated Poland, Wallace witnessed the Kielce pogrom. He was reunited with his father in the United States in 1949; other family members followed. The Communist regime in Poland, however, denied his only sister permission to emigrate for nearly a decade.

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  Maria Orlicka

  Maria was born to a poor family in the industrial town of Jaworzno, not far from Krakow, in southwestern Poland. Both of Maria's parents worked. Like her parents, Maria was baptized in the Roman Catholic faith.

  1933-39: Maria took care of the house when her parents were working. She was 11 years old when the Germans invaded Poland on September 1, 1939. German troops reached Jaworzno that same month. Jaworzno was in an area of Poland that became formally annexed to Germany.

  1940-44: The Germans arrested Maria when she was 14 for using black-market ration cards to get food, which they said she then sold at "profiteering prices." She was deported to Auschwitz, and put in the "Bunker of Death," which was near the wall where prisoners from their Bunker 11 were executed every day. For some reason, instead of being shot Maria was transferred to a slave-labor camp for children in Lodz's Jewish ghetto. Her parents, meanwhile, were notified that she had been executed, and her father died of a heart attack from the shock.

  Emaciated from typhus, scurvy and malnutrition, 16-year-old Maria was released from the camp on November 9, 1944, towards the end of the war. She returned to Jaworzno.

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  Rev. Marian Jacek Dabrowski

  Marian was raised by Catholic parents in Niewodowo, a town in Poland's Bialystok Province near Lomza. His family lived there under Tsarist rule until 1918, when Poland regained its independence. Following high school, Marian joined the Capuchin Franciscan Order of Friars. After eight years of study in France and Italy, he returned to Poland to teach philosophy to students of his order.

  1933-39: When Germany invaded Poland in September 1939, Marian was at his monastery near Grodno. They evacuated the monastery three weeks later when Soviet troops, invading from the east, reached Grodno. Marian returned to Lomza. Their new Soviet rulers rejected religion, claiming it exploited the working people. He challenged this in his sermons. When he learned that the Soviets were about to arrest him, Marian escaped to German-occupied Poland.

  1940-45: In 1941 the Nazis arrested Marian in Warsaw. He was told that there was no real reason for his arrest, but that as an educated Pole, he couldn't be trusted to cooperate. He was held in Pawiak Prison and then deported to Auschwitz. There, the commandant lectured them about working hard. An interpreter was translating his ranting into Polish, but Marian understood German. He yelled that they'd only be freed through the crematorium chimney. Instead of translating those words, the interpreter said, "You will overcome everything."

  Rev. Dabrowski was deported to Dachau where he was subjected to malaria experiments. He was liberated on April 29, 1945, by American troops and immigrated to the United States in 1949.

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  Julian Noga

  Although Julian's Polish Catholic parents had immigrated to the United States before World War I, his mother had returned to Poland and Julian was born in a village not far from the large town of Tarnow in southern Poland. Julian was raised in Skrzynka by his mother on her four-acre farm while his father remained in the United States.

  1933-39: At 16 Julian left home and worked as a dishwasher in an elegant Jewish club in downtown Tarnow. When the Germans invaded in September 1939, he returned to his village. There, 27 of Skrzynka's Jews--people Julian knew--were forced to dig their own graves and then shot. In some nearby woods he found and hid a rifle abandoned by a retreating Polish soldier. But Julian was betrayed, and deported to Austria to do farm labor for a rich landowner near Linz.

  1940-44: Julian fell in love with Frieda, the landowner's daughter, and she loved him too. When her father objected, she moved to another farm. They continued to meet secretly even though Nazi law forbad romance between Poles and Germans. The Gestapo warned Julian, "If you see Frieda again, you're going to be hanged." He was reassigned to another farm, but they continued to see one another until he was arrested on September 19, 1941. He was imprisoned nearby, then transferred to Flossenbürg to do backbreaking work at a quarry.

  Julian was liberated on April 23, 1945, while on a forced march out of Flossenbürg. Reunited after the war, Julian and Frieda married and immigrated to the United States.

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  Julian Noga's prisoner uniform jacket

  A blue and gray striped jacket from the Flossenbürg concentration camp. The letter "P" on the left front of the jacket indicates that it was worn by a Polish, non-Jewish prisoner. "P" stands for "Pole" in German. The jacket was donated to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum by the prisoner who wore it, Julian Noga.

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  Janusz Piotrowski

  Janusz was the eldest of four children born to Catholic parents in Plock, a town located in a rural area north of Warsaw. His father was an accountant. Janusz attended local schools, and became active in scouting.

  1933-39: Janusz went to Warsaw to study civil engineering. On September 1, 1939, the Germans began bombing Warsaw. One week later, all able-bodied men who had not been mobilized were directed to retreat east. On September 17, Janusz was 90 miles from the Romanian border. That night, the Soviets invaded Poland from the east, cutting off any escape route. Trapped, Janusz returned to German-occupied Poland, to his family in the town of Wyszogrod.

  1940-44: Janusz was arrested in his parents' home in Wyszogrod on April 6, 1940. Some 129 community leaders, professionals and university students were taken that day. Two weeks later, Janusz arrived with a transport of 1,000 Polish political prisoners to the Dachau concentration camp. One month later, he was in the first transport to the Gusen camp in Austria. Janusz spent most of the next five years in Gusen, working in the quarry for the first year, and then in the camp's construction office. He was a member of the camp's underground organization.

  At 5 p.m. on May 5, 1945, Janusz was liberated in Gusen by soldiers of the U.S. 3rd Army. He immigrated to the United States on March 23, 1948.

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  Wladyslaw Piotrowski

  Wladyslaw was born to Catholic parents in Russian-occupied Poland. He grew up in Plock, a town located in a rural area north of Warsaw. Wladyslaw married in 1918 and he and his wife, Marie, raised four children.

  1933-39: Wladyslaw worked as a bookkeeper, and then as an accountant for a local farmers' cooperative. In 1931 he was sent to the town of Wyszogrod to close a failing branch of the farmers cooperative. A year later, he organized a new, successful cooperative in Wyszogrod with local farmers and landowners. After Germany invaded Poland in 1939, the cooperative was taken over by the Germans, and Wladyslaw and the employees were ordered to stay on.

  1940-42: On April 6, 1940, Wladyslaw and his eldest son Janusz were arrested at home in Wyszogrod by German police. They were taken to a large empty hall, where many men had been placed facing the wall. One by one, more men were brought in. After several hours, Wladyslaw was told to go home. His son was among the 129 arrested and deported to concentration camps. After that Wladyslaw, who had returned to the cooperative, joined the Polish resistance. In May 1942 he was arrested, and tortured for four months.

  On September 18, 1942, Wladyslaw and 12 other prisoners were publicly hanged by the Germans in the former Jewish section of Plock.

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  Wladyslaw Tadeusz Surmacki

  Born to Catholic parents, Wladyslaw attended schools in Warsaw and earned a degree in survey engineering in Moscow in 1914. After fighting in World War I, he commanded a horse artillery division in Warsaw, worked for Poland's Military Geographic Institute, and taught topography courses. He started a family in 1925, and after he retired from the army in 1929 he founded a surveying company.

  1933-39: When war with Germany became imminent in the summer of 1939, Wladyslaw volunteered to fight but was rejected as too old. In early September, when Germany overwhelmed Poland's western defenses, he fled, hoping to fight in the defense of eastern Poland. In mid-September, a day before the Soviets invaded Poland, he was given a chance to leave the country and go to Great Britain but chose to stay and fight with the Polish resistance.

  1940-42: Wladyslaw became chief of staff of TAP, one of the groups of the Polish underground. In the summer of 1940 he was arrested and sent to Auschwitz. As prisoner #2759 he worked as a surveying engineer in the camp's construction office. His work enabled him to go outside the camp. He used his status to smuggle letters and, by October, to help organize a military underground. In November 1941 he was released on the intercession of a former German engineering colleague, but was immediately rearrested and put in Warsaw's Pawiak Prison.

  Wladyslaw was taken to a forest near Magdalenka and machine-gunned along with 223 Poles on May 28, 1942. They were buried in mass graves and later moved to the local cemetery.

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  Gertruda Nowak

  Gertruda was one of five children born to a poor family in the rural community of Zegrowek in western Poland. The Nowaks lived near Gertruda's grandparents. Like their parents, Sylwester and Joanna Nowak, the Nowak children were baptized in the Roman Catholic faith.

  1933-39: As a young girl, Gertruda helped with chores around the house, and after school she looked after her younger brothers and sisters. She was 9 years old when the Germans invaded Poland on September 1, 1939. Nazi troops reached Zegrowek that same month. Zegrowek was in an area of Poland that became formally annexed to Germany.

  1940-44: When Gertruda was 12 the Germans took her father; he had been accused of working for the Polish underground. Three months later, the Germans came for his wife and children, but Gertruda managed to escape by hiding at her grandmother's house. The Nazis arrested her as well on September 30, 1943. Gertruda was sent to a slave labor camp for children in Lodz's Jewish ghetto, where she found her two brothers. Children died there every day. Sometimes the guards would bury people in the Jewish cemetery who were barely alive, together with the corpses.

  Gertruda was freed in Lodz on January 19, 1945. She and her youngest brother, Edward, were the only members of her family to survive. After the war, she remained in Poland.

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  Michal Scislowski

  Michal was one of two children born to Catholic parents living in Siedlce, a large town some 65 miles east of Warsaw. Michal's father was an intelligence officer in the Polish army. Because his duty station frequently changed, the family lived in several towns along the Polish-Soviet border. As a child, Michal enjoyed photography and was active in the boy scouts.

  1933-39: Michal's family was living in Wilejka, a town near Vilna, when the Germans attacked Poland on September 1, 1939. The Soviet army invaded from the east on September 17, and his father left with his unit to avoid being captured by the Soviets. Michal, his mother and sister remained in Wilejka. In school, his teachers were replaced by Russian army officers who taught them Russian and Communist Party doctrine.

  1940-45: In 1940 Michal escaped to Warsaw in German-occupied Poland. His mother and sister joined him later and they opened a delicatessen outside of Warsaw. In September 1942 he was arrested by the SS, suspected, like many Polish youth, of being in the underground. He escaped, but was arrested again in March 1943 and held in Warsaw's Pawiak Prison. After interrogation and beatings, Michal was shipped to Auschwitz where he barely survived starvation, brutality and untreated pneumonia. In 1944 he was sent to the Flossenbürg camp in Germany.

  Michal was liberated while on a death march to Dachau in April 1945. He worked with the U.S. Army for five years in Germany and France before immigrating to America in 1950.

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  Jozef Wilk

  Jozef was the youngest of three children born to Roman Catholic parents in the town of Rzeszow in southern Poland. Jozef's father was a career officer in the Polish army. Jozef excelled in sports, and his favorite sport was gymnastics. He also studied the piano.

  1933-39: Jozef was 14 when Germany attacked Poland on September 1, 1939. The invasion affected him deeply. Brought up in a patriotic family, he had been taught to love and defend Poland. The Germans were bombing Warsaw, the Polish capital, but Jozef was too young to join the army. The Germans reached Rzeszow on Sunday, September 10. After that, Jozef made his way to Warsaw, where he joined his two older sisters.

  1940-43: In Warsaw Jozef became a sapper in a special unit of the Polish resistance. His code name was "Orlik." On April 19, 1943, during the Warsaw ghetto uprising, his unit was ordered to blow open part of Warsaw's ghetto wall so Jews could escape. As his unit approached the wall on Bonifraterska Street with explosives and weapons under their coats, his friend "Mlodek" tripped and his pistol accidentally dropped to the pavement. A policeman spotted the pistol and opened fire. Chaos erupted. German units opened fire on the unit before it could reach the wall.

  Jozef and "Mlodek" were killed. Their retreating unit detonated the explosives, blowing up Jozef's and "Mlodek's" bodies to make them unrecognizable. Jozef was 18.

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  Pawel Zenon Wos

  Pawel was the oldest of four children born to Roman Catholic parents in Poland's capital of Warsaw. Pawel's father had worked for the Polish merchant marine before starting his own textile business in 1930. The family moved to a comfortable apartment near the Royal Castle and the Vistula River. Pawel excelled in sports, including basketball and tennis. His favorite sport was rowing.

  1933-39: In May 1939 Pawel became an army reserve officer and went to training camp near Augustow. On the morning of September 1, 1939, German planes bombed their camp in a surprise attack. They retreated, moving by night to avoid German air attacks. Then on September 17 their unit was attacked by the Soviets; they surrendered 3 days later. With 20 zloty and a watch, Pawel bribed a Soviet guard and escaped from a POW camp.

  1940-44: Back in Warsaw Pawel went to work for his father after he had been allowed to reopen his textile factory. Business required that they visit the Jewish ghetto. Twice Pawel was caught smuggling food into the ghetto and twice his father bribed the Germans to get him released. In 1942, he joined the Polish Home Army and fought in the 1944 Warsaw Uprising. Thirty-two days into the uprising, the Germans arrested his family, and deported Pawel and his father to the Flossenbürg concentration camp as political prisoners.

  Pawel was liberated in Flossenbürg by American troops in April 1945. After the war, he returned to Warsaw. In 1961 he immigrated to the United States.