Dr Zygmunt Śliwicki

As the editors of Przegląd Lekarski — Oświęcim have decided to publish a biography of Dr Zygmunt Śliwicki which focuses mainly on his work during the Second World War and is source-based—since this physician and combatant in the resistance symbolises the wartime efforts of the entire medical profession of Warsaw—this article presents information about him and also extensive excerpts from his own writings.

Photo of Dr Zygmunt Śliwicki (taken on 10 Oct. 1969). Source: Przegląd Lekarski – Oświęcim, 1985. Click the image to enlarge.

Zygmunt Śliwicki was born on 14 March 1903 in Sierakowice near Łowicz. His parents were Leon Śliwicki and his wife Maria née Śmigielska. He was their fourth child; the fifth and youngest was a daughter. Leon Śliwicki owned a country cottage and a mill. Zygmunt lost his mother when he was just nine years old. Two years later, his father remarried and had three more children.

The large family was not financially comfortable. Nevertheless, Leon Śliwicki wanted to give Zygmunt a secondary education and sent him to the Bolesław Prus grammar school in Skierniewice. Zygmunt Śliwicki finished school in June 1923 and enrolled for medicine at the Medical Faculty of the University of Warsaw. As a student, he earned his own living, first by offering private tuition and later by taking up various medicine-related jobs such as giving injections or looking after bedridden patients. Zygmunt Śliwicki completed all the courses and finished his studies in 1930, but received his graduation certificate on 16 February 1938 from the University of Warsaw, which was called the Józef Piłsudski University at that time. When Śliwicki started work as a physician in 1930, Poland had been enjoying its restored independence for twelve difficult years, but independence was like food and fresh air for the nation—it allowed the people to live. The Republic of Poland required hard work and integrity from its citizens, and both were essential parts of the character of young Śliwicki.

For nine years, he worked at the Pruszków clinic of the Polish social insurance company.¹ As a doctor, he strove to broaden his knowledge and provide his patients with good care, so he earned their respect and friendship.

When he received his mobilisation papers in 1939, he learned he was to report in his army unit on the thirtieth day of the War. On 7 September Śliwicki left Pruszków. In his book Meldunek z Pawiaka {A report from Pawiak prison} (1974, Warszawa: PWN, pp. 9-10), which is one of the basic sources for the history of the Pawiak jail, Dr Śliwicki recalls,

I wanted to reach Lublin as soon as possible to turn up at the regional recruiting board and get my duty assignment. Unfortunately, there was nothing for me. I was angry at having nothing to do, especially as I knew my professional skills were indispensable in wartime. When I left Lublin, I volunteered for duty in a unit I came across on the road. It had many wounded soldiers already. Although they had a physician, Cpt. Witold Szymborski, who was actually my acquaintance, they checked my documents and were glad to accept my offer. That’s how I became a physician of what was left of the 44th Infantry Regiment, if I remember the name correctly. I had plenty of medical work and was getting more and more of it, as our unit was engaged in fierce combat against Hitler’s forces. As the general situation was serious, my unit attempted to reach the border with Romania, but it was too late and all the roads were closed. Therefore, following a change of plans, we wanted to break through to Gen. Kleeberg’s² Group. Regrettably, we failed.

In the early days of October, during an officers’ briefing, our commander turned to us with the following words, “We’ve suffered a defeat, but the War is not over for us. We’ll have to keep on fighting underground, until we win. I recommend you change into civvies, so as not to be taken prisoner. The same holds for NCOs and the men.” Then he wished us success in our underground work and exclaimed: “Poland is not yet lost!³ During the briefing many officers wept, but the meeting spurred them to go on fighting.

@bI had no problem finding civilian clothes and, having provided for the wounded, whom I referred to local hospitals, I started my journey back to Pruszków. It took me a few tiresome days, as I had to deal with several contingencies and steer clear of large groups of German forces, but finally, travelling by train or in a peasant’s cart, or simply walking, I managed to reach home.

Although I was dejected by the defeat and exhausted, I did not even get a brief moment to rest, because—besides doing my regular job in the social insurance clinic –just like many other doctors, I started helping the sick or wounded war refugees and those who had been deported by the Germans from Poland’s western territories. As I was swamped with work, I found it difficult to establish contact with the resistance movement. So I was really delighted when one day in November I was approached by Aleksander Żytkiewicz, a Polish officer and member of a military organisation, who suggested that I could join TAP,⁴ the Polish Underground Army. I became a resistance soldier. . . . My surgery turned into a venue for meetings and a distribution point for TAP’s bulletin Znak—the issues were delivered by the famous long-distance runner Józef Noji.⁵

Zygmunt Śliwicki, Pawiak prisoner doctor, watercolour by Bronisław Justus (1943), photo reproduction by J. Sergo Kuruliszwili. Source: Przegląd Lekarski – Oświęcim, 1985. Click the image to enlarge.

This is what Śliwicki said about his early underground work: his organisation was exposed by Borys Pilnik,⁶ a Gestapo informer and ex-prison guard. Pilnik managed to infiltrate the communications unit of TAP intelligence and denounced all of its members that he knew to the Gestapo. Zygmunt Śliwicki was arrested on 26 September 1940. On 10 October he had to report to Dr Stefan Baczyński,⁷ who was the prison’s official physician and suggested Śliwicki should take up work in the prisoners’ hospital. In Meldunek z Pawiaka (pp. 14-16), Śliwicki wrote,

I was very happy to get his offer. . . . My duty was to take care of the surgical cases both in the hospital and in the adjacent admissions room, where all the male prisoners sent for medical attention were examined. . . . Shortly afterwards, probably when I had been checked up on, I was asked to . . . do some underground work, deliver kites (illicit messages) etc. . . . In the early days of my work in the prison hospital, Józef Taczanowski from Rozkrocze in the region of Pomerania was jail clerk. . . His job was to keep the register of all the prisoners admitted to the hospital or infirmary, so he had to be present at admissions, as well as to make a record of doctor’s orders. . . . Thanks to Taczanowski, I soon learnt how to send out and receive kites. He gave me information about the Polish guards and the names of those who should be eschewed. This knowledge was indispensable for me whenever I had to take my own decisions, as now I realised who I could rely upon, who was to be trusted only to some extent, and who was a harmful informer, a “stool pigeon,” as we would say. As I examined the prisoners in the admissions room, I had a chance to watch their behaviour and get to know them better. They reported to the hospital either because they felt unwell, or were malingering and only wanted to establish contact with another prisoner.

As many writers confirm in the sources listed at the end of this article, usually Dr Śliwicki’s intuition about people was good and so he avoided making mistakes which could easily have proved tragic. The commanders of ZWZ–AK⁸ understood that it was vitally important for all the combatants involved to be provided with up-to-date information about the interrogations of members of the resistance who had been arrested, to warn those who had not been captured and help them avoid exposure and arrest. A Home Army soldier who had been caught and was in prison had to know that he or she was still part of the organisation, not to feel abandoned but comforted, especially as incarceration was often their last battle. That was why the Supreme Command of the Home Army established a special unit for contacts with prisoners. It was decided that Dr Zygmunt Śliwicki should be the leader of the underground communications network in the Pawiak jail. The other key members of the cell were Drs Felicjan Loth⁹ and Anna Sipowicz-Gościcka¹⁰ as well as myself, since I was chief physician of the women’s section of Pawiak, which was dubbed “Serbia”.

One of the best known resistance operations carried out by the Pawiak doctors was codenamed Tyfusy, literally “typhus cases”. A case of typhus was reported in the men’s section in February 1941. Śliwicki writes in his book that “the German guards were terrified of typhus. As a result, we observed a sudden change in the quarantine ward. For a time the violence stopped, and there were no unannounced inspections, no interrogations.”

Amid all the tension, Dr Śliwicki managed to persuade Kurt Scherbel,¹¹ the Gestapo physician, that the risk of infection was serious and therefore a special force had to be set up, employing prisoners who had some medical experience. “The medical service” had plenty of work on their hands, reviewing their fellow prisoners’ hygiene and delousing them to prevent the spread of typhus, and of course working for the Pawiak resistance network. They saw every new arrival, so they had updated information on all the new developments and were in touch with all the different sections of Pawiak.

When a prisoner fell ill with typhus, he was sent to an infectious diseases ward outside the jail, which made it easier to escape. Also, during the quarantine following each case of typhus, the Gestapo had to stop interrogating prisoners and deporting them to concentration camps. This standard procedure worked to the prisoners’ advantage, so the Pawiak resistance leaders came up with the idea that some people could be deliberately infected with typhus. An outside unit of the Home Army sent Dr Śliwicki cultures of typhus bacteria and informed him who was to be infected. He followed the guidelines, at the same time making sure that the Gestapo physician believed it was just an ordinary case of typhus. On page 72 of Śliwicki’s book we find the following passage:

One day the Gestapo doctor was extremely unsettled, because another case of typhus had occurred, in the same cell as the previous one, so I said, “It’s not really surprising, because theoretically it’s possible that any chink in the wall can hold a particle of the excrement of an infected louse, and so we get a new case.” He rose to the bait …

After a time, Operation Typhus Cases had to be suspended, because another rat had sneaked into the resistance network. That Gestapo informer was Józef Hammer, who passed himself off as “Colonel Baczewski, General Sikorski’s¹² special emissary.” Hammer succeeded in gaining the trust of a few of the guards who worked for the Home Army and handled some of the kites dispatched from Pawiak. Śliwicki quickly found out that the Gestapo had learned of this and confided his suspicions to the commander of the Home Army unit which supervised the resistance work in Nazi German prisons. An investigation was initiated to monitor the itinerary of the kites, and it found that copies were made for “Colonel Baczewski.” Thus Śliwicki exposed Hammer, who was tried by the Polish underground court, sentenced to death, and executed.¹³

As Śliwicki writes on page 18 of his book, some Pawiak prisoners stood trial before a German Standgericht¹⁴ (summary court):

From time to time the old Pawiak chapel was turned into a courtroom for the drumhead trials staged by the Gestapo. They were simply travesties of justice, and I know that not only from the testimonies of my fellow inmates. I was summoned to appear before such a court on 12 or 16 February 1941. I had to give my first and last name and then, with a loud Raus!, I was literally kicked outside. The verdicts were never read out. During one of my visits to the prison office, I noticed a stack of files with names and death sentences on them. Some of those people were my dear friends and acquaintances, and I also saw my name on one of these files. I stopped browsing through them, although I happened to be alone in the room.

The Pawiak hospital, which was effectively managed by Zygmunt Śliwicki, admitted thousands of patients. All of them were given medical assistance and any other help needed for resistance work, both medicines and words of consolation.

From February to May 1941, Father Maksymilian Kolbe¹⁵ was one of Dr Śliwicki’s patients. In Meldunek z Pawiaka (p. 259) he is described as “a man of great expertise and experience. One of his invaluable gifts was the ability to lift the spirits even of those prisoners who had to face very serious charges. He heard the confessions of those who needed it. He was a great patriot and strove to instil the same attitude in others.”

The Polish Pawiak doctors worked in an atmosphere of terror. Every day they saw the mangled bodies of prisoners and had to make a great effort to relate to the perpetrators of those crimes without showing fear, scorn, or hatred. Śliwicki wrote about that too (pp. 168, 194, 200):

Prisoners were beaten with whips, chairs or chair legs, often hit on the face and head. As a result, their teeth were knocked out, their jaws broken, and even their eyes injured. However, usually they got their buttocks and spines battered. The violence left huge purple bruises and deep layers of necrotic tissue. More devious methods of torture were used as well, such as electric shock, sticking needles under prisoners’ nails, crushing their fingers or testicles, burning prisoners with cigarettes or hot rods, or suffocating them with water poured down the nose or down the mouth while the nose was blocked. Prisoners were also forcibly intoxicated with alcohol. When the torture brought no results, the furious Gestapo men would trample the prostrate prisoner with their heavy boots. Many were battered to death in this way, for instance, the lawyer Teodor Duracz,¹⁶ the Home Army soldier Jerzy Horczak,¹⁷ architects Kazimierz Pigułowski¹⁸ and Jan Strzeszewski,¹⁹ and Fajge.²⁰ . . . From the accounts of hundreds of prisoners who had been brutally interrogated, we knew that when victims received a blow, they were able to unleash an immense, supernatural inner strength that prevented them from disclosing any details concerning their resistance effort.

The Pawiak prisoner doctors, too, had to release their own inner strength, of which they may have been unaware before, in order to do their duty. As they were vulnerable to the whims of the Nazis, they had to prove clever enough to help the victims without enraging the butchers. They upheld the honour of the Polish medical profession and although they worked in extreme conditions, they never brought disgrace upon it.

This is what Śliwicki says on page 80 of his book:

In the latter half of 1943 I was called to the prison yard and there I saw a group of the Gestapo men and an injured Jewish man lying by the wall. One of the Gestapo men asked,

“Are you a doctor?”

“Yes,” I said.

“Give him a lead pill,”²¹ he ordered.

“Doctors don’t use such methods,” I replied. “It’s their duty to try to save every man’s life.”

“Will you save him?”

“I’ll try, though it’s hard to diagnose him without a thorough medical examination.”

“Fine then, he may be taken to the hospital.”

The Gestapo promised there’d be a lead pill for myself if the sick man died, and then they left, saying they would check up on him in three days’ time.

The prisoner doctors practised their profession while in jail, but they were still soldiers of the resistance movement. Śliwicki describes this double bind on page 51:

Apart admitting patients for medical reasons, the hospital and admissions room also saw other patients: those who needed new contacts, wanted their statements to concur with those of their fellows, or had to receive their orders from outside. Sometimes, when we considered our jobs, we were no longer sure whether we were still physicians or just members of the resistance. Yet, actually, we had this double capacity, because it was expedient in the circumstances. There were moments when I watched a swarm of Gestapo men hovering over a mauled victim, waiting for a few seconds of consciousness from him to extort a confession, a name, or an address, and deep in my heart I wanted that person to die instantly, because only his death could put an end to the interrogation and save other people’s lives.

Dispatches from the prison reached the Home Army unit via “Serbia,” where some brave women guards continued their resistance work until the end of the War and smuggled kites out of Pawiak. It must be added that when almost all the Polish male functionaries and some of the office clerks were arrested, contact with the underground units was maintained by the hospital staff, the women guards, and two doctors who came in from outside. Drs Śliwicki and Loth stayed in touch with other resistance members, that is myself and the dentist Anna Sipowicz-Gościcka.

On 31 July 1944, when they were evacuating Pawiak, the Germans released about 200 prisoners, including Zygmunt Śliwicki, Felicjan Loth, Anna Sipowicz-Gościcka, and myself. On 2 August²² we turned up at the 4th group of Battalion Gurt. Śliwicki used his nom de guerre Doktor Zygmunt Złoty and served as deputy head of the battalion’s medical service as well as head of the infirmary set up on Złota in the old Tudor Akkumulatorenwerke factory. It took in civilians as well. At the beginning of the Uprising, its facilities were on the third floor, but finally had to be moved to the basement: the upper storeys of the huge building were knocked down by the air raids and bombing. The doctors and nurses continued their dedicated work, although the conditions were very difficult and the number of casualties was growing. For many days on end, the staff were unable to undress for the night and got very little sleep. Śliwicki, who was fully committed to his work, writes on page 217 of his book:

Those were hard and risky days, but after so many years of imprisonment, freedom and fighting were our reward for the time we had spent in Pawiak, where we could only put up silent resistance.

On orders from the commander of the 4th group of Battalion Gurt and with the consent of its chief medical officer, whose nom de guerre was Dr Pigoń,²³ on 7 October Zygmunt and I left our unit to avoid being taken prisoner. We managed to slip out of Warsaw thanks to a lucky chance: we met one of Zygmunt’s patients from Pruszków, who was a Volksdeutsche,²⁴ , and he helped us to get out of Poland’s doomed capital.²⁵ We joined a group of workers who were citizens of neutral states. We travelled on a lorry and arrived in Piastów. Śliwicki feared he could be arrested again, so until liberation²⁶ he had to hide in small places in the suburbs of Warsaw.

On 27 July 1945 he was drafted and assigned the duties of chief physician of the Government Protection Regiment, in which he served until 1 February 1945.²⁷ Then he left for Wrocław to work as a doctor for the national social insurance company. On 1 October he took up an appointment as deputy head of a health centre and later as head of the occupational health section for the Municipal Sanitary and Epidemiological Station²⁸ in Wrocław. From 1 January 1955 to 31 January 1960 he was employed by the National Sanitary Inspectorate.²⁹ Jerzy Sztachelski,³⁰ the Minister of Health, assigned a very challenging post to him, as spokesman of the supervisory commission for the medical professions. The head of the human resources department assessed Dr Śliwicki’s work in the following words:

During his long years of service in Wrocław, in all the institutions where he was employed, Śliwicki proved his unflagging commitment. He was an excellent organiser, one of the very few thanks to whom the system of health care in this city was built on solid foundations. As a physician, he was a respected and popular figure with the general public and esteemed by his superiors.

Śliwicki continued to further his medical qualifications and practical skills: in October 1955 he became a second degree specialist in internal diseases, and in January 1959 a second degree specialist in the public health care system. His work and further education proved no obstacle to the pursuit of his favourite hobby, which was music. He also loved the natural world, especially as he had been denied it during the four years of imprisonment.

Notwithstanding his professional career, Śliwicki often did voluntary work for the community. For instance, he provided medical care free of charge for the employees of the Wrocław branch of Polish Radio. They described him as a tireless physician, and a kind caregiver and comforter of suffering people.

We married in 1955 in Wrocław.

In 1960 we moved from Wrocław to Warsaw, where in February Zygmunt started work as chief sanitary inspector for the Ministry of Communications.³¹ He did a lot to secure good working conditions in the national railway company and see that the standards of public hygiene were kept for passengers. He retired on 28 February 1969. Piotr Lewiński,³² the Minister of Communications, thanked him for his work, stressing how conscientious and full of dedication it had been.

What started at Pawiak had to be brought to satisfactory completion.

On page 7 of Meldunek z Pawiaka, Śliwicki wrote,

Initially, the only thing my memory kept reminding me of was the cruelty of the Gestapo. With time, however, I started to remember the heroic resistance soldiers and selfless members of the Pawiak underground organisation. The urgency and vividness of those images built up a sense of obligation in me, and I felt the need to make a written record of the events and personalities of that period of contempt.

He wrote about himself only as much as he had to. What he foregrounded were the patients and the resistance movement, the situations and other people’s experiences. That is how Meldunek z Pawiaka came into being.

Our home was a venue of get-togethers of many people who had experienced incarceration at Pawiak and combat in the 1944 Uprising. All of them had health problems or other issues to cope with, so we tried to offer them help and advice. We established and for many years sat on the board of the association of Pawiak survivors.³³ Even when terminally ill, Zygmunt continued his correspondence with fellow combatants who had to live abroad³⁴ after the War. For many years, he worked for the Chief Commission for the Prosecution of Nazi Crimes in Poland³⁵ and gave evidence as a witness for the prosecution at the trials of Nazi prison guards held in Poland, the German Democratic Republic, and the Federal Republic of Germany.

Zygmunt Śliwicki died on 27 September 1982. His funeral demonstrated the strong bonds of the experience shared by Pawiak survivors: many of them attended. Their graveside farewells paid tribute to a man who had earned their gratitude and respect with his brave deeds.

The funeral took place on 1 October 1982. One of the speakers was Andrzej Janiszek,³⁶ Zygmunt’s fellow inmate and friend, who said,

I would like to bid you farewell on behalf of those Majdanek survivors deported from Pawiak in 1943: you saved many of them in your infirmary after brutal interrogations on aleja Szucha.³⁷ You saved your fellows, I was one of them. . . . Your life’s ideals, patriotism, bravery in the struggle for freedom, and generous assistance to those in need, shall stay with us and with those young people now attending your old grammar school in Skierniewice. . . . You were a Home Army soldier and a combatant in the Warsaw Uprising. There is no bugle call to arms at this parting, but the trees at your graveside shall always murmur your favourite marching song³⁸ about the weeping willows and weeping girls saying farewell to soldiers who are summoned like you at this moment.

Zygmunt Śliwicki received the following medals and distinctions: Virtuti Militari Fifth Class, the Polonia Restituta Commander’s Cross, the Silver Cross of Merit with Swords, the Home Army Cross, the Warsaw Uprising Cross, the Medal for Warsaw 1939-1945, the Medal of Victory and Freedom, as well as several other national and departmental decorations, such as the Badge of Honour of the Polish Red Cross, the Badge for Outstanding Work in the Health Service, and the Gold Badge of the Union of Polish Teachers.³⁹ The letters of condolence that have arrived are one more proof of the living memory of Zygmunt Śliwicki.

Here I must quote the letter I received from the Secretariat of State of the Holy See, dated 29 November 1983:

Dear Mrs. Czuperska-Śliwicka,

His Holiness John Paul II was moved by your gift and expresses his gratitude to have received these books, which are such eloquent evidence of the suffering of the Polish nation under the terrible Nazi German occupation. During your “four years of emergency duty”⁴⁰ as doctors, you and your late husband showed much courage and helped other victims of violence and cruelty. The Holy Father paid his last respects to the Pawiak prisoners during his second pastoral visit to Poland last June. In his prayers, he commends to God the souls of those who died and were murdered in jails and concentration camps, hoping they may partake of the fruits of the Resurrection of Christ. As a promise of the gifts of Heaven, John Paul II gives his heartfelt apostolic blessing to survivors of the War, whose lives are a testimonial to the highest ideals.

With sincerest regards,

Eduardo Martínez⁴¹

Archbishop

The ordeal of the Pawiak prisoners, who represented all classes and professions, and their resistance to Nazi German terror inspire both awe and admiration, affection and appreciation. They have truly earned a place in the history books.

***

Translated from original article: Czuperska-Śliwicka, A., “Dr Zygmunt Śliwicki.” Przegląd Lekarski – Oświęcim, 1985.

1. Ubezpieczalnia Społeczna.^a
2. Franciszek Kleeberg (1888-1941), Brigadier-General in the Polish Army. The last Polish commanding officer to lay down arms at the end of Poland’s unsuccessful defence against the double invasion by Germany and the Soviet Union. His troops were fighting alternately against German and Soviet forces closing in on him. He died in German captivity. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franciszek_Kleeberg^b
3. “Jeszcze Polska nie zginęła!,” the first line of the Polish national anthem.^a
4. Tajna Armia Polska.^a
5. Józef Noji (1901-1943), Polish athlete and competitor in the 1936 Olympics. Murdered by the Germans in Auschwitz. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J%C3%B3zef_Noji^a
6. Borys (aka Bogusław Jan) Pilnik (?—1943), a professional criminal, blackmailer, and fraud who denounced Jews to the Germans. He was tried by the underground Polish court (see Note 11), found guilty, sentenced to death and executed. Szopa, 104 and 106 (online).^b
7. Stefan Baczyński (1907-1953)—internist, worked in the Pawiak prison as a phsysician (1939-1943). Baczyński smuggled typhus vaccines and organised additional medical help for the Pawiak prisoners. He was arrested for helping the prisoners, released after a few days of incarceration, and sent to perform forced labour in Germany.^b
8. ZWZ, Związek Walki Zbrojnej (Union of Armed Struggle), an early Polish resistance organisation, predecessor of the AK (Armia Krajowa, the Home Army), the largest underground resistance movement in occupied Europe during the Second World War. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Union_of_Armed_Struggle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Home_Army^b
9. Felicjan Loth (1914-1982), Polish surgeon and resistance combatant during the Second World War. Pawiak prisoner doctor; provided medical treatment for Jewish prisoners, which was prohibited and subject to punishment. Released on the eve of the outbreak of the 1944 Warsaw Uprising, in which he took part. https://www.1944.pl/powstancze-biogramy/felicjan-loth,27770.html^b
10. Anna Sipowicz (maiden name Gościcka), 1909-1988, Polish dentist, member of the underground resistance movement during the Second World War; released from the Pawiak prison on the eve of the outbreak of the Warsaw Uprising, in which she worked in the underground medical service. https://www.1944.pl/powstancze-biogramy/anna-sipowicz,40230.html^b
11. SS-Hauptsturmführer Kurt Scherbel (1912- ?), German physician. Chief physician for the German Security Police and Security Service in Pawiak prison. Hasselbusch and Ciesielska, 27 (online). https://truityservicechiefthaboutcamps.eu/th/form/r3817200618,SCHERBEL.html^a
12. Władysław Sikorski (1881-1943), general of the branch of the Polish army and Polish politician, former prime minister and minister of defence in pre-1939 Poland. During the Second World War he served as the Prime Minister of the Polish government-in-exile, as well as the Commander-in-Chief of the Polish Armed Forces.^b
13. Józef Hammer, alias Baczewski, Henryk Szwaycer, Lech, or Wujek (?—1942), German agent and collaborator, operated in the Pawiak prison. Eventually disclosed, tried by the Polish underground court mandated by the Polish government-in-exile, and sentenced to death. AK men carried out the sentence but Hammer survived and died of the gunshot wound in the Pawiak hospital. https://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/J%C3%B3zef_Hammer-Baczewski^b
14. The Germans introduced the Standgericht institution (summary court, drumhead court-martial) as soon as they invaded Poland and used it to give their criminal operations (massacres etc.) a semblance of legality. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drumhead_court-martial^a
15. Rajmund (name in religion Maksymilian) Kolbe (1894-1941), RC priest and Polish Franciscan friar. Sent to Auschwitz, where he volunteered to substitute for another prisoner selected for death. Died in Block 1. Canonised by the Roman Catholic Church in 1982. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maximilian_Kolbe^b
16. Teodor Duracz (1883-1943), Polish lawyer, member of the Polish Socialist Party, and later of the Polish Workers’ Party (i.e., the Communist Party), and Soviet intelligence agent. https://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teodor_Duracz^a
17. Jerzy Horczak (1927-1943), corporal in the Home Army, holder of the Virtuti Militari for bravery. https://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerzy_Horczak^a
18. Kazimierz Pigułowski (1907-1942), Polish architect and town planner, member of the Polish underground resistance movement. http://www.inmemoriam.architektsarp.pl/pokaz/kazimierz_pigulowski,3163^a
19. Jan Strzeszewski (1894-1943), Polish architect, sports official, judge for boxing and vice-president of the Polish Boxing Union, member of the left-wing resistance movement. https://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jan_Strzeszewski^a
20. Probably the Communist Jan Fajge (1917-1942), member of the left-wing resistance movement. https://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jan_Fajge^c
21. “A lead pill”—an ironic name for a bullet.^a
22. I.e., on the second day of the Warsaw Uprising, see earlier notes.^a
23. “Dr Pigoń”—Jerzy Teter (1912–1993), a physician working in gynaecological clinic of the Child Jesus Hospital in Warswaw (1941–1944). During the Warsaw Uprising of 1944 he served as the chief sanitary officer for the Śródmieście Północne military sub-district in the insurgent city, as well as the chief sanitary officer for the “Gurt” group in the field hospital at Złota 22.^b
24. In German-occupied Poland Volksdeutsche were people with (real or alleged) German roots, and given preferential treatment by the German occupying authorities.^a
25. During the Uprising and after its fall (September–October 1944), the Germans evicted some 650 thousand civilian inhabitants of Warsaw and forcibly drove them out of the city, sending them to provisional camps (such as Pruszków) or concentration camps, or to Germany for slave labour. They then proceeded to demolish the entire left-bank city. https://dzieje.pl/aktualnosci/exodus-mieszkancow-warszawy-po-powstaniu^a
26. Soviet troops entered Warsaw on 17 January 1945 to “liberate” it, having spent six months on the right bank of the river, idly watching the Germans crush the Uprising, which broke out in left-bank Warsaw.^a
27. The date has been misprinted, and should presumably read 1946.^a
28. Miejska Stacja Sanitarno-Epidemiologiczna.^a
29. Państwowa Inspekcja Sanitarna.^a
30. Jerzy Sztachelski (1911–1975), Polish physician and Communist politician, Minister of Health, 1961–1968. https://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerzy_Sztachelski^b
31. Ministerstwo Komunikacji.^a
32. Piotr Lewiński (1915–1991), Polish railwayman and Communist politician, Minister of Communications, 1963-1969. https://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piotr_Lewi%C5%84ski^a
33. Klub Byłych Więźniów Pawiaka.^a
34. After liberation, for many of the insurgents and AK members there were Communist reprisals (death sentences, imprisonment, or deportation to Soviet Russia), and many others fled the country to avoid such a fate. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-communist_resistance_in_Poland_(1944%E2%80%931953) ^a
35. Główna Komisja Badania Zbrodni Hitlerowskich w Polsce; now the Chief Commission for the Prosecution of Crimes against the Polish Nation, a division of the National Institute of Remembrance.^a
36. Andrzej Janiszek (1905-1998), scoutmaster and Polish Army officer, World War II veteran, Pawiak and Majdanek survivor. https://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrzej_Janiszek^a
37. The Gestapo’s headquarters in Warsaw were accommodated in a large building at No. 25 on aleja Szucha, which now houses a museum commemorating the victims. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mausoleum_of_Struggle_and_Martyrdom^a
38. A reference to the popular Polish military song “Rozszumiały się wierzby płaczące.”^a
39. Original Polish names (in chronological order): Krzyż Virtuti Militari V klasy, Krzyż Komandorski Orderu Odrodzenia Polski, Srebrny Krzyż Zasługi z Mieczami, Krzyż Armii Krajowej, Warszawski Krzyż Powstańczy, Medal za Warszawę, Medal Zwycięstwa i Wolności, Odznaka Honorowa Polskiego Czerwonego Krzyża, Odznaka za Wzorową Pracę w Służbie Zdrowia, and Złota Odznaka Związku Nauczycielstwa Polskiego.^a
40. This sentence alludes to the title of Czuperska-Śliwicka’s book (1965) about her wartime experiences.^c
41. Eduardo Martínez Somalo (1927-2021), Cardinal Priest of Santissimo Nome di Gesu, long-standing Vatican official. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eduardo_Mart%C3%ADnez_Somalo^a

a—notes by Teresa Bałuk-Ulewiczowa, Head Translator for the Medical Review Auschwitz project; b—notes courtesy of Anna Marek, Expert Consultant for the Medical Review Auschwitz project; c—Translator’s notes.

A publication funded in 2020–2021 within the DIALOG Program of the Ministry of Education and Science in Poland.