Aid for Majdanek inmates from Lublin social organisations

Recollections of the German concentration camps are and cannot but be full of horror and horrific images of people struggling against the nightmares of living in those times. The authenticity lodged in their portrayal of all the gruesomeness of concentration camps may come as a shock to the ordinary reader, just as it always and unavoidably carries a psychological shock for the survivors recording their experiences in writing.

None of us survivors can think or write about those times noncommittally. And probably no passage of time, however many years elapse, will ever blur the sharp outlines of those images imprinted on our memory.

Yet among all the horror of my recollections of the concentration camps in which it was my lot to be confined, there are a few exceptions, recollections not only free of horror but even reminiscences which I return to fondly and in never forgotten gratitude. They are my memories of the dedicated assistance with which the social organisations and all the people of Lublin came to the aid of the prisoners in Majdanek concentration camp.

The efforts both of the social organisations as well as of the private inhabitants of Lublin who provided aid for Majdanek prisoners went well beyond the bounds of an ordinary charity campaign, putting them at risk of being exposed at any time and sent to prison or a concentration camp. All of them engaged in this work resolutely and systematically, with the utmost courage and commitment. So I believe that by recalling the memory of their efforts and describing the campaign to help the prisoners confined in Majdanek, I am only paying back a small portion of the essential debt of gratitude I owe those individuals and social organisations from the city of Lublin.

Majdanek was the only concentration camp which received such an abundant, direct stream of aid. Representatives of the Polish Red Cross and the Central Welfare Council¹ had the right to come into the camp—a fact which was an unprecedented exception to the way German concentration camps usually operated. This was so only because Majdanek was the only concentration camp of its kind in the entire Generalgouvernement,² while all the other camps, including Auschwitz, were located on those Polish territories which had been directly incorporated in Germany, so all the rules and prohibitions were rigorously applied there, and the people were oppressed with the utmost ruthlessness. In other respects, the structure of Majdanek was no different from that of other concentration camps, and in the German nomenclature it had the same official status as Auschwitz—it was a death camp.³

At the beginning of 1942, Ludwik Christians, the President of the Lublin branch of the Polish Red Cross, embarked on a steadfast project to obtain permission to organise aid for the prisoners of Majdanek, for although concentration camps were completely cut off from the rest of society, nonetheless information on the fate of inmates filtered through to the outside world. So Lublin learned of the savagery of the Gestapo, and of the hunger, diseases, and mortality that ravaged Majdanek. Undaunted by the gigantic obstacles and the fact that on several occasions all their efforts met with refusal on the part of the Germans, the group of Polish Red Cross campaigners continued their work resolutely and bravely, insistently applying to the German authorities time and again for permission to start a charity operation in Majdanek. Finally, in early 1943, they were allowed access to the camp for the delivery of medications and food, intended only for sick inmates.⁴ That was all that the camp’s management condescended to permit, for of course according to the Germans, healthy prisoners did not need any aid.

At first, they were allowed to make a dry delivery once a week, i.e. groats and cereals, sugar, bread etc., and a few medications, and hand it over at Gate One, from there the Germans took it into the camp. After a lot of further effort with pleas and bribes offered to anyone they could bribe, the Polish Red Cross team was allowed to enter the camp and distribute the food and medications on the premises.

This Red Cross aid reached us at a time when the women’s camp was full, and every day became more congested with new transports arriving frequently and bringing in large number of inmates. To all intents and purposes, all the barracks in the women’s field⁵ were overcrowded. The hospital barracks were overcrowded, too. From day to day, the typhus epidemic was spreading more and more; then an outbreak of typhoid started as well; and there were also many cases of diarrhoea, the classic concentration camp disease referred to as Durchfall.⁶ Our resources of medications were negligible and the assortment was extremely modest, there was no hope of getting extra food or a sick diet for patients. The camp’s management took an absolutely hostile attitude to requests for a sick diet. In the first quarter of 1943,⁷ a transport of hundreds of Russian women arrived; there were also small children with them. Straightaway, nearly all the Russian women went into hospital, as they had a typhus rash already on arrival. I went to the commandant Elza Erich⁸ to ask for a milk ration for about a dozen babies whose mothers were in hospital. She responded by hitting me in the face, first on one cheek, then on the other, and shouted in a fury, “This is not a sanatorium but a Vernichtungslager (death camp)!”

Given such conditions, the possibility of getting extra food and a sick diet for our patients thanks to aid from the Polish Red Cross was a real godsend. The supply of medicines, of which there was always a desperate shortfall, was just as important and indispensable. The Polish Red Cross, and later the Central Welfare Council, sent us a lot of medicines. They never refused to cater for any of the needs we asked them for on the quiet during a delivery. One day, when I wrote a kite⁹ to President Christians that I was a bit embarrassed asking for such a lot of expensive medicines, I got this reply, “Don’t be embarrassed. Feel free, we’ll supply everything. The Polish Red Cross has enough funds coming in from all over Poland for Majdanek prisoners.” I was so encouraged by his reassurance that when the right occasion came, I asked them for some straw for my patients’ mattresses and some blankets. The mattresses used in the camp were filled with wood shavings, which soon crumbled into dust strewn all over the place, so that effectively sick and healthy prisoners alike had to sleep on bare boards. And we were always short of blankets, while those we had were disgusting, stiff and heavy, but not at all warm. It took the Polish Red Cross just a couple of days to get a permit and send us some fine, fresh, dry straw well-nigh redolent of freedom, and a batch of warm, brand new blankets.

Of course, every Red Cross visit was subject to a multitude of orders and prohibitions imposed by the camp’s management. Red Cross lorries could only stop at the guardhouse in front of the women’s field when they arrived at the camp. I was the doctor delegated to receive the Red Cross gifts, and I was only allowed to take them and confirm receipt with my camp number, but I was not allowed to say hello or speak to those who handled the dispatch at all. However, the people in the camp learned ways to circumvent prohibitions, mastering the art of communicating without words, just using a set of gestures without opening their mouths. Just as perfect was the mask of indifference they put on their faces at the most emotional of times, which is what meeting people from the Polish Red Cross was, meeting people from the world of freedom. Jurek of the Lublin branch of the Polish Red Cross was charming and always had a smile on his face: he quickly learned the ropes from us, and we understood each other perfectly.

In April 1943, a couple of Russian transports arrived in the camp. Two Russian women gave birth straight on arrival. A few others were in the last weeks of pregnancy. The Lublin branch of the Polish Red Cross managed to obtain a permit (by ways and methods known only to them) to take these women to Lublin. On 19 April, a Polish Red Cross ambulance rolled up in front of the first hospital barrack, and four people in white coats got out. We were not allowed to approach or talk to them, only the nurses silently escorted the mothers and pregnant women and carried out the babies, and the people who had arrived got them all into the ambulance. SS men on two motorbikes guarded them and us, shouting their heads off as usual. Nonetheless, someone managed to whisper to me that one of the people who had come was Dr Bobrowska from the city of Lublin, whose daughter Janina Modrzewska was one of our patients, convalescing in the first hospital barrack. I quickly took Janka Modrzewska by the hand, and we stood in the doorway of the barrack. Mother and daughter stared at each other, as if mesmerised. Janka even tried to put a smile on her face, which was something her mother couldn’t manage.

That was a very emotional day. It was the first time a daughter who was a prisoner in the camp could see her mother, who lived in the city, the first time people from the Red Cross arrived right in front of the hospital, and the first time someone was brought out of the hospital and taken to Lublin, to freedom.

Later that evening, there were a lot of pointless thoughts and a lot of pointless hopes knocking around in my head...

In early summer, the Central Welfare Council¹⁰ joined the aid campaign. One day, Blanke,¹¹ the camp’s chief physician, notified me that starting from the next day, twice a week I was to receive a Central Welfare Council food delivery for patients. I would be attended by a German orderly, and of course he did not fail to inform me that on pain of unspeakable reprisals, I was not to say anything at all to the delegates of that organisation.

Next morning, I smoothed out my prison gear and combed my hair as best I could. I did not want them to feel sorry for me or make a miserable impression on them on account of my appearance. I even made up my mind to smile. At eleven sharp, Havenith the orderly, a stickler for keeping to the rules, was waiting for me. We went to the very end of the camp. There I saw the road for Lublin, trees, and even people passing by. We went into the guardhouse. Havenith explained to the two SS men on guard duty that we were waiting for a food delivery for sick inmates.

After a while, four lorries arrived. A slim, good-looking brunette of medium height with an updo hairstyle walked briskly into the guardhouse. She went up to the SS men and showed them her credentials, and then she came up to me, gave me her hand, and said, “Suchodolska¹² of the Central Welfare Council.” She was deeply moved, her voice faltered, and her hands were trembling a bit. I was moved, too, but I tried to put on a smile, just as I had planned. I was embarrassed by the fact that she was casting her wide-open, well-nigh terrified eyes all over me. “Well, of course this is the first time she’s seeing someone in striped prison gear,” I thought.

The SS men bellowed at her in unison that she was to hand over the delivery as quickly as possible and leave. At that, the undaunted Mrs Suchodolska replied in fluent German that it was her first time on a delivery and she had to find out how many patients there were in the hospital, if they needed a sick diet, and how many diets were required, what medicines she had to bring, as she had a permit for medicine, too. That woman impressed me. It was understandable that I had become so inured to the camp that I had grown unresponsive to SS men yelling, but she was not going to be intimidated by them roaring at her, and aroused my admiration.

She took her time to read out a list in German of the things she had brought, in the course of which she managed to ask me in a whisper what we needed most of all and if I wanted to send something. I could not say anything, as I was being closely watched, so I just gave a little nod. She finished reading out the list and told the SS men that she had to show me where things were on the lorry. They gave their consent. Havenith went out with me. She took out a notebook and said to him, “I have to take down the names of the people receiving the delivery.” Havenith dutifully obliged and gave his name, and I gave my name, the address of a friend in Lublin, and said a few words by way of information. Havenith, who was not very bright, did not cotton on to this at all.

It all lasted just a short time. She put away her notebook and we went back to the camp. I confirmed receipt by endorsing the list with my camp number and that was the end of our first meeting. The lorries took the food into the camp. Mrs Suchodolska waited in the guardhouse. I returned with a real smile on my face, not just a plastic one, simply because the visit was so heartening. Knowing that out there in Lublin there were people like Suchodolska, brave and ready to help us, was absolutely invaluable.

I went out to the guardhouse on two more occasions. Afterwards, the Central Welfare Council obtained the right to drive into and around the camp, delivering the food to all the fields. Twice a week they delivered very nutritious, delicious soups, dietary porridges, bread rolls spread with artificial honey, sometimes there was milk, and even fermented cabbage. And large quantities of invaluable medicine.

Suchodolska surpassed all of us in silent communication and finding ways to pass on news. She always managed to find a pretext and a brief moment when the beady-eyed SS guards weren’t looking to tell us whatever she wanted to say. Usually, she did it while reading out the list of products she had brought. Nearly always I managed to say something, too, while repeating the items on the list she had read out. Sometimes, she asked about one of the prisoners because she had been asked by her family to see her. There were always a couple of prisoners who came up to carry the food, so next time round that prisoner was asked to come up. She would stand next to me, and I would motion with my head to let Suchodolska know it was this prisoner.

After a time, we would welcome each other like good old friends. There was so little we could say to each other, yet such a lot was said. Those meetings were so short and seemingly insignificant, yet they were so precious and meaningful. All the time, I was full of admiration for her courage and respect for her tremendous commitment to the cause she was serving.

And that’s how, month after month, systematically and tirelessly, the social organisations of Lublin battled on for the lives of the prisoners in Majdanek.

There were also some especially heart-warming, emotionally absolutely unique moments in the operation. One of these exceptional experiences was the way they organised Christmas for us in 1943. We were not in the best of moods as we were getting nearer and nearer to Christmas Eve.¹³ It would be our second Christmas imprisoned and away from home. We had always had a festive, traditional Christmas with our nearest and dearest. Now, in the days just before Christmas, we missed them even more keenly than before and the feeling of helpless isolation was even more insufferable than before. Meanwhile in Lublin, the Polish Red Cross and the Central Welfare Council were making Christmas plans for the prisoners of Majdanek...

A few days before Christmas Mrs Suchodolska made a food delivery. She was unusually excited and said to me, “I’ve seen the commandant, and he’s given me permission to visit you on Christmas Eve, I’ll come at noon.” And then came that memorable Christmas Eve, at midday it was sunny and frosty. They sent a message that they were on their way. I went with Havenith and the girls who were to carry the food. At the guardhouse, I just stood there dumbstruck. I thought I was dreaming. There was a whole procession of vehicles, lorry after lorry, and on them a forest of beautiful, tall and slender Christmas trees, with the fragrance of freedom and bedecked with colourful decorations which seemed to be alive and vibrating like the hearts of those who had put them up. As they took this mass of colourful Christmas trees off the trucks, the hardy shell I had grown in the camp shrivelled up and all of a sudden, unsolicited tears trickled down my face. Through the tears, I saw them unloading strucla and other cakes, barszcz beetroot soup, noodles and sweet poppy-seed, and lots of other Christmas treats. Havenith stared at me dumbfounded, and I still had tears rolling down my face but somehow I wasn’t ashamed of it. Along with the tears, all the emotional aridity I had developed in the camp was coming out of me and being replaced by my old, ordinary feminine cordiality. The insensitivity I had grown in the camp vanished and my normal, human compassion revived and took up its place. I felt light-hearted and somehow strangely different, with my old self retrieved for just a fleeting moment.

A very moved Suchodolska went up to a guardhouse SS man and asked him in German to allow her to share a Christmas wafer¹⁴ with me, the representative of the camp’s inmates, in line with our Polish tradition, and to pass on wafers to me for all the sick prisoners. He gave his consent without any ado. And when, having broken each other’s wafer, our faces wet with tears touched, at that moment I felt the strong bond between us in the camp and the rest of society over there, [living] in freedom. And I was ashamed that I could have ever thought and felt I was alone, when there were so many warm hearts around us. That Christmas gave such strong and beautiful proof that we were not alone behind the barbed wire, that we were surrounded by a vast amount of human affection and such great concern for us. It was this awareness that made our Christmas so incomparably priceless.

The First Christmas Eve. Artwork by Marian Kołodziej. Photo by Piotr Markowski. Click the image to enlarge.

That Christmas Eve, in every barrack there was a beautifully decorated Christmas tree, a symbol of tradition and of the strong spiritual bond linking us with the rest of Polish society.

I broke wafers with all the patients and we exchanged Christmas greetings. The Christmas fare was distributed to all the patients and out in the field.

We had another, equally poignant time at Easter 1944. There was an extra emotional aspect to the arrival of the Red Cross Easter delivery. The mother of Alinka P., one of our patients, was the official escort of a lorry full of bread rolls. I was informed of the fact, someone whispered it to me when the list of gifts was being handed over. On the pretext of needing more people to help with handling the Red Cross gifts, I quickly ran to fetch Alinka, who worked as a nurse. On the way, I told her to remember that she was not to do anything that would give away the fact that it was her mother, that she must not approach her, she could only help me count the rolls on the lorry her mother was on. The mother, too, realised how exceptional the situation was. She didn’t budge or say a word, she just watched her daughter with eyes full of tears. Alinka’s hands trembled as she handled the rolls profusely dampened with her tears and kept on whispering, “Mummy, mummy.” Instead, I was counting the rolls out aloud as I dropped them into the basket. None of the Germans noticed anything, even though Thuman,¹⁵ the camp’s commandant, was there, observing the distribution of the Red Cross gifts from a distance.

We were brought cakes, sweets, Easter lambs,¹⁶ and even flowers. Against the backdrop of the savagery and misery of the concentration camp, those beautiful flowers turned into something of a symbol.

But food, medications, Christmas trees, even the flowers—these things we were given were all legal. Nonetheless, neither the Red Cross nor the Central Welfare Council hesitated even for a moment and took it upon themselves to engage in an illegal and severely punished activity—something that was invaluable for us and our families—delivering kites to us and dispatching our kites to our families. Kites were our greatest treasure in the camp; unofficial, honest letters sent in from the outside world of freedom, were our greatest joy; the day we got a kite was a tremendous holiday, a piece of home, a portion of the hearts of our nearest and dearest. Kites helped us survive and look forward to the future with hope.

In my mind’s eye, I can still see Jurek walking from field to field. When we saw him, we knew there’d be kites. This operation went well beyond the bounds of ordinary charity work. Anyone caught with kites on them would straightaway be sent to prison or a concentration camp. So we really appreciated the courage and risks people took to deliver kites, which were all the more precious because of that. Each one of us kept her kites, the greatest treasure we had in the camp, and we were always deeply grateful to those who delivered them.

The book deliveries which we received in the camp were just as illegal and dangerous. When a transport of sick prisoners arrived from Ravensbrück,¹⁷ I asked for some books for them, because apart from being very ill and starving, those women had also cracked up mentally. Not only did we have to treat and feed them intensively, we also had to revive their vital powers. I expected that books would be a great help. When I asked Mrs Suchodolska for books, she didn’t hesitate at all, and in every delivery sent new books, Sienkiewicz,¹⁸ Mickiewicz, Prus, Żeromski, and books by many other authors hidden under the rolls in the bread baskets.

And finally in early April 1944, when it was announced that the hospital would be evacuated from Majdanek to Auschwitz, once more I availed myself of the generous kindness of the Lublin branch of the Polish Red Cross. I asked for stretchers for our bedridden patients, for those who could only be put on and off the train in this way. Straightaway, the Polish Red Cross sent us brand new, wide and comfortable stretchers.

That was a time when the community campaigners working in these Lublin social organisations contributed a fine chapter to their lives. In defiance of all the powers of evil, in defiance of the savagery and atrocities, with the maximum of commitment and courage, they fought an unrelenting battle to save our lives. All of us survivors will always be deeply grateful to them and will always remember what they did for us.

***

Translated from original article: Perzanowska, Stefania. “Pomoc lubelskich organizacji społecznych więźniom Majdanka.” Przegląd Lekarski – Oświęcim, 1965.

1. PCK (Polski Czerwony Krzyż, the Polish Red Cross) and RGO (Rada Główna Opiekuńcza, the Central Welfare Council), were the only two Polish organisations the Germans allowed to dispense charity and medical aid to Poles. In February 1943, Andrzej Skrzyński, RGO delegate for Distrikt Lublin, and Henryk Woroniecki, Vice-Director of the RGO, conducted negotiations with SIPO commander Johannes Müller, and obtained his permission to organise extra food deliveries for the Polish prisoners of Majdanek. The RGO was to conduct the project jointly with the Polish Red Cross.^a
2. When Germany invaded Poland in September 1939, it annexed the western part of the country, calling it Gau-Wartheland, and set up a pseudo-state called the Generalgouvernement on the rest of the Polish territory in its possession.^b
3. The camp’s official name in German was Konzentrationslager Lublin. It served as a death camp for the extermination of Jews, who were killed on a mass scale in the camp’s gas chambers.^a
4. The Polish Red Cross and the Central Welfare Council were permitted to make a delivery once a week of food for all the inmates, medicines, straw for prisoners’ mattresses, and parcels of food and clothing addressed to specific prisoners. Only Polish inmates were entitled to this aid. From the very start, the project was conducted jointly by the Polish Red Cross and the RGO. Unfortunately, addressees rarely got their parcels, which were usually stolen by the camp’s staff and functionary prisoners.^a
5. In Majdanek, the diverse sections of the camp were referred to as “fields.”^b
6. German for diarrhoea.^b
7. In March 1943, women and children from Belarus started to be sent to Majdanek. Most of these deportees were victims of German pacification operations. On 20 March 1943, a transport of 769 women and children arrived from Vitebsk. ^a
8. Elsa Ehrich (1914–1948), senior female warden at Majdanek and other concentration camps; German war criminal. Apprehended by the Allies after the War and handed over to the Polish authorities. Charged with crimes against humanity and war crimes, tried, found guilty, sentenced to death and hanged in Lublin. The name is misspelled in the article.^a
9. A kite is an illicit message sent from or to a prison.^b
10. The Central Welfare Council (Rada Główna Opiekucza) was founded in the Generalgouvernement in 1940, but it could only pursue a limited range of activities (Original Editor’s note).
11. SS Hauptsturmführer Max Blancke (1909–1945), German war criminal; chief physician of Majdanek from 10 April 1943 to 20 January 1944. Committed suicide as the War was coming to an end. Perzanowska misspells his surname and gets the dates of his Majdanek period wrong.^a
12. Janina Mehlberg-Suchodolska.^a
13. In Poland, the main Christmas celebrations are held on Christmas Eve, with a festive vegetarian and fish dinner.^b
14. One of the Polish Christmas traditions is the sharing of Christmas wafers and exchange of Christmas wishes, which comes at the beginning of Christmas Eve Dinner.^b
15. Anton Thumann (1912–1946; the name is misspelled In the original Polish article). Thumann was not the commandant of Majdanek, but only the head of its prisoners’ department III, and his duty was to supervise prisoners.^a
16. Easter lambs—usually a table decoration made of sugar or pastry, but presumably in this situation later shared out as an extra ration of calories.^b
17. Ravensbrück, a German concentration camp for women prisoners, located in Brandenburg, Germany.^b
18. The writers in this list are the classics of Polish literature.^b

a—notes by Marta Grudzińska, Expert Consultant for the Medical Review Auschitz project; b—notes by Teresa Bałuk-Ulewiczowa, Head Translator for the Medical Review Auschwitz project.

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