Forgotten survivors : Polish Christians remember the Nazi occupation / compiled and edited by Richard C. Lukas.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Lukas, Richard C., 1937-

Series:

Modern war studies

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Catholics--Nazi persecution--Poland.

Catholics.

Protestants--Nazi persecution--Poland.

Protestants.

Internment camp inmates--Poland--Biography.

Internment camp inmates.

Nazi concentration camp inmates--Poland--Biography.

Nazi concentration camp inmates.

Protestants--Nazi persecution.

Catholics--Nazi persecution.

Poland.

Concentration camp inmates--Germany--Biography.

Concentration camp inmates.

Germany.

World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, Polish.

World War, 1939-1945.

Genre:

Biographies.

Personal narratives -- Polish.

Personal narratives.

Physical Description:

vi, 232 pages : illustrations, 1 map ; 24 cm.

Place of Publication:

Lawrence : University Press of Kansas, [2004]

Summary:

Wanda Lorenc watched horrified as the first Wehrmacht soldiers stormed into Warsaw. Jan Porembski witnessed the mass executions of Polish civilians. Barbara Makuch became a courier for the Polish underground until she was caught and tortured. Jan Komski was thrown into the very first transport to Auschwitz and observed its rapid expansion firsthand. But, unlike the nearly three million other Polish Christians (and three million Polish Jews) who died during World War II, they survived. Richard Lukas presents the compelling eyewitness accounts of these and other Polish Christians who suffered at the hands of the Germans. They bear witness to unspeakable horrors endured by those who were tortured, forced into slavery, shipped off to concentration camps, and even subjected to medical experiments. Their stories provide a somber reminder that non-Jewish Poles were just as likely as Jews to suffer at the hands of the Nazis, who viewed them with nearly equal contempt.

Zbigniew Haszlakiewicz remembers being brutally whipped and tortured-hung by his arms and legs, hands tied behind, and repeatedly stabbed: "I prayed to lose consciousness, but it was impossible. The Gestapo soon tired and started to drink beer and smoke cigarettes as they sat at that big desk. And I hung like a hammock." Lorenc tells of encountering starving Jews: "I broke an end off one loaf [of bread] and threw it to a woman in the group. An SS guard saw what I had done, rushed over to me and began to beat me with her stick. When I fell, she beat me with her boots. Two of my teeth dislodged and my mouth filled with blood. When I returned to the barracks, no one recognized me."

But Dr. Jan Moor-Jankowski also recalls: "One night they took a prisoner and hanged him. He died in front of our eyes. I remember seeing a tiny twig of a tree from the window. As time passed, I saw a bud on the twig and soon leaves came out. It was something that gave me hope." Through the survivors' voices we also learn about the Polish underground, the Council for Aid to Jews (Zegota), the Jewish Uprising in the Warsaw Ghetto, and the Home Army's heroic battle during the Warsaw Uprising in late 1944. Lukas places the narratives in their historical context and Jan Komski's drawings capture the horror of concentration camp life.

Contents:

Victor Bik 15

Feliks S. Bruks 20

Dr. Stanley Garstka 24

Katherine Graczyk 31

Lech A. Halko 38

Zbigniew M. Haszlakiewicz 42

The Reverend Jan Januszewski 50

Jan Komski 53

Krystyna Kuczynska-Dudli 67

Wanda Lorenc 77

Barbara Makuch 85

Halina Martin 91

Dr. Jan Moor-Jankowski 100

Antoni Palmowski 108

Wieslaw Piller 115

Iwo Cyprian Pogonowski 126

Jan Porembski 133

Josef Poslinski 142

Michael Preisler 148

Franciszek J. Proch 153

Stanley J. Sagan 160

Irena Sendler 166

Andrzej Slawinski 172

Lilka Trzcinska-Croydon 178

Bozenna Urbanowicz-Gilbride 192

Joseph Wardzala 199

Marian Wojciechowski 203

Paul Zenon Wos 213.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages [223]-225) and index.

ISBN:

0700613501

OCLC:

54974513