The heroic trend, Part Two

Part Two

Others like Kolbe

Kolbe with his self‑sacrifice for his neighbour became the symbol of the heroic attitude. Another prisoner who adopted the same attitude was Edith Stein, who could have avoided her fate, but acting in solidarity with her Jewish compatriots went with them to the gas chamber.

John Paul II would ask:

“Was he, Maximilian Kolbe, the only one to win the victory which his fellow‑prisoners felt immediately, and which the Church and the world still continues to draw on today? No doubt there must have been many similar victories, for example the Auschwitz death of Sister Theresia Benedicta of the Cross, a Carmelite nun who, before she entered Carmel, had been known as Edith Stein, a philosopher and an outstanding student of Husserl, a scholar German philosophy could be proud of. She came from a Jewish family that lived in Breslau. . . . How many similar victories were there? They were accomplished by people of diverse religions, ideologies, and probably not only by those who had a religion.” (John Paul II, 1979)

The knowledge that such victories occurred in the concentration camps is widespread, though of course survivors are the ones who could tell us the most about them. But they find it so hard to talk about heroism&mdah;their own and other people’s. That is why it’s so difficult to make a record from just snippets available of this, the finest chapter in the history of the concentration camps—the chapter of inmates’ heroic deeds and attitudes. So we should be most assiduously collecting and spreading knowledge of even the slightest fragments of survivors’ memories, because they will help us to reconstruct, learn about, and understand that world.

Marian Batko, a 40‑year‑old physics master from a high school in Chorzów, is far less well‑known. He chose voluntary death to save his former student who had been sent to die. Marian Batko died in the bunker of the death block on April 27, 1941. The student whose life he had saved survived, but died in 1950 of tuberculosis contracted at Auschwitz.

Other prisoners made similar decisions. There was a whole group of prisoners who stepped forward from their file in an act of solidarity, offering themselves up to save other prisoners from decimation. Their story is told by Czesław Kempisty:

“It was the morning of December 31, 1942. The ground was frozen stiff, and the snow that had fallen during the night softened the tragic atmosphere of Auschwitz. Even the bodies of the dead lying in front of the sick bay were covered with a white shroud that made them look more dignified against the background of a Christmas tree decorated with coloured light bulbs.

“For a fortnight I had been full of apprehension that something would happen. . . . Despite the many acts of repression, people being shot or sentenced to death by starvation in the bunker of Block 11, people were still escaping.

“I was working in the Arbeitskommando Landwirtschaft (farming commando) right next to the stable and “Canada”, the place where the belongings of those who had been murdered were brought and sorted. . . . I had a friend in the commando, Mark Hvedorenko, a Russian. I had a feeling that he wasn’t who he said he was when he was sent to the camp—a forced labourer who had escaped and was caught. His conduct, his fluent German, and his numerous contacts with compatriots in the camp, the respect they had for him and the fact that they obeyed him made me sure he was an officer of the Red Army. . . .

“After dinner we did not work long, and assembled for the march back to the base camp just as dusk was setting in. Only when the kapo, who looked angry and worried, started counting the men in our group for the third time, did we realize that Mark had escaped. Five hours had passed since I had last seen him. It was a long time, but not enough to be well clear of the danger zone of the outer guards. Afterwards we had to run back to the camp, with SS‑men yelling at us, their dogs barking, and the sirens roaring. There were crowds already standing at the roll call, shivering because of the intensifying cold.

“Our commando was made to stand in front of the kitchen, facing the rest of the prisoners. After we had been counted the camp commandant Rudolf Höss, Hans Aumeier, and Gerhard Palitzsch came up to us. There was a deathly silence, and then Höss spoke: ‘A Bolshevik has escaped, right now we’re looking for him, and soon he’ll be with us again. For his escape, for the assistance he was given to escape, on the grounds of collective responsibility, I hereby sentence ten men from the commando to starvation in Bunker 11.’

“He broke off, thought for a while, and then said, ‘I am not going to select every tenth man, as I have done up to now in situations of this kind. Let ten of his friends come forward voluntarily.’

“There was even deeper silence. I could feel my heart beating. I had a lump in my throat. There was a moment of hesitation, and then a ripple went through the ranks and out stepped Wiater, Ankudowicz, Bytoński, Bugajski . . . one by one, twelve of us altogether. Höss ordered the last two to get back in their row. There were seven Poles among us, two Russians, and one German, the kapo Winter. Next Maximilian Grabner, head of the Political Department of the Gestapo, came up to us and with a sadistic grin instructed the Blockführers to escort us to the death block. I walked to Block 11 as if in a trance, united with my friends in a silent community by virtue of our joint decision. I wasn’t thinking of my brother, who was still at the roll call, nor of my father, who was in the sick bay. In the cell three men could sit down, and the rest had to stand, leaning against the wall and each other’s bodies—we could feel each other’s breath on our faces. . . .

“The first night was the worst, our feet and legs were aching and our eyes were sore. Some were whispering prayers, others were humming Christmas carols or underground soldiers’ songs, still others were whispering into each other’s ear. But regardless of the divisions into believers and non‑believers, or of other criteria of division or affinity (the German, the Poles, and the Russians) we all felt united by the bond of mutual intimacy in the face of death and the awareness that we shared a common enemy, we were united in what was well‑nigh a single organism sharing the same human blood circulation.

“For the first three days we were each given half a liter of unsweetened coffee a day, and nothing later. Hunger, which was growing more and more ravenous, was joined by a monstrous thirst. During the daytime hours the cell was dim, and once our eyes got used to the dimness we could see. We watched each other getting gloomier and gloomier, stooping and as if absent. Our eyes were blank, and our ears attentive, ready to catch the sound of keys rattling in the corridor. We were full of anxiety and restlessness.

“Our fifth day in the bunker passed in the same way—we were getting weaker and weaker. Nobody opened the cell. They were expecting our deaths. I was thinking about Marian Batko, a physics master from a Chorzów high school who died in these cells. He had been the first prisoner to step out of his row, from Block 2, to replace another, much younger prisoner who had been sentenced to death by starvation. Then there was Kolbe, from my block, who had come forward and did the same, this time for a father of several children. Ordinary human decisions—there were thousands of them. But there I learned what they meant. What makes you suffer is not parting with life, but losing the things that give it a sense.

“On the sixth day in the afternoon we were thrown out of the cell. We were ‘free.’ We were semi‑conscious and only realized that when we arrived in our blocks, carried on our colleagues’ shoulders, and when we put the first piece of bread we had had in six days into our mouths. I choked back my tears—I knew I was alive only because Mark had been caught. Later I saw him, as they were dragging him in chains and in ragged civvies, up to a gallows put up by the kitchen. I heard his last words: ‘Death to the damned Fascists!’

“A few days later I learned that during his escape Mark had broken a leg when he was near Brzeszcze coal mine, and not being able to continue, hid in a haystack just three kilometers away from where the underground resistance men were waiting for him. . . .

“It was the first time in the history of Auschwitz that prisoners who had been sentenced to death by starvation were released.” (Czesław Kempisty, 1957)

This is what the account given by an individual directly involved in the incident says. According to the camp records, on December 31, 1942 eight prisoners were incarcerated in the bunker of Block 11, “for assisting an escapee.” The eight were: August Papp, a German criminal; Rolf Winter, an “anti-social” German; Czesław Kempisty, Feliks Ankudowicz, Henryk Bugajski, and Ludwik Bytoński, all Polish political prisoners; and two fugitives caught during an attempted escape: Hvedorenko, a Russian political prisoner; and a German, Ernst Müller. All of them were released from the bunker on January 6, 1943 and sent back to their blocks, except for Hvedorenko, who was executed on the same day. In addition at 6.30 p.m. of December 31 another Pole, Henryk Bugajski (No. 17539 ), was caught loitering near the watchtower. At first he was suspected of attempting to escape, but was later sent back to his block.

A similar situation occurred after the escape of prisoner Wiejowski:

“We were all punished by being ‘stood‑out.’ After evening roll call we were stood out to attention in ten rows in the small precinct outside Block 1. The barbed wire of the perimeter fence was immediately behind the backs of the last row. We were told by an interpreter that we would stand out for as long as it took to catch the fugitive. Every now and again various prisoners who worked in the same commando or slept in the same room as Wiejowski, were called out and they would be interrogated, beaten, and threatened with further reprisals. Then all the prisoners in the stand‑out were ordered to squat with hands folded on the back of their necks, and we were kept in that position for a quarter of an hour or longer, maybe over twenty to thirty minutes, and told there would be more punishment to come.

“After a few hours we were informed through the services of the interpreter that all the prisoners who had talked about escapes, been planning an escape, or thinking of escaping were to report on a voluntary basis. Thereby they would ease the suffering of all the prisoners and perhaps hasten the capture of the fugitive.

“After a while of silence following the announcement I heard a prisoner who was not far away from me saying, ‘Friends, I’m going to come forward to make it easier for us. I’ve often thought that if I could no longer bear all this ill‑treatment and the beatings, I would try to escape.&rsqo; He spoke with a Silesian accent.

“The prisoners nearer him tried to stop him, calling him stupid. But who could know what he or any of us had on their mind, and to what extent he could lessen the reprisals by reporting? It was no use trying to hush the Silesian. An SS‑man who was nearby heard him, pulled him out of the row and took him up to the front, up to the camp bosses. I don’t know what happened to the Silesian and how he was punished, but his deed, which was prompted by altruistic motives, had absolutely no effect on the repressive measures against us.” (Adam Jurkiewicz)

Mieczysława Chylińska describes an incident of a Polish woman prisoner coming forward during a selection to replace a Russian girl. The exchange almost went unnoticed by other prisoners, and the functionaries didn’t see it. Here is her account:

“A group of young Russian girls, ‘drops,’ as we used to call them, were put in Block 34. There were about thirty of them. All young, fifteen to twenty at most. The youngest was called Luba. They entered the block as they would military barracks, not a concentration camp. There was a lot of excitement over these paratroopers. I became friends with Dochka, Lena, Natasha, and Luba, the youngest. After a short while the Russian girls were sent to work in the Schälküche (potato peeling kitchen). As we listened to them singing their romantic ballads and patriotic songs we would forget about the nightmares of life in the concentration camp. I learned from the girls who slept next to Luba that she had prophetic dreams. One night I fended off my tiredness and went up closer to her bunk. First she started tossing and turning, and then I heard her saying these words, ‘They’re fighting in the streets. It’s in a city. Blood, blood, Lots of blood! They’ve no strength left . . .’

“We leaned over her and I asked, ‘Luba, Luba, what are you dreaming about?’ As if still in her visions, she said, ‘The war, you know. War in a big city. They—the Germans—were rolling the people of that city in the blood . . .’

“The poor girl must have been through a lot already before she was sent to a concentration camp for ‘banditry’—service to her country. Luba’s ramblings in her dreams brought me up to her bunk several times more. One night when she uttered the word ‘Warsaw’ and followed it up with other words, perhaps from a battlefield, I got Kazia Tenschert from Wadowice to come up to her bedside. We were sure Luba was seeing something in our city of Warsaw, that she was having a premonition of its fate. So when in August 1944 we learned that the Uprising had broken out we remembered Luba’s dream. A few days later Mandel the Aufseherin (guard) came into our block. She was carrying a Sten. That sort of visit made you lose your calm, that’s if you ever had any calm in the camp.

“Standing in line, we were waiting. For the selection, of course. Luba was on my right, not far from me, and on my left there was a Polish woman, Maria. She had arrived in the camp with a leucoma (white spot) on one of her eyes. As she came up near me, Mandel pointed at Luba. I couldn’t say what she fancied in Luba. Maybe because of those flashes of hope in her eyes that better times would come. Before Luba could step forward, Maria moved out of the row, as if she was the one who had been pointed at, and joined the women who had been selected, taking Luba’s place. We immediately grabbed the young girl by the back, as she took no notice of what had happened and tried desperately to leave the row. We knew that if she did that they would both go to their deaths.

“It was quite likely that this was what would have happened to Maria sooner or later, and she was aware of it. By saving this young girl’s life she hastened her own death. However, Luba became so depressed that we could not get her out of her downheartedness.

“The singing stopped. When asked about Maria, we couldn’t really say very much at all. I can still see her stout figure, her round face, and the white spot on her left eye.

“In her acceptance of what the concentration camp had in store for her she probably wanted to find the inner justification for what could happen to her. We realized that Maria had won the battle with herself.” (Mieczysława Chylińska)

These episodes show that Father Kolbe’s deed was not an isolated case. When it came to the crunch, other prisoners, men and women, voluntarily and for reasons we cannot fully understand, left their rank and chose to die to save the lives of other prisoners. These examples show how many prisoners there were who defied the determinism of the concentration camp, rose up to the height of ethics, and redressed the balance by laying down what they had of greatest value—their own life.

Examples of concentration camp heroism

Nearly every day and every moment in a concentration camp brought prisoners face to face with the need to make a choice or a decision. Put in the same situation, prisoners could choose either the attitude of cowardice or of heroism. They could succumb to the pressure of the situation and do as they were told, even if it was against the ethical principles, or they could refuse to do as they were told. It’s hard to say what determined their ultimate choice of an attitude or conduct. It was probably influenced by a variety of factors relating to the situation and to their personality. Sometimes when we read survivors’ accounts of various situations and try to get a fuller understanding of them we get the overriding impression that a prisoner’s final decision was often determined by a minor factor.

Refusal

Prisoners who were threatened with death if they did not engage in torturing or even killing other prisoners found themselves in a particularly dramatic predicament. In such situations the choices open to them meant losing either their own life or their self-respect. But even in such situations some prisoners made the heroic choice, defying the orders of their torturers. The next passage tells such a story:

“There were eight prisoners working in my commando. We lived in Block 9 on BII and were building a well in the Hungarian camp on BIIc. We were just a few meters away from the death ramp, separated off by barbed wire. I was in cahoots with a Sonderkommando man, and from time to time he would throw food over to us from the ramp. One day he chucked a backpack over the barbed wire. One of the SS‑men on the ‘special operation’ noticed it, yelled in German at us, and jumped on his bike. I saw that he was going round the Hungarian camp, heading for the main entrance. Straightaway the backpack was put out of sight, stashed away in a pit dug out under the concrete rings.

“When the SS‑man threw down his bike we were all busy working. I did the commando report for duty and waited to see what would happen next. The SS‑man carried out a quick search of the surrounding area and in the on‑site warehouse, then he made us break up a pile of gravel, and when he still hadn’t found anything he was furious and asked where we had hidden the bag that had been thrown over. I said that I had it thrown back over the barbed wire and saw it loaded onto a truck. He asked who had picked it up. I pointed at Ivan Riabtsev, a Russian.

“Ivan was called up, but as he didn’t know what was going on, he just nodded in agreement. The SS‑man noticed a scarf on Ivan and pulled it out from under his jacket. Next he wound it round Ivan’s neck, gave me one end, and wound the other end tightly round his hand. He ordered me to pull it hard. I was horrified, and gave the scarf a gentle tug. The SS‑man dug his heels into the ground and pulled the scarf as tight as he could. Just at that moment the scarf slipped out of my hand and Ivan caught a breath. The SS‑man went furious and with his other hand reached for his gun. I took up the end of the scarf. I was so terrified I pulled it a bit more strongly and I saw Ivan choking, I could hear him spluttering. Still holding his gun, the SS‑man suddenly pulled the scarf so tight that it made Ivan’s tongue pop out of his mouth.

“I suddenly realized I just couldn’t do it. I threw the scarf down, took up the Stillgestanden (stand to attention) position, and said in a changed voice, ‘Herr Blockführer, ich kann das nicht machen,’ (Mr. Blockführer, I can’t do it). The SS‑man took a step forward in my direction, with the revolver still in his hand. Ivan was on the ground nearly throttled. I closed my eyes and waited for the shot. The bang that went off in my head was something I couldn’t understand at the time. Right at that moment I passed out. When I came round I saw the faces of my workmates over me. Ivan was standing by the side, massaging his neck. Then the happy thought dawned on me: I was not a murderer and I was alive!

“Luckily the bullet from the SS‑man’s revolver did not break my skull, though as a result for a long time I kept getting headaches and bouts of nausea. Ivan and I both survived the camp. Ivan has visited me three times, and of course he’s been to the Auschwitz Memorial Museum.” (Edward Ferenc)

The prisoner reporting this story must have been the kapo of this commando. But what if the SS‑man had just shot Ivan outright, without playing his cat‑and‑mouse game? The kapo, who first denounced Ivan, turned into a hero when he refused to carry out the SS‑man’s order.

An episode

Tadeusz Sobolewicz writes in his questionnaire:

“I have to say how much I admire some of my fellow‑prisoners from the camp kitchen. They earned my respect when I had the chance to observe their efforts to ‘organize’ food for the Krankenbau (hospital) at Auschwitz. What I’m writing are genuine facts, not fiction. I saw two large iron pans, each holding about 50 liters, one full of sugar and the other of margarine, being lifted and spirited away by the hospital’s nursing staff, right in front of the SS‑men on duty. Instead of soup or tea the camp hospital got some genuine aid for its patients. Our colleagues, the late Kazimierz Szelest, Tadeusz Chmura, and Edmund Szymanek, took part in this Schiebung (lifting) operation. Needless to say, it would have been tragic for them if their ‘project’ had been intercepted. Their attitude seems to have bordered on madness, but at the same time it was courageous, full of finesse and bravura. It helped many of the prisoners who had been written off and designated for death to recover their health at least in part. . . . These prisoners were risking their lives to help others. Did they have to do it? No! They were in a good commando, relatively well‑fed, better than others, and yet they took the risk for the sake of others.

“The concentration camp was like a big lottery in which the stakes were your life. Food played a vital role in your bet. It’s remarkable that many of my mates who got into a better commando had someone’s assistance to thank for it, so they had a sort of moral obligation. If I have been helped, then I should dispense help to others, who are in need of it, too. And therefore many of my workmates from the Häftlingsküche (prisoners’ kitchen) helped other prisoners, putting themselves at risk of punishment (the bunker, being slung up on the post, or sent to the Sonderkommando) if caught.” (Tadeusz Sobolewicz)

Pressure

Roman Jaszczyński writes that during the five years he spent in concentration camps he saw and heard a lot of things connected with prisoners’ heroic conduct, and he relates the following episode, which stuck in his memory because it was an unusual case:

“It happened in the spring of 1941 in Auschwitz, in the commando extracting gravel next to the main gate with the inscription Arbeit macht frei over it. Most of the prisoners working in this commando were Jewish. As I was sick that day, I didn’t go out to work with the Zaunbau (fence construction) commando. Those who did not go out to work—and there were a few of us—were sent by the Lagerkapo to tidy up the area around Blocks 9 and 9a, which were the nearest to the main gate and located left of it (later numbered 24 and 24a). As I was tidying up the area right next to the gate and barbed wire fence, I had a good view onto the gravel commando and could observe the conditions in which they were working, especially the savage way the German kapo was treating them. . . .

“At one point some SS‑men came out of a barrack, watched the prisoners at work, and said that not all of them were working as fast as they should. One of the prisoners was called up from the bottom of the gravel pit and an order was given that this man was to be beaten with pickaxe handles. The kapo and Vorarbeiters (foremen) beat him all over his body including on the head, while the SS‑men were looking.

“Then something unbelievable happened.

“An elderly prisoner came out of the pit and said, ’Nicht schlagen,’ (don’t hit [him]). ‘Mich schlagen’ (hit me).

“The SS‑lmen who were watching it immediately told the kapo and foremen to beat the man who had spoiled their game. The old man was beaten all over his body, until he fell down after being hit on the head.

“The SS‑men shouted, ‘Genug!’ (enough) and asked the prisoner lying on the ground why he had volunteered for a hiding.
‘That’s my son,’ he replied in a very weak voice.
The son was asked, ‘Is that your father?’
‘Yes,’ he said.
One of the SS‑men snatched a pickaxe handle from one of the Vorarbeiters, put it into the son’s hands and said, ‘Vater schlagen,’ (hit your father).
The son replied that he would never lift a finger against his father.
‘Then we’ll club you to death.’

“The son said nothing to this, and cast himself down into the gravel pit. He was brought up, and the pickaxe handle was given to his father, who was told to beat his son with it.
‘Kill me, but let him live. He’s still so young.’

“One of the SS‑men yelled, ‘Schlagen, schlagen,’ and they beat the father again, as hard as they could. All you could hear were his groans and the knocking noise of the strokes, and then there was silence.
‘And now we’ll deal with the other one,’ said an SS‑man.

“The son was beaten until he stopped groaning. The SS‑men left their playground grinning, and we got our backs whipped for watching. I still get nightmares about the incident. The father and son had star badges, so they must have been Jews.” (Roman Jaszczyński).

Manliness

It’s hard even to imagine the amount of self‑restraint prisoners needed to put up with all the beating and other types of torture. Usually what helped them to endure were their moral defenses. Here is a story illustrating this:

“My schoolfriend Włodzimierz Turczyniak (Auschwitz prisoner number 5829) and I were arrested by the Gestapo in Bochnia on the night of August 3, 1940. We were in Tarnów jail until October 8, 1940, and then we were transported to Auschwitz. After some time Włodek Turczyniak got himself into the SS‑Küche (SS kitchen) commando. Włodek was never an egoist, and even less of one in the concentration camp. He knew very well that he had to share things with fellow‑prisoners, who would not survive otherwise. He always said that the Germans had taken everything away from us, so we should try to get at least a small part of what was ours back.

“And nearly always when he returned to the camp he’d have something ‘organized’ that he would give to a friend who was ill, in the hospital, or in the block. Usually it would be butter, margarine, sausage, a pork chop or a meat ball. He also helped the women prisoners who worked in the laundry in the building called the Stabsgebäude (staff building).

“Another friend, Kazimierz Pękała (Auschwitz prisoner number 676), worked in the same building, doing a stoker’s job. Often Kazek had to transport clean kitchen overalls and linen, towels, tablecloths etc. from the laundry to the kitchen, and take the dirty linen on his return journey. Włodek always knew when Kazek was due with the linen and would have some food ready, which he would put in the linen. Kazek would load it up on his cart and take it to the laundry, which was about 200–300 meters away. When he arrived he would quickly distribute the food he had ‘organized’ among his mates, and leave some in a safe place for the women prisoners.

“It had to be done very carefully, because the laundry girls were closely watched by SS‑women. For a long time they were lucky, until one day. Włodek sent Kazek two cakes, hidden in the laundry, one for the men and one for the girls. Suddenly, when Kazek was unloading the linen and had just taken out the cakes, an SS‑man employed in the political department appeared out of the blue. He struck Kazek in the face several times and asked him where he got those cakes from. Kazek said he had no idea where they had come from, he just noticed them in the linen, and wanted to take them out and send them back to the SS‑kitchen, as they must have been put into the linen by mistake.

“He got his face punched a few more times and was told to own up and not to talk rubbish.
‘You’ll tell me the truth, I’ll see to that,’ said the SS‑man. ‘You’ll come along with me to the Political Department.’

“Kazek knew very well what was in store for him. The SS‑man reported the incident to his boss, Boger, a notorious criminal and sadist. Boger loved such situations, and he liked to do the interrogating personally, until he got what he wanted.

“Boger and his assistant started the interrogation on the ‘Boger swing.’ They took turns to beat Kazek, asking the same question, which of the prisoners working in the kitchen had sent him those cakes.

“Kazek kept telling them, ‘None of the prisoners, I don’t know where it came from, if I did I’d tell you.’

“The interrogators didn’t believe this tale and kept on beating him furiously, telling him that they would keep beating him until he owned up.

“Kazek gritted his teeth and resolved that he would not tell on a friend. They would douse him with water and start beating him again, but Kazek had taken so much that he hardly felt any pain anymore, his body was completely battered. At the same time other SS‑men from the Political Department were interrogating the prisoners who worked in the kitchen, trying to get them to own up. But they got nothing out of them. Kazek ended up in the camp hospital, and the doctors and paramedics did all they could to look after him. Treating him was very difficult in the conditions in the camp, because his flesh was coming off his bones.

“The Polish doctors and paramedics, and the cooks from the SS‑kitchen did their best to get medications and food to help Kazek recover. And indeed, after a time he left the hospital.” (Roman Jaszczyński)

Sorority

Mieczysława Chylińska recollects:

“In May 1943 I found myself in the so‑called quarantine block in the company of Jewish women from Greece. They were all in uniforms that had belonged to Soviet prisoners‑of‑war and it took me some time before I learned to tell individuals from the rest their khaki crowd. When I finally managed to recognize them my attention was caught by two very young girls. I used to see them holding hands and whispering to each other, or helping each other climb up to their bunk. I’d see them sitting out in the Wiese—the concentration camp ‘field’ which didn’t have a single blade of grass on it—picking the insects off each other’s clothes.

“After a few days there was a change in their relationship. Now only the taller one was helping her somewhat shorter companion. When I saw her covering her with the jacket she had taken off herself and that tears were flowing from her eyes, I went up to them and asked what was wrong with her. Although I can’t speak Greek it wasn’t hard to realize that she was ill with typhus. She wasn’t able to eat the piece of bread I offered her in the evening. For the next two days I still saw them together in the block and during roll calls. They stood together, with Melina supporting her sick sister. On the third day I didn’t see either of them. Before the women prisoners assembled for roll call I heard screams coming from the doorway, so I turned to look in that direction. Right at that moment Melina’s sister was being carried out, perhaps still alive, or perhaps already dead. When she had been put down by the wall of the block the room functionary told Melina to take up her place among the women arranged in rows of five waiting for the roll call. But Melina did not want to leave her sister. They had to drag her away to get her to stand with the living.

“But that wasn’t the end of it. After the roll call was over we should all have gone back to our blocks. But Melina returned to where her sister was lying outside the block. The room functionary called her in, but it was no use. It was no use the other Greek women from her transport trying to get her to go in. She clung on desperately to anything she could get hold of and would not let herself be pulled away from where she was. The only response she had to pleas and coaxing, or the functionaries’ insults, trying to make her move, was to keep saying in Greek that she wanted to stay next to her sister. And she did. She stayed next to her sister for a short time, and with her sister forever. For the Leichenkommando disposing of bodies it was nothing new. They didn’t waste any time but just dumped the two of them into the back of the cart.

“One may wonder whether Melina’s decision to share her sister’s fate was just an act of disconsolate grief, or whether it was a self‑sacrifice made out of respect for the humanitarian feelings of kinship. So was it heroism? Sometimes grief in its advanced form, hopeless grief, can lead to suicide. In my opinion Melina’s grief was both an attempt to keep her sister with her regardless of whether she was alive or not, and it was a protest against the anti‑humanitarian treatment of human beings, a protest against the evil in the concentration camp. And if this interpretation holds, then we should acknowledge her deed as a heroic defense of humanity as such. This way of looking at the situation may be confirmed by our reaction. We women prisoners said that Melina had gone up the chimney together with her sister, for the two of them and for us.” (Mieczysława Chylińska)

No-one has a better right to pass moral judgment on such acts than fellow-prisoners.

Courage

The next account, also from survivor Mieczysława Chylińska, is the tragic story of a group of Yugoslav resistance fighters and the remarkable dignity of their conduct in the women’s camp at Birkenau in the winter of 1943:

“When I was out searching for water and found myself in the vicinity of the ‘sauna,’ I saw a strange procession. A group of young women in army uniforms escorted by SS‑men were coming my way. I was round the corner of the building and had a good view of them. They walked proud, with their heads held up high, as if they were not being attended by SS‑men but their own officers. When they were told to go into the ‘sauna’ one of them rolled up her sleeve and slashed her wrist.

“I had the impression that none of the SS‑men had noticed. Only one of the German women guards managed to catch sight of the resistance girl’s suspicious behaviour, but by the time she reached her the Yugoslav was already flat out on the ground. The escorts were confused and lost their temper. They ordered the other Yugoslavs to take their uniforms off, but they refused. Their defiance infuriated the ruffians so much that they pounced on the girl soldiers like wild animals and started punching them in the face, pulling them by the arms, and kicking them with their jackboots. From their shouts I realized that these girl soldiers were from Yugoslavia. At one point one of them lunged at the SS‑man who was attacking her, but before she managed to hit him there was a shot. Then there were more shots and it was obvious what had happened to all the girl soldiers.

“We discussed the incident, and said that these girls came into the concentration camp as soldiers, and they died the soldiers’ death, not on the electric fence but killed by gunshots. Their attitude was a testimonial to their devotion to their homeland. . . .” (Mieczysława Chylińska)

Scenes of collective heroism such as the one related above are best described by Porot’s account of the Minotaur Syndrome (1973), in which subjects feel a specific kind of psychological relief at the moment of death. The syndrome is particularly characterized in the collective atmosphere it generates prior to death. “We can only imagine how exciting it must be,” Porot concludes.

Desperation

A trainload of women had arrived at Auschwitz and selection was conducted on the ramp. Mieczysława Chylińska recalls:

“Whenever I got the chance to watch a selection I used to get the impression that what determined the reaction of most of the prisoners was not so much the links (left) or rechts (right) of the verdicts pronounced on them that sealed their fate, as the chaotic manner in which they landed up either links or rechts. Many tried to join the side with the majority and would dart about from one side to the other. Neither word (abusive yells and shouts) nor deed (whippings, beatings, kicks, punches etc.) could stop them. Not even the SS‑men could control this chaos.

“One day an exceptionally beautiful girl emerged from this motley crowd. She moved to the side and stopped. From the gestures an SS‑man made to her (I couldn’t make out what was being said) I gathered that he had told her to strip and start dancing. But she refused. So he hit her in the face, once and again a second time. She put her hand out and snatched his revolver from under his belt, and before she could be stopped he was flat out on the ground. A volley of shots soared in her direction. Suddenly something flipped in the petrified crowd. The debasing pleas and entreaties to be allowed to stay alive stopped, there was no more kowtowing and beseeching on bended knees. The beautiful girl and her brave behaviour put an end to the psychological disorder in the crowd, endowing those people with the mettle that allowed them to get a hold of themselves.” (Mieczysława Chylińska)

Mieczysława Chylińska continues her long account with her own story:

“I have my own, very painful memories associated with the subject of heroism, and they are not easy to talk about. If it were not for the awareness that by hiding them away under the excuse that they are very personal they would pass into absolute oblivion, I would never be able to reveal them at all.

“In the late fall of 1944, after I had been transferred from BIIa in Birkenau to BIIb, I was sent to work in a commando repairing the tracks of a minor railroad from Auschwitz to Birkenau. As soon as we reached the site the kapo divided us up into groups and assigned each of us a job. Another woman prisoner and I were to move some rails from one place to another, where a group of men were waiting to do some kind of polishing job on them. We were hurried on to get down to work, so my companion and I went up to the rails, which were lying on the ground. We grabbed hold on of one of them, trying to pick it up. But it was no use, it didn’t even budge.

“Seeing us struggling with the rail, a couple of other girls ran up. But the kapo shooed them away, saying, ‘Nicht alle, nicht alle, nur diese zwei!’ (Not all of you, just these two). We tried a second time, and a third time. Unsuccessfully. I said to the kapo that the two of us would not manage to move the rail. She replied by calling us names with a string of the crudest obscenities and came down with her stick on us. We dodged the stick, but did not try to lift the rail with just the two of us to do the job.

“A guard standing by got so irritated that he set his dog on us. I don’t know how it happened, but all at once there was a man next to my workmate, and another man at my side, trying to protect me from the dog. When my workmate was fighting off the Alsatian dog, the guard summoned the man next to me and told him to run and fetch the stick he had thrown. But the man stayed where he was and showed no sign of obeying the order. I didn’t catch what the guard said, but in the end the man gave me a look telling me to go toward the stick. Just then the guard grabbed hold of his rifle and shot the man in the back. When he was down on the ground he just managed to say, ‘Remember, me Italiano!’ That’s all I know about him, that he was an Italian. I never managed to find out his name. As we returned to the camp, the women in the commando kept repeating his last word, ‘Italiano.’

“Time has not erased that incident from my memory. That man is still there before my eyes. I can still see that scene and hear his last words. He is still a reflection of that reality. He paid with his own life for wanting to help a stranger. I know only too well that if it had depended on me I could never have accepted so great a sacrifice.” (Mieczysława Chylińska)

The attitudes and behaviours I have described, which survivors have deemed heroic, have been selected out of descriptions of many other episodes, and they illustrate various models of concentration camp heroism. Men and women prisoners embarked on them to defend themselves or other prisoners. Such behaviour always surprised both prisoners and functionaries. For prisoners they were role‑models to follow, sources of encouragement keeping up their spirits, signs that they could embrace another hierarchy of values than just their own life. But they incited functionaries to be even more aggressive and ready to kill.

Heroic attitudes were usually adopted when prisoners found themselves in a dangerous or life‑threatening situation, and what made them heroic was not the attitude as such, but its context and the potential reprisals or consequences. Heroic deeds could take an active form, for example assaulting a functionary, escaping from the camp, organizing food or medications; but they could also be passive, for instance refusing to carry out an order or being brave when tortured or under interrogation.

The aim of such behavior was to protect a prisoner’s dignity, to demonstrate solidarity with other prisoners or friends and family members, or to protest against the concentration camp and its makers, and against the enslavement and humiliation in it.

There were two categories of prisoners particularly at risk, and also required or expected to live up to the ethical and moral standards. They were the members of the medical professions who worked in the camps, and the members of the resistance movement in the camps.

The health service

Survivors made a lot of references to the heroic attitudes of doctors who were prisoners in the camps. Thanks to the efforts and care of these members of the medical profession many lives were saved or prolonged.

“Even within the barbed wire enclosure there were doctors who kept their oath to save the lives and care for the health of all patients regardless of race or nationality. By doing so they put themselves at risk of reprisals from the representatives of the regime, who had designed concentration camps for the purpose of genocide. Thus concentration camps were places where you came across meanness next to greatness, and brutality next to heroism. We were strongly impressed by and admired the attitude some prisoners took in sickness and their conduct at the moment of death, and by their self‑sacrifice, as in the case of Father Kolbe. Such behaviour served as a moral impulse that revived our spirits, roused us from our apathy and insensibility, and restored our will to live. These doctors and patients who were inmates managed to counter horrendous hatred with love, and contempt for humanity with a profound respect of human dignity. That put us back on our feet, kept us from losing all hope, and helped us to survive.” (K. Szweda, 1972)

If the doctors who were being held as prisoners in the camp were able to undertake any of the medical practices doctors normally do—dispensing treatment, looking after patients and treating their wounds, providing extra nourishment for them, giving them moral support—in the eyes of patients everything they did for them acquired a special value. Doctors, nurses, and paramedics were the ones who could take the most altruistic attitude to prisoners. Doctors who took a serious, conscientious approach to their professional duties in concentration camp conditions, which were characterized merely by the semblance of medical treatment and care, needed to be absolutely dedicated to their calling, ready to make sacrifices, and put a lot of trust in their chances of successful treatment. For in point of fact often they managed to perform serious operations successfully in the camp’s sick bays, protect patients against harassment, provide extra food for them, and save their lives by measures which went beyond their medical duties.

“The eyes of tens of thousands of prisoners were fixed on the doctors, who were the only source of support in sight, the only refuge where prisoners could seek assistance. The doctors worked under the pressure of a hitherto never and nowhere encountered responsibility for their doings. When all else had failed, a Polish doctor was the prisoner’s last resort. . . . A couple of doctors, just a few of them, or even—as happened in the large camps—about a dozen of them, to all those tens of thousands of prisoners, who were sick, injured, utterly exhausted, all urgently in need of medical treatment and care: such were the proportions. Yet usually all that the doctors had were the best intentions in the world, coupled with the terrible awareness of what was needed and just their two, empty hands. . . . And all around the mass of misery rotting and perishing. You did not die in a concentration camp, you perished, you dropped dead, you died like a dog. . . . That was what the new makers of the world wanted you to do.” (Niewiarowicz, 1973)

The medical practitioners imprisoned in concentration camps were fully aware of their situation and exceptional position. For want of the normal conditions for medical practice, for want of medications, sanitary dressings, vaccines etc., they used whatever was available in a concentration camp, the simplest remedies, doing all they could for their patients with such treatment.

They also dispensed treatment by the way they spoke to their patients, thereby achieving a psychotherapeutic effect. An eminent practitioner of this kind of treatment was the psychiatrist Professor Eugeniusz Brzezicki. All he had for his patients (apart from the tablets surreptitiously and riskily lifted from the sick bay in Sachsenhausen) were his kind words and his attitude of dedication. He was a pillar of strength who applied these measures to calm and reassure his fellow‑prisoners. Professor Antoni Kępiński once said that the concentration camps were the places where psychotherapy rose to its greatest heights and celebrated its most spectacular successes.

“Their actions varied, some were big, some were small, some so minor as to be trivial in normal conditions, but in a concentration camp even the minor things could save lives and restore a patient’s trust in his neighbour. One of the survivors describes her colleague washing a Jewish woman in the Muselmann condition and covered in excrement. A few days later this patient died. But maybe before she died she had the chance to enjoy the warmth of a sympathetic human heart. Another survivor describes a nurse who lay down at night next to a friend who was nearly frozen stiff, to warm her with her body. The friend gradually revived. Many survivors recall how a kind word, a smile, a friendly gesture, or a joke helped them to recover their self‑confidence, their trust in other people’s goodness, and their hopes of survival. . . .

“Alongside the assistance that was rendered spontaneously, there were also well‑planned measures. The functionary prisoners working in the hospitals at Auschwitz ran a clandestine scheme to obtain extra food for emaciated patients. They risked their own lives to procure whole cauldrons of soup and extra bread. . . . Quantitatively it was a drop in the ocean of what was needed, but psychologically it was priceless compared to all the atrocities that were being committed, and often achieved at the cost of a flogging, being strung up on the post, locked up in the bunker, or even shot.” (Kępiński and Kłodziński, 1973)

Here are a few stories of the heroic attitudes and work of members of the medical profession. Dorota Lorska (1965) writes:

“I remember Jan Bandler, a young Czech medical student who worked as the secretary of Block 21. One day when the SS‑doctors were experimenting with narcotics on prisoners, Dr Wirths, the chief physician of Auschwitz, called Bandler and ordered him to bring two prisoners for the experiments. After some time Bandler returned and said he could find only one prisoner.
‘Where is he?’ asked Wirths.
‘It’s me,’ said Bandler. Wirths slapped him on the face, but there were no other reprisals for Bandler.”

There are many examples to show that bravely standing up to an SS‑man could be a much better course of action for a prisoner than toadying. We have many stories of doctors behaving in this way. When they refused to obey certain orders from their superiors not only were they not punished but quite on the contrary, their attitude earned the respect of those who had given the order. Józef Markiewicz, a Buchenwald and Gusen survivor, writes:

“This period was marked by what was perhaps my deepest experience, something I am most proud of looking back in retrospect, from a distance of twenty years. One night Ludolf burst into the sick bay rather tipsy and ordered me to administer a poison injection to two prisoners he had sentenced to death. I refused to carry out that evil order, explaining that murder was not part of a physician’s duties, regardless of the situation he or she was in, and that Ludolf had enough henchmen to do that kind of job for him. And surprise, surprise, he did not shoot me, he did not send me to a penal commando, instead he started to treat me with a certain amount of respect, and even seemed to be anxious about my health, and when he was appointed head of the camp at Mölk he wanted me to work there as a physician. Luckily I managed to get out of that.” (Markiewicz, 1965)

The next account tells the story of a young Belgian doctor whose heroic and humanitarian attitude saved the lives of many prisoners:

“Dr Sonia R. (unfortunately, I don’t remember her surname), was one of the individuals thanks to whom people were able to survive Auschwitz. She was a Jewish lady from Rumania, and she was transported to Auschwitz from Belgium, where she had graduated in medicine and worked as a physician. I never saw her after the war and don’t know what happened to her after August 1944, when I was taken from Auschwitz to work in a German munitions factory in Lorraine.

“Sonia, who had been brought up and educated in Belgium, was very courteous and considerate, and she was particularly sensitive to other people’s suffering, so she found it very hard to adapt to life in a concentration camp. What was a helpless individual to do when faced with the atrocities going on here? Sonia’s personal life was full of a continuous struggle and even more suffering than what we had, because she could not avail herself of the respite that going out to work in the fields offered.

“Who can guess what was going on in the heart of that woman, who was always smiling, cracking jokes, and so devoted to her duties as a physician? Sonia adopted and followed a practical rule. She used to say to me, ‘I know I’m doing a useful job looking after my sick fellow‑prisoners; I have the most marvelous profession, because I can bring relief to those who are suffering.’

“It did not matter to her how many nights she had spent looking after the sick, she didn’t look after herself and get treatment for her own illness, and she never had the time to spend a few days in bed to convalesce. All the time she was up on her feet, all the time looking after others. Even when she was not working with patients she gave up her Sunday afternoons to teach her friends French.

“But Sonia did more than just perform her duties as a doctor. She often put herself, even her life at risk, for the sake of patients. It was in the interest of the Germans to get as many people out to work as they could. Sonia laid herself open to a lot of harassment and trouble by keeping more women in the sick bay than the Germans allowed. She put up with a lot of threats and abusive language, but still continued to describe her patients’ conditions in their medical records in a way which gave them the right to stay in bed and rest.

“The doctor had the duty to report cases of malaria and typhus for, as the Germans said, they would send such people off to ‘better climes.’ We knew very well what they meant. We had learned one day when they gassed two thousand typhus patients. . . . Sonia’s records never had such diseases on them. Many contagious diseases could be covered up by calling them ‘harmless flu,’ but with malaria it was more difficult because the symptoms were obvious. Yet Sonia used elaborate explanations to hide even malaria cases. She saved many women’s lives.” (P.L.)

In concentration camp conditions many ordinary gestures became acts of heroism simply because they were prohibited on pain of death. The battles doctors and nurses fought every day, in and beyond the sick bays, organizing medications and extra food, smuggling patients in or out and protecting them from being selected or transported, working with the resistance movement in the camp—these are just some of types of heroism the medical staff engaged in.

The publications on concentration camps and the Auschwitz numbers of Przegląd Lekarski – Oświęcim (Medical Review – Auschwitz) are full of the names of doctors, nurses, and rank‑and‑file prisoners working in the medical service in the camp who risked their own health and lives to help fellow‑prisoners.

The following (now deceased) Polish doctors who worked in Auschwitz‑Birkenau rendered distinguished service their profession can be truly proud of: Irena Białówna (1983), Władysława Jasińska (1969), Janina Kowalczykowa (1980), Katarzyna Łaniewska (1978), Edward Nowak (1971), Tadeusz Tomasz Orzeszko (1976), Wilhelm Türschmid (1970), Jan Zielina (1981), Stefan Żabicki (1975) and many others I have not named; also Eugeniusz Brzezicki (1976), Marian Ciepielewski (1977), Władysław Czapliński (1979), Ludwik Fischer (1966), Józef Garbień (1971), Stanisław Kapuściński (1982), Stanisław Kelles‑Krauz (1966), Włodzimierz Ławkowicz (1981), Jan Miodoński (1964), and Franciszek Witaszek (1967) and many others, who were in other camps and prisons. The editions of the periodical Przegląd Lekarski – Oświęcim (Medical Review – Auschwitz) in which their biographies were published are given by the dates in brackets.

There were also priests who worked with the doctors, ministering to the sick and dying. Many of the Polish priests incarcerated in concentration camps, especially in Dachau, deserve to be regarded as heroes on account of their attitude and dedication. One of the memorable individuals in this group was Father Stefan Wincenty Frelichowski, known as the “apostle of the concentration camps” (Piszcz, 1985). Father Frelichowski was imprisoned first in Toruń, and subsequently in the concentration camps at Stutthof, Sachsenhausen, and finally Dachau. In all these places he ministered to inmates, despite the prohibitions imposed by concentration camp management. He risked his life to bring medicine and food to those most in need of it, but also to comfort them and minister to their spiritual needs. He said the Holy Mass in secret and administered Holy Communion. He was called the soul of the religious life in the camp, bringing prisoners the hope of survival and building up their confidence that they would manage. The sick and the suffering, the weak and the physically abused commanded a special place in his pastoral care. He attended in secret and on his own to the large numbers dying of typhus. He helped many recover, but in the end he was infected, fell seriously ill, and died on February 23, 1945.

This memorial of Father Frelichowski’s heroism comes from Father Konrad Szweda, himself a survivor:

“All the staff of the typhus blocks in Dachau had died. No one wanted to work with typhus patients, because everybody knew you would not survive. To the amazement of the entire camp, a group of eighteen Polish priests volunteered. They included Fathers Januszewski, Kamiński, Walczak, J. Kubica, Urbański, Lenckowski, Sławski, W. Kawski, and seminarians Jeźnicki and Jerzy Musioł. Half of them died. Father Januszewski said that he didn’t mind going, though he knew he wouldn’t survive. And he didn’t survive.

“Father Frelichowski behaved likewise. He ministered to the typhus patients, he was like a loving parent to them, serving them like a doctor and as a priest. He heard their confessions, said Mass for them in secret, administered Holy Communion to them, and held religious conferences for them. He was not afraid of the potential reprisals—being flogged, strung up on the post, or sent to stand in the bunker. He used to say, ‘Let’s not pray for the souls of those who have been murdered, but instead let’s pray through the intercession of our brothers who have been martyred.’ He encouraged his secret congregation to unite with God and draw strength from His invisible sources, for the human powers were not enough. He contracted the disease while ministering to the sick and died on February 23, 1945, two months before the camp was liberated. His body was put on public display before being sent to the crematorium. Prisoners covered it in flowers which they brought hidden in their clothing. Those whose lives he saved prayed to him rather than for him. The entire camp—thirty‑two thousand inmates of diverse nationalities—was full of admiration for the Polish priests who gave their lives to help their fellows in the lice‑ridden, foul‑smelling typhus blocks.” (Konrad Szweda)

The resistance movement

Auschwitz prisoners who were members of the resistance movement make up a special chapter in the story of heroism in the camp. Like other inmates, they were subject to diverse types of destructive operations, yet they decided to defy the order imposed in the camp in an active and organized manner. Such activities might have seemed contrary to common sense and the survival instinct, yet in many cases proved effective and advantageous. The collective uprisings organized in Buchenwald in April 1945, or the attempts to rebel in Auschwitz may be cited as examples.

In Auschwitz‑Birkenau resistance activities meant communicating with the outside world and passing information on the concentration camp to people outside, acquiring supplies of food and medicines, helping to organize escapes, and collecting records of the crimes committed in the camp. No wonder that the people involved in these operations were liable to the most repressive measures if caught. It was enough merely to be suspected of participating in resistance activities to be sent to Death Wall.

So it would be true to say that just the decision itself to join the resistance movement called for a lot of courage and resolution, and virtually every act of resistance was heroic. Threatened with permanent danger, you had to be ready to sacrifice a lot, and to do things like having a poison pill on you to kill yourself if put in a critical situation.

Hermann Langbein, author of Menschen in Auschwitz (1972; English ed. 2004), writes of the resistance movement in the camp. According to him the idea to join the resistance movement seemed absurd: prisoners were under constant pressure from the camp’s authorities and functionaries and basically had only one right—to die without dignity or honor. Attempts were made to conceal and remove evidence of the death of prisoners, and the same applied to signs of resistance and heroic attitudes. Langbein writes that the resistance movement should be seen as voluntary action to protect and save other anonymous prisoners, to improve their lot, and to make things harder for the SS. In Auschwitz “a never‑ending struggle for the lives of friends was carried on by nameless companions in misfortune, a fight that never let up despite depressing failures and obvious hopelessness. A resistance movement that fought terror with some success was also part of Auschwitz.” (Langbein, 2004: 86–87)

The resistance movement in the camp was not based on individual acts such as sharing a piece of bread with another inmate, or saving a fellow‑prisoner from a selection or certain death. Those who took part in the resistance movement were more like soldiers, and their heroism was closer to military bravery.

Their activities included operations to save prisoners from being murdered with phenol injections, counteracting the torture and abuse of prisoners, fighting informers, influencing appointments to jobs in the sick bays, promoting solidarity among the prisoners and keeping up a spirit of moderate optimism, coordinating the activities of the different groups within the resistance movement, disclosing and disseminating information about the crimes committed in concentration camps, etc.

“You had to have the right psychological disposition to join the resistance movement in the midst of the hell prevalent in a concentration camp. National solidarity, the endeavour of political prisoners to take over key positions in the camp, the need to defend prisoners’ self‑respect, the belief in the ultimate defeat of Nazism, and the ability to abstain from trying to save their own lives at any cost were all factors which prompted some inmates to join. . . .

“A prisoner in the resistance movement was like a soldier in combat, who does not have his own survival, but the carrying out of his task on his mind, the only difference being that soldiers are armed and can defend themselves, while the only weapons available to the concentration camp prisoners was their own morality. Thus even their death and the torture that they had sustained could be signs of resistance and protest.” (Cyrankiewicz, 1984)

These observations show that there was a specific set of attitudes and behaviors which concentration camp inmates considered heroic, and they were heroic because of the conditions in which inmates had to live.

There are many descriptions in the publications on concentration camps of incidents and operations carried out by prisoners with an incredible amount of courage and bravura, and united in their efforts by feelings of solidarity and patriotism, at all times ready to give their lives for the ultimate victory. Perhaps the most spectacular examples of resistance operations in the concentration camps were the collective rebellions, such as the uprising of the Auschwitz Sonderkommando in October 1944.

I shall conclude this account of heroism and bravery in concentration camps with a passage from Edward Ferenc’s questionnaire:

“The voluntary giving up of one’s own life to save the life of another prisoner will always be a symbol of tremendous heroism very hard to follow. All those who risked their lives for the sake of others did so in full awareness that next time they might end up in the bunker of Block 11 or in the crematorium. . . . There were cases of people from the Sonderkommando deciding under the impact of shock and despondency to die in the gas chamber during a special operation, and in this manner to unite forever with their families which had been sent for extermination to Birkenau. I would go as far as to say that heroism in the concentration camp was an inevitable reaction, triggered inexorably by the conditions that criminal system had created.” (Edward Ferenc)

An attempt to sum up

The selection of survivors’ statements, descriptions, and personal recollections I have presented above are confirmation for the claim that the concentration camps were not just places of disaster and death. They were also places where prisoners defied and thwarted the intentions of their makers, rising to the peak of human potential, ready to sacrifice their own lives for other prisoners or for their ideals. Apart from their devastating significance, the facts I have presented show that the most sophisticated system of extermination ever devised could not destroy the moral and ethical values of all of its prisoners. We may say of some of the extreme cases that it had to take the concentration camp ordeal and suffering to trigger heroic attitudes and behaviours which would otherwise never have been manifested. Looking at the concentration camps in retrospect, we see that none of the experiences prisoners went through in them were such momentous and powerful symbols as the heroic attitudes and behaviours.

However, despite the passage of many decades, it is still hard to give a final and unambiguous assessment of the attitudes and reactions considered heroic. Survivors themselves have sensed this difficulty. Suffice it to recall the opinion of the psychiatrist Eugeniusz Brzezicki, a Sachsenhausen survivor (1963):

“And that is why we should not throw the first stone at those concentration camp inmates who could not resist stealing bread. Their hunger was unbearable, and their urge to eat huge amounts of food was very strong. That is why stealing bread will never be the same as stealing money or anything else. . . .

“I know a concentration camp prisoner who suffered extremely from hunger. He never talked or thought about anything else but eating, and he lost a terrible amount of weight in the camp. And yet he never stole any bread, he had been very well trained as a child to restrain himself. I consider him a hero.”

There was a general belief that many inmates’ imprisonment in a concentration camp was marked by the characteristic features of heroism. Their hope that some of them would survive and communicate the truth to posterity kept their spirits up and was perhaps one of the key components of the humanitarian attitudes. Julius Fučik puts this idea into a striking appeal in his memoirs, Notes from the Gallows (Czech original Reportáž psaná na oprátce, 1947; several English editions):

“One thing I would ask of you who live through this period of history: never forget the people who take part in this struggle. Remember the good and the bad. Collect all the evidence you can on those who fell both for you and for themselves. The present will eventually become past history; it will be called a great epoch with nameless heroes who made history. They all had names, faces, hopes and longings, however, and for that reason the suffering of the least of them is no less than of the first, whose names will be preserved.” (Fučik, 1948: 37)

The following suggestion made by survivor Włodzimierz Borkowski in his questionnaire ties up with Fučik’s appeal:

“The Auschwitz Memorial Museum should make an application for a decoration named the Virtuti Civili Medal to be instituted. Concentration prisoners had to be braver than armed soldiers. We know very well what the consequences were for attempts to resist orders that failed, and we were well aware of it at the time, when we were fighting against the violence and the devastating machine of organized genocide. The Virtuti Civili would be what the widows and the mothers (if there are any still alive), brothers, and sisters of those who died expect. They died fighting to the end; they did not surrender when they were clothed in the concentration camp gear; they did not succumb to an egoistic urge to survive. . . . The Virtuti Civili for those who fought unarmed and were killed by an enemy armed to the teeth. This is perhaps the last wish that I still have. (Włodzimierz Borkowski)

Another truth that may be drawn out of this book is that Auschwitz is still a timely and important issue, and that there is a need for records and reflections on it to be continued. If anyone still has any doubts as to this, let him read and carefully consider the questions Auschwitz survivor Feliks Myłyk put to himself (1982):

“Will anyone want to believe that in a camp like that you could have been a hero in the stereotypical sense of the word; should we boast and be proud of it? No, and no a hundred times!

“If we do mention it from time to time, it is only for the sake of historical truth. Is there a need for that? Should we talk about it in such a brutal way, now, after all those years, after all those accounts of what we suffered?

“Yes, I think so, because what is still going on in the world is the human inability to break free from aggression and cruelty, which shows that we still need such a reminder.”

And finally there is the most important lesson to be drawn from Auschwitz: the lesson of courage and confidence. This is something President Giuseppe Saragat of Italy spoke of when he visited the site of the former Nazi German concentration camp of Auschwitz Birkenau in October 1965. His words are relevant for the future of mankind as well:

“Those who wanted to kill mankind achieved the very opposite: they made it stronger and nobler. Those who attempted to destroy the human values unwittingly sowed the seeds of a great and lofty renewal. Auschwitz proved yet again that no chasm of horror can annihilate humanity and break the human desire to live in freedom, dignity, and justice.”

Questionnaire

In the questionnaire we sent out in 1984 to 100 survivors we asked respondents to give answers in any way they wanted to the following questions and issues connected with heroic attitudes and behaviors, and in particular
- to define the specific nature of heroism in the camp;
- to describe what inmates knew about Father Kolbe’s deed and its significance;
- to give examples of heroic attitudes and behaviours;
- what were the attitudes taken by the individuals who worked in the camp’s medical service?
- what were the attitudes taken by the prisoners who were in the resistance movement in the camp?
- respondents’ own heroic attitudes and behaviours.

The following Auschwitz‑Birkenau survivors sent in replies (the numbers in brackets are their Auschwitz numbers):

1. Włodzimierz Borkowski (360);
2. Mieczysława Chylińska (44658);
3. Edward Ferenc (281);
4. Aleksander Giermański (716);
5. Roman Jaszczyński (5695);
6. Adam Jurkiewicz (476);
7. Czesław Kempisty (16686);
8. Pelagia Lewińska-Tepicht;
9. Władysław Łyczkowski (119349);
10. Feliks Myłyk (82);
11. Andrzej Rablin (1410);
12. Alfred Skrabania (26645);
13. Tadeusz Sobolewicz (23053);
14. Konrad Szweda (7669);
15. Jadwiga Trębasiewicz (44133).

We would like to express our gratitude to our respondents for their replies to our questionnaire, which will be deposited in the archives of the Auschwitz‑Birkenau Memorial Museum.

Translated from original article: Ryn, Z., Kłodziński, S. Postawy i czyny heroiczne w obozach koncentracyjnych. Przegląd Lekarski – Oświęcim, 1986.