Episodes from the history of the Montelupich jail (1941–1942): Dr Józef Garbień

So far, publications on the Montelupich jail in German-occupied Kraków have been scarce. As a matter of fact, there is no historical monograph of this ill-famed place of detention and torture,¹ where many members of the medical profession, including some of Kraków’s eminent doctors arrested by the Germans during the War, were held in 1939–1945. Neither do we have studies on the health problems, such as outbreaks of typhus and scabies affecting detainees, or the injuries caused by the officers interrogating suspects in the Gestapo headquarters on Pomorska² (now Wybickiego) or in the Montelupich jail, which also had a women’s section in a former old people’s home³ on Helclów. All these problems require special research and deserve to be discussed in a separate volume, but as the source materials are limited, it would have to be based on witnesses’ accounts, which can still be collected, though three decades have elapsed since the War ended. The records of the trial of Josef Bühler, deputy governor of the Generalgouvernement,⁴ included three groups of original German records from the Gestapo jail on Monetelupich: the first group embraced the files of the professors of the Jagiellonian University⁵ (now held in the University Archives); the second comprised the files of other representatives of the Polish educated class; and the third held the records of people arrested in large-scale street round-ups. One of the preserved documents, dated 18 April 1941, was the order to imprison Józef Cyrankiewicz,⁶ now Prime Minister of Poland. The text specifies that, if possible, “the prisoner should be given a solitary cell” in the Montelupich jail (quoted after Wolni Ludzie 1948 (9), p. 7).

An article as short as mine can only discuss a fraction of the problems listed above, based on selected data from a shorter period. 1941 and 1942, when the Gestapo mounted a particularly violent reign of terror against the inhabitants of Kraków, seem an obvious choice. Those years are important also because of the work of Dr Józef Garbień, one of the physicians confined in Montelupich.

Dr Józef Garbień before the War. Source: Przegląd Lekarski – Oświęcim, 1971.

In 1941, the Gestapo targeted the most active underground organisations, arresting the local staff of the Union of Armed Struggle⁷ (ZWZ, Związek Walki Zbrojnej) and members of the Grey Ranks⁸ (Szare Szeregi, a scouting organisation), the Union of Retaliation⁹ (ZO, Związek Odwetowy), and the Polish Socialist Party (PPS,¹⁰ Polska Partia Socjalistyczna), as well as other people involved in the resistance movement, such as clergymen, employees of the Polish social insurance company, skilled craftsmen, and workers from the Dębniki district and the Zieleniewski engineering plant. At the same time, the Germans exposed a resistance unit which had ties with the Polish émigré politicians in Budapest.¹¹ Its leader was Stanisław Jarecki, ex-voivode of Stanisławów.¹² The Gestapo mistakenly thought that Dr Garbień belonged to this group, but never discovered that actually he was a member of the Union of Armed Struggle.

Almost all the people who were detained in Montelupich were considered political prisoners. Their cases were investigated in the Gestapo headquarters on Pomorska or in Montelupich, and if a prisoner survived the interrogations, he or she had to await the decision and either be released (which was rare) or transferred to a concentration camp (which was typical), or sentenced to death and executed.

Until 28 February 1941, all the guards in the Montelupich jail were officers of the Schutzpolizei.¹³ The official German name of the establishment, as we see in the extant documents, was “Polizeigefängnis Montelupich” or “Gefängnis der Sicherheitspolizei Montelupich;”¹⁴ both names occur in the official documents. In 1941, its governor was SS Untersturmführer Paul Martin. Before this position was taken over in late 1942 by a Gestapo officer called Neuberg, it was briefly held by a stern SS Untersturmführer Otto Schmidt. Neuberg was succeeded by SS Untersturmführer Reinhard Wehmeier and Paul Tomnik,¹⁵ who arrived after the Germans had evacuated from Lublin and was the last to take up the job. The names of other Sicherheitspolizei (Sipo) and Sicherheitsdienst (SD) officers serving in the Montelupich jail are to be found on the preserved 1943 payrolls for “Distrikt Krakau” as well as in witnesses’ statements, though often misspelled, as prisoners mispronounced them. I shall now quote this incomplete list.

The extant payrolls were referred to by Karol Dziewiński, a member of the Kraków branch of Komisja Badań Zbrodni Hitlerowskich w Polsce (the Commission for the Investigation of Nazi German Crimes in Poland¹⁶), in his paper on the Montelupich jail in the light of the investigation results obtained by the Commission (“Więzienie Montelupich w świetle wyników dotychczasowego śledztwa”) which was delivered during a conference on the wartime history of that facility, held in Kraków on 26 May 1970.¹⁷ Dziewiński enumerated the following names:

Wilhelm Allkümper from Essen.

Georg Friedrich, b. 13 May 1911 in Birnbaum, SS Scharführer, Kriminalassistent. Previously worked for the Gestapo in Przemyśl. Transferred from Kraków to the eastern front, where he lost a leg. Returned to Kraków and later relocated to Szczecin.

Heinrich Hüren from Öd near Kiefeldt.

Bruno Lukas, b. 21 April 1911 in Essen. Lived in Mühlheim an der Ruhr. Sent to Kraków as a Kriminalassistent. Nicknamed “Pomidor” (Tomato) or “Buraczek” (Little Beetroot) by prisoners.

Sander Ernst from Münster, Polizeigefängnisbeamte. Some witnesses claim that he came from the neighbourhood of Gliwice¹⁸ and the surname he used previously was Czaja.

Friedrich Töpfl from Klernhein, Oberwachmeister.

Willy Wiedermann, b. 13 June 1911 in Moers-Raendl. Worked as a provisioner and inspector of parcels sent by Patronat,¹⁹ a charity helping prisoners in jails and concentrations camps, and RGO.²⁰

Otto Zander from Plau, Oberwachmeister.

A couple of issues of Wolni Ludzie, published by Związek Byłych Więźniów Politycznych,²¹ a no longer extant association, give more names of Gestapo officers who worked at Montelupich and Pomorska:

Josef Friedrich aka Friedl Friedrich. Worked as Gestapo secretary in Kraków and Jarosław, 1939–1943 (Wolni Ludzie, 1947 (8)).

Maks Kwast.²² Head of section persecuting left-wing organisations. Extremely cruel to detainees: knocked their teeth out, lashed them with a whip, or put masks on their faces to choke them. Sentenced to death in the Kraków trial (Wolni Ludzie 1948 (6)).

Walter Hans Liske. Deputy head of the Lublin Gestapo, later head of the Kraków Gestapo (Wolni Ludzie 1947 (10)).

Ryszard Quiel. Manager of the Gestapo premises on Pomorska in Kraków in 1940–1941, later governor of Lwów and Stanisławów²³ prisons. Used violence against prisoners. Sentenced to fifteen years’ imprisonment by Kraków Regional Court²⁴ (Wolni Ludzie 1949 (3)).

Witnesses, ex-inmates of Montelupich, have given even more names of Gestapo officers serving in the facility or employed by the Gestapo as clerks or interpreters in the Pomorska office:

Bautz. Came from the region of Jarocin. Reportedly a worker from the Cegielski factory in Poznań. Fingers missing on his right hand.

Beierlein. Injured with a gun in 1941 by Jerzy Karwat.²⁵ Worked as a clerk at Pomorska and involved in the investigation against Col. Cichocki.

Donth.

Fei. Later worked in Bochnia.

Friese.

Frommer. Nicknamed “Gruba Pluskwa” (The Fat Bedbug).

Geissler or Geisser. Nicknamed “Bat” (Whip), “Pejcz” (Crop), or “Bykowiec” (Bullwhip).

Grott. Worked as a cook.

Grundschätl.

Klimper.

Kolb. Nicknamed “Diabeł” (The Devil). Kept an Alsatian which he sicced on prisoners.

Pochop. Interpreter at the Pomorska office. Became a warden in late 1943. Maybe a Ukrainian from Sanok and perhaps his real name was Roman Kohut.

Schlitz.

Schäfler.

Sobker. Spoke Polish.

Scharführer Schultz. Aged 25–30. Transferred to Pomorska in early 1942.

Johann Woźny. Nicknamed “Ptosek” (Birdie). Supposedly a native inhabitant of Chorzów.²⁶ One of the cruellest torturers.

Wloka. One of the administrative staff.

Most of the basic data concerning the staff of Montelupich have not been identified yet, so we do not know all the names or their proper spelling, ranks, dates of birth, and responsibilities. It is even more problematic to identify the names of the Pomorska officers who interrogated people held in Montelupich. Many witnesses’ accounts give the following names. Heinemayer, one of the officers conducting the investigation against the ZWZ. Szpilker, always turned up in the company of a Ukrainian interpreter. Christiansen, dubbed “Rybie Oko” (Fisheye); Siebert, handled investigations against priests and was helped by an interpreter Maria Czuraj, an ex-Honoratian nun from Kraków’s district of Dębniki. Other members of the staff included Waldke, Steinert, Scheueringer (an interpreter, probably a Ukrainian), Elsner nicknamed “Tabaczkowy” (Tobacco, for the colour of his favourite jacket), “Motylek” (an interpreter, nicknamed Butterfly for his bowtie), Antoni Kandzia (an interpreter from Silesia), Sowa (another interpreter), and a Gestapo officer nicknamed “Melonik” (Bowler Hat), who robbed prisoner Genowefa Ułan of her money from the prisoners’ deposit. When she complained, he said cynically that “one needs to pay for treatment in a spa.” Lucy Wichary, probably from Katowice, was one of the women wardens. Other female names that recur in witnesses’ accounts are Joanna, Greta, Mia (who said she used to be a dairy-maid), Róża, and Truda.

Until early August 1941, all the people arrested by the Gestapo, both men and women, were held in one building on Montelupich. Later, the women’s section was moved to a building on Helclów and only those women who had cleaning or office duties in the men’s jail stayed in the main building on Montelupich.

At first, the prison doctor was a Ukrainian called Jarosław Kunyk, who had a regular job in town. In early 1941, this task was taken over by a prisoner, Dr Ryszard Narolski, and later, for a period of time, Dr Józef Garbień, but in 1941–1943 there were several other prisoner doctors working in the dispensary: Drs Stefan Budziaszek,²⁷ Bogusław Bulanda, Emanuel Hałacz, Szczepan Kruczek,²⁸ Franciszek Pochopień,²⁹ Witold Preiss,³⁰ and Zygmunt Zakrzewski. There were also women prisoner doctors, Czesława Danko, Janina Kościuszkowa,³¹ Ernestyna Michalikowa³² and others.

Some doctors, though confined in Montelupich, were not assigned any duties in the dispensary. They included Drs Bernadzikiewicz, Gęźba, Gieszczykiewicz,³³ Gofran, Grudziński, Jodłowski, Kaczyński, Kostarczyk,³⁴ Kowalczykowa,³⁵ Kulig, Lebioda, Mączka, Okrzański, Przybyłkiewicz,³⁶ Schwarz, Sędzimir, Sikorska, Skalski, Skimina, Szebesto, Szymański, and Wrona.³⁷ As we can see, this group included professors and assistant professors of medicine.

In the autumn of 1941, Montelupich saw an outbreak of typhus, mainly among the male prisoners. Interrogations had to stop for some time and no prisoner was allowed either to enter or leave the premises. The cells were constantly being cleaned with pesticides and detainees had regular showers, haircuts, and shaves. The organisation that provided disinfectants, detergents, clean straw, and blankets was the Kraków branch of Patronat. At that time, the prison laundry worked both day and night shifts. The women who were employed there and had been given a typhus vaccine spared no effort to deliver clean undergarments as soon as possible to prisoners, because it was late autumn and the building was cold. When the men went to the washroom, the laundry women were able to smuggle in some food for them, even warm soup. They enjoyed the privilege of receiving food parcels from the Main Welfare Council if they submitted a Bedarfschein (application form), so they could share their prison rations, most of which they did not need for themselves.

Fighting typhus meant slacker discipline: it was easier for inmates from various cells to contact one another and exchange information about the ongoing Gestapo work on particular investigations. The outbreak subsided in late December 1941.

Some men and women prisoners could be put to work in the prison, mainly to do cleaning chores once the investigation against them was closed. They were usually accommodated in so-called “free” cells. Most of them were criminals, hostile towards the educated classes, sometimes they were Ukrainians, and very rarely Jewish people or political prisoners. In early 1941, Montelupich had two women prisoners working as fire tenders and two more to clean the office. When their job was done, they returned to their “closed” cells. Somewhat later, the fire tenders were moved to a “free” cell for good, so they were usually the first to help fellow inmates in need. The cell walls had openings for the removal of slop buckets. The working prisoners, Anna Szczypka-Synowiec and Elżbieta (surname unknown), used those holes to hand over bread or cigarettes into the cells; they also passed on information about other detainees.

An important event occurred when all the women prisoners met during bath time in February or March 1941. They exchanged the most urgent news, for instance about recent arrivals and the numbers of their cells. Later on, the women could take a bath only occasionally, in small groups of cellmates. Another situation when prisoners could exchange a few words was when they were emptying slop buckets. Sometimes they used the opportunity to share observations or give a warning.

From time to time, larger groups of women prisoners were assigned the task of peeling potatoes. At such times, it was possible for them to pinch a slice of bread, some margarine or cigarettes. Only the cleverest were able to do that. Women prisoners found it the most difficult to kill time when they had to stay in their cell listening in by day or night who would be led out for an interrogation. Prisoners were interrogated in special rooms, not only on Pomorska, but also Montelupich, close to the women’s section, next to cell No. 63, so at any time during the day or night they could hear tortured inmates yelling. The only glimmer of hope in this precarious existence were the parcels delivered by the Main Welfare Council, often packed by prisoners’ families.

In early April 1941, a huge transport of hundreds of men was dispatched from Montelupich to Auschwitz. Selection for the transport went on all night long, with drunken wardens hollering, the noise of SS men beating prisoners, and their victims yelling. What added to the chaos was Kolbe’s Alsatian, unleashed to “put things back in order.” In the early morning hours, the men were herded onto trucks. Every deported prisoner was given a piece of bread and his “ration” of blows. The last vehicles departed at noon, leaving the prison silent. But soon the facility was full up again, with new detainees from Kraków, who had served in the Union of Armed Struggle under Col. Jan Cichocki (noms de guerre Maria, Nałęcz, and Kabat).

In April 1941, Montelupich opened its own laundry. Initially, it was supposed only to take in the washing from the Wachstube (guardhouse) and the Gestapo officers. Ludmiła Dąbrowska was the first woman prisoner to work there, and chose Anna Szczypka-Synowiec and Irena Gontarska (now Larska) for her helpers. At first, they did not have much to do and just pretended to be busy whenever they heard the footsteps of Gestapo men approaching: if they were caught idle with nothing to do, they were taken back to their “closed” cell. It was not until May 1941 that all the washerwomen got a “free” cell. Shortly afterwards, Irena Gontarska was given a cleaning job in the office, with Jadwiga Meklingerowa as her co-worker. The drawback was that the cleaners risked direct contact with wardens, who often turned up in the office in the morning, still drunk after their nocturnal binges. Yet, while cleaning the room, the women had an opportunity to check the prisoners’ records, which until January 1942 were kept there in open boxes (!). The documents provided prisoners’ first and last names as well as cell numbers. In the morning hours, the desks were still strewn with papers with the names of the people who had been arrested the previous afternoon or night. The cleaners found cigarettes or other things in the personal belongings taken from new arrivals; these could be whisked away and distributed among all the prisoners. One day, the governor, Obersturmführer Martin, realized that the dirty linen which the prisoners were allowed to send home to be washed might hide “kites” (illicit letters). So from then on, those items of clothing were handed over to the prison laundry, which now had a much bigger workload and had to take on more women prisoners: Janina Murczyńska, Janina Śliwianka-Wachulska, Maria Gontarska (Irena’s mother), Krystyna Cyankiewicz-Witkowa, Elżbieta Trąbka-Musielakowa, Ludwina Makuch, and Władysława Sawicka. Ludmiła Dąbrowska, who was their manageress, got them to take the clean linen both to the men’s and women’s cells under the pretext that the owners had to claim their things, as the laundry rookies were still inept at marking people’s names on them. Therefore it was easy for the laundry girls to contact other prisoners, smuggle messages or cigarettes etc. when the warden was not watching. In the dirty laundry waiting for them to collect, they sometimes found moving poems, usually penned by their fellow inmate Kazimierz Kierzkowski.³⁸

In September 1941, a large transport of women prisoners left for Ravensbrück.³⁹ The deported women were moved from the building at Helclów to transport cell No. 55 at Montelupich.

A decorator who worked at Montelupich (and whose name has been confirmed as Tadeusz Sokołowski), quickly established contact with the prisoners held in “free” cells. He smuggled their kites out to their relatives or resistance units, and brought back news from town. Sokołowski was very brave and did not hesitate to take risks.

On Christmas Eve, occasional parcels from the Main Welfare Council were distributed among the prisoners and in the meantime, as ordered by Paul Martin, all those held in “free” cells, including Wojciech Dzieduszycki, Father Rosner, and another priest from Dębniki, had to sing Christmas carols. The cheerful Dzieduszycki got the prisoners in a better mood and kept their spirits up.

The outside world communicated with prisoners using different channels, such as bribed Gestapo officers, civilians, e.g. decorators, bricklayers, chimneysweeps etc., who did various jobs in the jail, prisoners about to be released, functionary prisoners who talked to the representatives of Patronat, as well as German prisoners who could go out from time to time, for instance when they had dental appointments or if they were sent out to do some shopping. So in 1941–1942, there were quite a lot of ways to make contact. Dr Józef Garbień, who was confined in Montelupich from 11 May 1941 to 16 June 1942, was an expert in establishing and maintaining contacts. He became an important figure in the history of Montelupich, also because he was a good doctor, a distinguished humanitarian, and a person who taught his fellow inmates patriotism, friendship, and solidarity to withstand the suffering inflicted by the Gestapo. Dr Garbień deserves our special attention.

He was the son of Jan Garbień and Alina née Broszkiewicz. His father worked as a clerk for the railway company, but came from a peasant family from Sułkowice. Józef had two brothers, Albin and Tadeusz. Albin, later a gynaecologist, was a Mauthausen survivor. Tadeusz died in Great Britain. Józef Garbień was born in

Łupków near Sanok on 11 December 1896. He attended primary and secondary school in Stryj⁴⁰ and then went up to the Jan Kazimierz University in Lwów⁴¹ for Medicine, graduating with the degree of Doctor Medicinae Universae in 1924. In 1924–1932 he served a residency and then continued work as a senior assistant for Dr Hilary Schramm in the surgical ward of Lwów university hospital. He loved sport, played football (soccer) for Pogoń Stryj and Pogoń Lwów, and worked for Sokół II⁴² and the Polish rifle squads.⁴³ On 2 August 1914, before his eighteenth birthday, he enlisted in the Polish Legions⁴⁴ as a private. His First Infantry Regiment took part in front-line combat. During his army service he used every opportunity to play for his football team. He was also a good, high-ranking swimmer. His achievements earned him the nickname “Tank” among the members of his sports club.

In July 1917, when the soldiers of the Polish Legions refused to swear an oath of loyalty to the Germans,⁴⁵ Józef Garbień, a subject of Emperor Karl I, was drafted into the Austrian army and sent to the Italian front, where he fought in the Battle of the Piave River. When the war ended, he served for two more years as a lieutenant in the Polish Army and was seriously wounded in the defence of Lwów.⁴⁶

Józef Garbień continued to pursue his football career in Pogoń Lwów as one of its centre forwards, making up a trio of top-scoring strikers alongside Bacz and Kuchar.⁴⁷ At the time, his team was league champion of Poland for five consecutive seasons.⁴⁸ Garbień also played as captain of the Polish national team against Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Yugoslavia, and Sweden. As his father used to work for the railway company, Józef could travel by train for free. His travelling expenses were reimbursed by the club anyway, so he paid in the money to the self-help fund in a spirit of solidarity with other amateur sportsmen. In later years, Dr Garbień was awarded the Gold Cross of Merit⁴⁹ for his sports achievements.

This hobby proved no obstacle in his medical career. Dr Garbień continued working as an assistant physician and took up employment as a surgeon for the railway company. He lived with his wife and daughters on Droga Wulecka⁵⁰ in Lwów. Although he was not at all well-to-do, he treated his neighbours and poor patients free of charge and often gave them a sum of money along with his medical advice, for them to spend on medicines and better food. In 1932–1933, Dr Garbień worked for the Central Institute for Physical Education⁵¹ and wrote several papers on the medical care of sportspeople. In 1933, he was appointed head of Chrzanów hospital and chief physician of its surgical ward. He worked there until the outbreak of the Second World War.

During Poland’s defence campaign⁵² of September 1939 he was mobilised as a reserve major and had a team of surgeons under his command. They withdrew with the other Polish units to Tarnopol,⁵³ where they performed surgeries on seriously wounded soldiers in No. 503 military hospital, even during air raids. Military operations in this section of the front ceased before long. Dr Garbień decided to cross the Polish border and stayed for six weeks in Budapest, Hungary. As the agencies of the Polish émigré government in Budapest⁵⁴ did not employ Dr Garbień in the Polish army that was being formed abroad, he walked all the way back to Poland and crossed the border illegally near Szczawnica, to arrive in his native country on 1 November 1939. He chose Kraków as his place of work and settled there with his wife and two daughters. He re-established ties with his friends and colleagues and joined the underground Union of Armed Struggle. He lived in Kraków at Szopena 11, where he ran an information service and aid for Poles wanted by the Gestapo and Jewish people who needed to flee the country. Dr Garbień used the services of highlander guides from the border town of Szczawnica, whom he had met while returning to Poland in 1939. His flat was a collection point for false Kennkarten (identity cards issued by the German authorities).
On 11 May 1941, the place was raided by the Gestapo. A vicious but careful search was conducted, and yet no incriminating evidence was discovered: all the documents were burnt by Dr Garbień’s wife at the last moment, when the Gestapo was banging on the door.

Nonetheless, Dr Garbień was arrested. On 10 May 1941, the Gestapo arrested Janina Kubacka,⁵⁵ who was put in cell No. 65 in Montelupich. Shortly afterwards, her cell was visited by Dr Garbień, who was called up to provide medical assistance to another prisoner, Wanda Marokini.⁵⁶ For him, this was a chance to inform Kubacka that she was implicated in the investigation against Jarecki, Garbień, Dr Łazarski (a judge from Kraków), and Jadwiga Więckowska from the Kraków branch of the social insurance company. When Kubacka was moved to a “free” cell, she was able to observe Dr Garbień’s efforts to help prisoners.

We know about his further activity in Montelupich from his own notes.

After his arrest, Dr Garbień was held in cell No. 321 on the second floor. He was the third man put in this small room of just 10 sq. m. After a fortnight, there were eight occupants. One of them managed to smuggle in an underground bulletin, even though new prisoners were thoroughly searched on arrival. The detainees’ main occupation was to watch out through the bars and apertures in the windows for trucks with food parcels from the Main Welfare Council and the Polish Red Cross, which arrived on particular days. On such occasions, Dr Garbień learned about the work of Maria Zazulowa⁵⁷ and Zygmunt Klemensiewicz,⁵⁸ who escorted the goods. When the parcels were being unloaded, Klemensiewicz attended the process, strolling around the truck and looking at the barred windows, as if he wanted to spot somebody. At the same time, he waved his walking stick about, pretending to play a violin,. Later he was banned from coming to Montelupich with the food trucks and shortly afterwards was arrested himself and locked up there. The parcels were usually distributed among the prisoners a few hours after the departure of the representatives of the Main Welfare Council and the Polish Red Cross. They contained half a loaf of bread with a tasty meat spread inside, gingerbread, and sweets. Polish Red Cross parcels were given to German prisoners as well.

Dr Garbień’s cellmates were Col. Adam Czyżowski, who came back seriously battered every time he was interrogated, and Jerzy Mostowski, a student of medicine, whose first “chat” with the Gestapo officers left him with a ruptured eardrum.

One Sunday afternoon, a warden burst into Dr Garbień’s cell and took him out to the yard, as his medical assistance was needed. The warden reported the physician’s arrival to Martin, who led Dr Garbień to the backyard, where an SS officer was lying on the ground. Martin told Dr Garbień to examine the German. It turned out the SS man was a fellow inmate. While exercising, he had practised the long jump and sprained his ankle. Dr Garbień recommended a treatment and said there were no fractured bones, while Dr Ryszard Natolski, another prisoner who ran the dispensary at the time and had been called in earlier, had misdiagnosed the SS man. The following day, Dr Garbień was brought to see his patient again and earned his first prison “salary”: a few cigarettes, a piece of bread, and, surprisingly, a knife. They were illicit presents from the SS officer.

On the third day after the accident, Dr Garbień was transferred to workers’ cell No. 19, whereas Dr Natolski took his place in cell No. 132. That’s how Józef Garbień became the prison doctor, supervised by Jarosław Kunyk, a Ukrainian physician employed as an external consultant. As Dr Garbień spoke German, he was appointed leader of the workers’ cell.⁵⁹ He also had to scrub the floor in the dispensary, help Dr Kunyk on his rounds, and do various inferior duties. A few weeks later, for reasons unknown Dr Kunyk was arrested and imprisoned, while Dr Garbień was instructed to examine patients on his own.

So, due to an incorrect diagnosis that Dr Natolski happened to give, he was moved to a regular cell on the third day after the incident, while Dr Garbień was transferred to a workers’ cell. The Germans began to trust Dr Garbień’s professional skills and, seeing that he was a fluent speaker of German, ordered him to run the dispensary.

Dr Garbień drew Governor Martin’s attention to the fact that the scabies in the jail could turn into an endemic, especially as the prisoners did not shower and had no soap, and sick inmates were not being isolated off in a separate cell or infirmary. Martin introduced Dr Garbień to Dr Roupert from the German sanitary authorities, who assured the Polish physician that efforts would be made to improve the medical service in Montelupich. Soon Martin gave his permission to upgrade the austere dispensary and arrange infirmaries at Montelupich and Helclów, with eleven beds for men and five beds for women. By July 1941, the dispensary was furnished with materials and instruments that let doctors perform minor surgical procedures, new equipment for the dispensary and infirmary, such as electric sterilisers, burners, gauze containers, surgical compression garments, rubber gloves, and a basic range of medicines, even for conditions like TB and STDs, as well as beds, bed linen, and blankets.

The dispensary doctor was able to prescribe compounded medicines, special diets, and even red wine in exceptional cases for infirmary patients. The longer Dr Garbień worked in the dispensary, the more respect he earned from the wardens and management of the prison, so his recommendations were put into practice. For instance, now he was referring more patients to specialists in Kraków’s hospitals. There were even cases when the Gestapo ignored the intervention or recommendation of a German physician like Früsdorf or Bruckhof. Some prisoners in a serious condition, like Niewiadomski or Münnich, had to die in the dungeons of Montelupich, with no medical care from the infirmary or hospital. This is what Dr Garbień wrote in his memoirs:

I was held in Montelupich in Kraków, just like tens of thousands of my compatriots. Some of the time, I lived a quiet prison life, when I was working as the prison doctor helping so many people in need. On other occasions my life was not so peaceful, when I was seriously battered or spent seven weeks chained up in a dark cell, like a common criminal. I wanted to perform my doctor’s duties as well as I could and to do a Pole’s duty to my fellow inmates. I treated and gave medical advice to Germans, too, both prisoners and those employed at Pomorska, and their families.⁶⁰

There were three different periods in my prison life, completely dissimilar, yet all of them hinged on the alertness or moods of the SS wardens (there was a high staff turnover), and partly depended on my more or less disciplined conduct as a prison doctor.

The first period was marked by relatively uneventful interrogations, my transfer to the workers’ cell, the order to run the dispensary, seeing patients there or during rounds at Montelupich and Helclów, and my frequent talks with Governor Martin, who came from Dresden. . . . As soon as I was moved to the workers’ cell, I started checking my opportunities. The first thing to do was to establish contact with the Polish Red Cross and the Main Welfare Council. . . . I often met Klemensiewicz and Zazulowa. In short, momentary conversations, they were informed about all our needs and always kept indifferent faces in the presence of so many wardens. And so many times I heard Czaja Sander (a Gestapo NCO) hollering that we would get no dinner the following day unless Patronat⁶¹ brought enough potatoes, flour, cabbage, and fat to feed all the inmates. The provisions were always delivered on time.

These deliveries were supplemented by the Polish Red Cross with medical supplies such as large quantities of glucose, calcium, vitamins, dressings, . . . and disinfectants.

The equipment they provided was enough for me to perform minor surgeries and dermoplasty, remove rotten teeth and foreign bodies, treat internal diseases, and administer first aid.

It must be stressed that the German prisoners, all the wardens, and many Gestapo officers from Pomorska made full use of the Patronat provisions, quite shamelessly, as if they were their due. They were impudent enough to demand various things from Patronat. They received what they required, in some form or other, but in return they accepted the fact that prisoners had to receive more parcels than the usual quota. . . .

On many occasions, German civilians confined in Montelupich would say during a medical appointment, “Ich schäme mich, Professor,” (for this is what they called me), “dass ich ein Deutscher bin.” (Professor, I’m ashamed to be a German). They felt unable to accept what was done during interrogations, when prisoners were beaten up at night and their cries and the yelling of the tormentors resounded in the whole building. So many people were killed in the process of extracting information from them; there was no respect even for the Majesty of Death.

This is where Dr Garbień’s notes come to an end. We can only guess that when he spoke of the second and third period of his life in jail, he meant his failed attempt to escape, then his incarceration in the dungeon in shackles, and his return to the dispensary, where he continued to work under stricter supervision.

The time when Dr Garbień was in the workers’ cell was marked by his most determined effort to help fellow inmates. He used his medical expertise, knowledge of German, and special position to offer them medical care, support them psychologically in any way he could, thwart the Gestapo’s investigation plans, and prevent further arrests and the ensuing violence. He knew how to achieve it all skilfully, efficiently, and discreetly. When he had played for Pogoń, his teammates would say that he had a genius for outmanoeuvring rivals. Now, in jail, his actions were equally unpredictable. He saved prisoners by putting their healthy legs in plaster or giving them injections to develop a fever, postpone an interrogation and save them from being beaten up. Whenever he could, he admitted the most vulnerable and exhausted inmates to the infirmary. Although it was risky, he helped prisoners to meet and match up the information they could divulge to the Gestapo. He started doing rounds in the cells to relay oral or written messages, which was vital before an interrogation. He introduced a sense of solidarity, friendship, and kindness. A conclusive proof of Dr Garbień’s position in Montelupich was the fact that his food parcels were delivered personally by his wife to the prison office. She served as an intermediary for kites passed on to prisoners’ families or the organisations they wanted to contact. Dr Garbień and his wife knew how to seize the opportunity when the wardens were distracted, and she also brought him kites or money for prisoners from their families.

She would arrive in the company of their two little daughters (now Mrs Anna Tabiaszewska-Snopczyńska and Mrs Alicja Łazowska), who had been instructed at home what they should do upon entering the office and greeting their father: they were expected to start a tiff and make a lot of noise so that the Gestapo officers would not look at their parents. To say hello to Dr Garbień, his wife embraced and kissed him, at the same time slipping him some kites and whispering the news. Later, the doctor passed them on to Helena Hoffmann, Stefan Mayer, Jan Mayer, Jan Reyman, Wanda Marokini, or Janina Tolik. The information helped detainees to defend themselves during the investigation. Dr Garbień also saved prisoners from being sent to concentration camps. For instance, Zofia Kurdziel was not deported to Ravensbrück, because Dr Garbień had administered an intramuscular injection of an ampoule of milk, provided by Pochop, a Gestapo officer of Czech origin. Kurdziel developed a high fever and was unwell for a period of time, and a few months later she was released.

Jerzy Karwat, one of the heroes confined in Montelupich. Source: Przegląd Lekarski – Oświęcim, 1971.

Another person who Dr Garbień took good care of was the young and brave Jerzy Karwat. Garbień was able to contact him under the pretext of having to inspect all the regular cells and dungeons. Karwat (nom de guerre Kazimierz Kryński) was a secondary school student from Kraków and a member of the Union of Retaliation. The Gestapo surprised him at his parents’ house on Rymarska on 21 May 1941. On the premises, where his father ran a sawmill, there was a cache of weapons owned by a sabotage resistance unit. Karwat was woken up by his mother, shot at the Gestapo officers, and finally managed to escape. After long peregrinations, he got to Slovakia, yet decided to return to Poland. On his way home, he had a shooting skirmish with Slovak border guards. As he was unable to find a good hiding place in Kraków, he lived in the karst caves near Ojców, north of his home city. That’s where the Gestapo found him. By that time Karwat’s father had been deported to Auschwitz, while his mother was confined in Montelupich. Her investigation was conducted at Pomorska and afterwards a confrontation was arranged between her and her son, who was jailed in Montelupich. He was put in chains and held in cell No. 111. His cellmate was Wit Fritz, a German anti-Nazi. One night, both men decided to escape. They managed to remove the shackles, break the bars, and slide down the wall using a rope made of sheets. Then they had to climb over a heap of coal in order to scale the prison wall. Fritz was successful, but Karwat broke his leg while jumping down. He was caught, put in chains again, spread-eagled and tied to a corridor grille, beaten, and finally thrown into a dungeon.⁶²

A few days later, his mother Paulina Karwat managed to visit him personally in the dungeon (cell No. 117) and tend to him. Later she wrote the following account:⁶³

Jerzy was chained up to the wall and floor, he had been severely beaten up, and was famished. I asked for a doctor to see him, but in vain. One day, after the morning roll call, when Martin had checked every cell, a warden opened the door of the dungeon and Dr Garbień walked in, wearing his white coat. I had heard about him previously, when I was in cell 52. I knew he was doing a lot to help prisoners. Dr Garbień examined my son’s leg and said the bones were healing well so he would have problems only with walking fast. Then, whispering, he passed on the information about Jerzy’s detained friends whom he had seen in the dispensary. I was standing at the door to give them some privacy. When the doctor left, Jerzy told me he would probably be interrogated again by the Gestapo as there had been more arrests. Indeed, two days later, three officers came to my son’s cell and asked him which Kraków district is called the red one by the people in the Union of Armed Struggle. Jerzy propped himself up on his elbow, looked at them with his bloodshot eyes, in which no whites showed, and said with a mocking grin: “You kicked me and hit me on the head with a plank, and now my memory’s completely gone. I don’t even know if it’s day or night.” Taken aback, the Gestapo asked me to tell them which district it was, but they must have gathered I didn’t intend to give them any information. When they departed, Jerzy was happy they didn’t have any luck with him. The following day, Dr Garbień sent him sleeping pills and even a bar of chocolate, using a warden as a go-between. Sometimes we got tomatoes or a piece of bread. From that dungeon, I was taken on a transport straight to Ravensbrück. As I was leaving, I met Dr Garbień in the corridor. He had tears in his eyes when I asked him to take care of my son. He promised he would. . . . This is why I did not give in to sorrow and despair. Jerzy stayed in the dungeon for ten more days. On 22 September 1941 he was deported to Auschwitz and held in Death Block, and was shot in its yard on 15 October 1941.

Other political prisoners who worked with Dr Garbień in the dispensary and infirmary included Aleksander “Halny” Bugajski, Stanisław “Kazimierz” Kowalczyk, and Zygmunt Ziembicki. This team of trusted colleagues reached other prisoners in their cells, providing them with information, illicit messages about the investigation, food, medicines, and cigarettes. The dispensary was often visited by inmates who wanted their future statements to match those of their arrested friends. On occasion, Garbień decided that a presumably sick prisoner should stay in the infirmary for medicines and supplements, sometimes painkillers, and better meals. “Kazimierz” cooked dietary food was for patients. Patronat supplied Garbień with specialties such as Ovaltine, cod liver oil, condensed milk, vitamins, and hepatic injections.

In Montelupich Dr Garbień met another distinguished footballer, Dr Jan Reyman,⁶⁴ who had been arrested with other members of Jan Cichocki’s unit of the Union of Armed Struggle. Garbień found his cell, brought him cigarettes, bread, and cod liver oil, and gave him tips as to the ongoing proceedings. He also said goodbye to Reyman when the latter was being deported to Auschwitz.

Eugenia Byczkowska, who was arrested in July 1941 and held in Montelupich, can recall Dr Garbień’s kind and skilful assistance to her fellow inmate Karolina Veid from Dębica. Veid had to lie on her stomach, because her lacerated buttocks were bleeding and oozing pus. Those injuries had been inflicted by the Gestapo during her interrogation.

Dr Garbień admitted women prisoners in the advanced stage of pregnancy to give birth in the infirmary. Sometimes he was able to obtain a release for a female resistance fighter with an apparently high-risk pregnancy, to help her avoid the consequences of a prospective confrontation with other arrested combatants.

Elżbieta Orkanowa was detained with thirty-one other women in cell No. 55 on the ground floor from 21 April 1941 to 11 September 1941. She remembers that one day Dr Garbień was called to see a sick prisoner there. He entered in the company of a Ukrainian warden, who kept repeating, “Schneller, aber schneller!” brandishing the key menacingly. Imperturbably, Garbień examined the woman, slipping into his pockets all the kites secretly passed to him in the meantime, whispered answers to the questions that were asked, and listened to the news he was expected to relay. When on 11 September 1941 these prisoners were being put on a transport for Ravensbrück, Dr Garbień brought them large quantities of cotton wool, cellulose wadding, bandages, aspirin, and cod liver oil as a farewell gift. The women hugged him and said their tearful goodbyes.

Dr Garbień even managed to visit Cpt. Józef “Adolf” Prus, who was fettered up after being cruelly tortured and committed to a dark shed abutting on the main building. Prus was extremely emaciated, dirty, and unkempt. He was treated like a yard dog.

Antonina Piątkowska recalls that a prisoner called Robak, who was arrested in the summer of 1941 with a group of friends in the Miechów area, was being brutally tortured, spread-eagled on the corridor grille and battered. Dr Garbień intervened at a point when the Gestapo men seemed to be in a good mood and the torture stopped.

Maria Gątkiewicz was beaten up during an interrogation and hurled into cell No. 40 at Helclów. On 30 November 1941, her cellmates called for Dr Garbień, who dressed her wounds, brought compresses, gauze, and pills and asked them to look after her. He kept comforting her. Gątkiewicz recalls him saying: “I was beaten black and blue, just like you. You’ll get better, the wounds will heal.”⁶⁵ A few days later, he changed her dressings in the dispensary.

Dr Zygmunt Rogowski, a lawyer, was sent to Montelupich in the autumn of 1941. During an appointment in the dispensary, Dr Garbień used a very clever ruse to notify him of an important matter which could affect his investigation: one of Rogowski’s close relatives had been arrested. As they were being closely watched by a warden, Garbień gave Rogowski a randomly selected bottle of medicine and wrote the date and first name of the arrested person on the label, providing the other details orally, in Latin. Patients were prohibited from speaking to the doctor in Polish. Dr Rogowski remembers that Garbień took in other poorly prisoners to recuperate. Every admission had to be permitted by the Gestapo, so the doctor always came up with a bogus diagnosis to back up his recommendation.

Stefania Herzog was detained in Montelupich with her mother Józefa Bednarska, who was 70, and remembers that Dr Garbień was very considerate towards the older woman. He obtained permission for her to have milk brought in from town and gave her some cod liver oil. Herzog and Bednarska had a cellmate, Eugenia Hoffmann, who was seriously ill and was to be released because of a serious pulmonary condition. Dr Garbień treated and consoled her. As Hoffmann expected to be free any moment, she decided to smuggle out a considerable number of kites to be delivered later on to various addressees. She pinned them on her chest on the inside of her dress. One day, she collapsed and Dr Garbień, accompanied by a Gestapo officer, appeared in her cell. Thanks to the doctor’s composure, the illicit messages were not discovered and the prisoners were spared a punishment: leaning over Hoffmann, he spotted the attached notes, so he ordered Herzog to “prepare the patient for an examination” and took the officer to the corner of the room. Following her release, Hoffmann gave the letters to the recipients and shortly afterwards died of her serious illness.

Antonina Piątkowska is another ex-prisoner who remembers how Dr Garbień helped her. When she was held in a dungeon for a fortnight, he gave her half a litre of Ovaltine, and when she was back in a regular cell, he administered a series of injections from the Main Welfare Council to treat her liver. When Piątkowska was put on a transport for Auschwitz, he gave her a box of chocolates, which saved her from harassment on arrival, when the women were forced to take a bath: she used the gift as a bribe.

Garbień won over Bautz, a Gestapo officer, and used his services for the delivery of food parcels to starving prisoners.

Genowefa Ułan,⁶⁶ a woman prisoner of Montelupich, “the one from Burgstrasse”⁶⁷ as the Gestapo called her, was accused of providing detained Polish officers with poison pills. In August 1941, she was put in a dungeon with no mattress, blanket, spoon, or comb, and no water. All she had was a leaking slop bucket. As she had tooth decay, she developed an abscess and periostitis. She perforated the abscess with a rusty safety pin. Since the window of the dungeon was covered with a sheet of metal, the cell was hot by day and cold at night. The change of temperature left Genowefa with acute, painful arthritis. Although Dr Garbień was officially not permitted to take care of this patient, nonetheless he visited on the sly, supplying her with cardiac drops and kogutki (“cockerel”) painkillers.⁶⁸ When the abscess grew so large that she was hardly able to open her mouth, he brought crumbled bread for her to ingest.

One day, Ułan gained new cellmates: some prostitutes and a mentally ill woman. One of the prostitutes stole Ułan’s bottle of Dr Garbień’s medicine, and drank all the contents at once. When Ułan wanted to alarm the warden, the other prisoners protested, fearing that the incident could jeopardize the doctor. The purloiner went unscathed.

Once out of the dungeon, Genowefa Ułan continued to co-operate with Dr Garbień and served as a “letter box” for the illicit messages written by her cellmates. When the letters were ready, she collected them and “fainted,” and the women called for the doctor. He knelt down by the side of the swooning Ułan and “examined” her, taking the notes or listening to spoken messages.

Ułan recalls that Dr Garbień helped a tortured woman prisoner. The Gestapo officers had torn pieces of flesh from her breasts and buttocks using hot tongs. Apparently, some coded documents had been found on her and she did not want to decipher the code. Later, her deep scars bewildered her fellow inmates in Auschwitz-Birkenau.

When one of the confined women requested a black lace night dress from the Main Welfare Council, her cellmates were outraged and agitated, but Dr Garbień managed to defuse the crisis: he authoritatively said that if the prisoner needed such an item to survive, she should get it and put it on for the night. The tension was eased, for the doctor was a respected mentor.

Bedbugs were another cause of misery for Ułan in the dungeon. She could not sleep because she was constantly being bitten. Dr Garbień found a remedy and wangled a box of insecticide for her, which helped. Towards the end of her second month in the Dunkelzelle, Ułan felt unable to endure it any longer and told the doctor. On the following day, he threw a ball of string into her cell and advised her to do something with it. At first, she thought he had mocked her, so she wept and felt angry. But as she held the string in her hands, she started winding and unwinding it. She was able to pass the time, which went by faster, and she understood the doctor’s intention. In late January 1942, when Ułan was brought back to her cell after an appendectomy, she felt so unwell that Dr Garbień was summoned. It happened soon after his incarceration in the dungeon, which was a punishment for an attempted escape. He turned up, looking several years older, and his surgeon’s hands, once firm, were now shaking. He had no medicines, so he ordered her to drink cold water before breakfast and eat the prison bread ration. It helped.

I could go on with many other examples of Dr Garbień’s assistance to fellow inmates. But first of all, I feel obliged to describe the most serious event that occurred during his confinement at Montelupich.

During the last visit to her husband, Halina Garbień was terrified to hear that he was planning an escape. Technically, it was not difficult to organise, because he could always count on people’s kindness, not only among the prisoners, but even with the Gestapo officers. He was also allowed to move around the premises relatively freely and could send messages to those who would help him to hide after the escape and then flee to Hungary. He was to be accompanied by a few other inmates. The difficult plan was drafted by Dr Garbień and Józef Cyrankiewicz, who worked as an orderly in the dispensary. The other two prospective escapees were Dr Emanuel Hałacz, Garbień’s helper in the dispensary, and Karl Gut, a German Communist who worked in the dispensary as a lab technician. I shall spend a while talking about each of them.

Józef Cyrankiewicz was the leader of the underground PPS (Polska Partia Socjalistyczna, Polish Socialist Party) in Kraków. He was arrested on 19 April 1941 during a political and military meeting, which was to be held at Sławkowska 6. The Gestapo set a trap in that flat and apprehended everyone who turned up. They arrested Cyrankiewicz, but had no idea of his role in the resistance. That made it easier for him to defend himself, and so his time in Montelupich was prolonged: he was moved to a “free” cell, worked as a repair man in the laundry, and then as an orderly for Dr Garbień in the dispensary.

Those tasks made it possible to carry on resistance work even in jail. The PPS regional workers’ committee, Cyrankiewicz’s relatives, and Halina Garbień, who delivered messages and money, did everything they could to find the right contact people and facilitate his escape. They also tried to bribe the Gestapo officers to release Cyrankiewicz, but were unsuccessful. They kept in touch with Cyrankiewicz thanks to the services of the builders who did various jobs in Montelupich. After the failed escape attempt, the Gestapo conducted a brutal interrogation, after which Cyrankiewicz and Dr Garbień were locked up in chains in a dungeon. A few weeks later, Cyrankiewicz was transferred to a regular cell and in early September 1942 he was deported to Auschwitz.

Dr Emanuel Hałacz was born on 28 September 1898 in Łazy in the Cieszyn part of Silesia. He went to grammar school in Orłowa,⁶⁹ where he became known for his achievements in the scouting movement. As he had worked for the Polish municipal council in Cieszyn during the plebiscite⁷⁰ period, he was arrested by Czech nationalists. To avoid persecution, he moved from Silesia to Kraków, where he graduated from the Medical Faculty of the Jagiellonian University in 1926. Next, he worked in a hospital⁷¹ in the Prądnik Biały suburb of Kraków and for the following five years was an assistant in the surgical ward of the Chorzów Miners’ Association hospital. In 1938 he was appointed head of the hospital of the Sisters of Mercy of St. Charles Borromeo in Mikołów. He was President of the Polish Red Cross and established twenty-six of its local branches, for which he was awarded the Gold Medal of the Polish Red Cross and the Silver Cross of Merit.⁷² Drs Emanuel Hałacz and Karol Hessek⁷³ wrote a handbook of first aid for the rescue teams of the Polish Red Cross.⁷⁴ When the Polish forces took Trans-Olza Silesia in 1938, he returned to Orłowa with the intention of rebuilding its ruined hospital. The outbreak of the War cancelled that plan and Dr Hałacz had to leave the region.

Dr Roman Gęźba, who was held in Montelupich and later in Auschwitz (as prisoner No. 20087). He died of typhus in Auschwitz on 15 March 1942. Source: Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial and Museum, www.auschwitz.org.

In June 1940, he and his family ended their wartime itinerary by settling in Kraków. By a lucky chance, Hałacz met his former fellow student, Dr Gęźba, who offered him a job in his surgery. At the same time, Dr Hałacz joined the ranks of the resistance and provided gratuitous medical assistance to soldiers and officers of the Polish Army. In May 1941, Dr Gęźba and an assistant of his were arrested and put in Montelupich. Three months later, on 1 August 1941, the Gestapo arrived at night, arrested Dr Hałacz, and took him to the same facility. His wife was not informed of the grounds for his arrest. She only learned from Zygmunt Klemensiewicz that he had seen her husband in a white coat at Montelupich. That was in early September 1941. At the beginning of October, Dr Hałacz’s wife was approached by a Gestapo informer: she was to report at their headquarters on Pomorska. She was received there by two officers and the informer in the capacity of an interpreter. She was asked if her husband had a heart condition and if she had received an illicit message from him with a request for money. When she denied the allegation and assured them she was just a housewife and a mother to her three small children, she was officially notified of her husband’s death of heart failure. His coat, belt, and handkerchief were returned. However, she did not obtain an official death certificate from the Gestapo. It was only Dr Garbień who told her that Dr Hałacz had attempted to escape and was caught and tortured, and then shot in his cell. There was a witness to the violence inflicted upon him: a Romanian prisoner who ran the prison shop at Montelupich. After the War, no records were found of an autopsy of Dr Hałacz’s body, although it may have been conducted in the Institute of Forensic Medicine at Grzegórzecka 16 in Kraków. Reportedly, it was too discrediting and its head Beck stole it when he was evacuating to Germany. No records were found in the office of the Rakowicki Cemetery in Kraków either, although dead bodies used to be brought there from Montelupich and buried anonymously.

The Gestapo’s information on a prisoner called Karl Gut showed that he was a Communist. They sent him to work in the dispensary with Dr Garbień to keep an eye on him. As Gut was a German, the Gestapo trusted him and allowed him to go out to town on various errands. Yet, he was known as a sincere friend of Polish prisoners and helped them in many ways. So Cyrankiewicz and Garbień made him privy to their escape plan. One of the tasks delegated to Gut was to bring a kite with that plan to the PPS venue for meetings. Yet, on this outing he was stopped by the Gestapo and searched. The message was discovered and so were the day and time of the escape as well as the names of the daredevils. The PPS was to provide the clothes and transport for the fugitives. The Gestapo told Gut to take the letter, which had been hidden in his belt, to the contact point, because they wanted to expose the entire network. At the same time, they did not know that members of the PPS (Adam Rysiewicz, Helena Szlapak,⁷⁵ Teresa Lasocka,⁷⁶ and others from the regional workers’ committee) had learned of the search and an order was issued to break off contacts with Montelupich immediately. Meanwhile, Gut broke down and was blackmailed by the Gestapo not to tell his fellow inmates about the search and discovery when he returned to his cell. An unconfirmed version of the events says that the Gestapo shot him during another interrogation. Some sources give his nationality as Belgian, not German, and say that he went to Bisanz’s restaurant, where he was approached by a Wehrmacht patrol. Gut said he was a doctor from Montelupich, but as he had no documents to prove it, he was searched, the kite was found on him and so he was sent to Pomorska. While Gut was being interrogated, the Gestapo ordered Cyrankiewicz, Garbień, and Hałacz handcuffed. Janina Kubacka has provided yet another variant of the story: that on the critical day Gut, who spoke French (but was German or Belgian), went out for a dental appointment and that was when he was apprehended by the Gestapo and searched.

That day, Maria Gontarska saw Hałacz, Garbień, and Cyrankiewicz in handcuffs, when they were being led away to be interrogated. The last in the line was Dr Garbień, who stopped to say goodbye to Gontarska. He asked her to look after his wife and daughters if she were released. Warden Lukas, who was escorting the unlucky fugitives, whispered, “We all refused to beat the doctor.” Indeed, his tormentors were the Gestapo officers from Pomorska.

News of the failed escape attempt and the punishment meted out to the three men spread immediately in the men’s and women’s section. Prisoners started talking and commenting, weeping and praying. The atheists accompanied the supplicants in silence.

Garbień and Cyrankiewicz were brutally beaten up, put in chains, and thrown into a dungeon, where they stayed for seven weeks in difficult conditions, as the room was damp. Governor Martin and his deputy Schmidt as well as the jail wardens intervened with the Pomorska Gestapo and Dr Garbień was finally permitted to return to a “free” cell. He worked in the dispensary until his release. Cyrankiewicz was moved to a regular cell and was not given a duty.

Stefan Rzeźnik, who was a member of the underground PPS, has tried to explain why Dr Garbień, a patriot and Cyrankiewicz’s close friend, decided to flee, although the Gestapo had assured him that he was going to be released soon. Rzeźnik conjectures that Garbień did not believe those assurances but did not want to dissuade Cyrankiewicz from escaping, because he knew that no release could be obtained for him. As Dr Garbień was a brave and self-sacrificing man, he declared his readiness to try to escape. Undoubtedly, Cyrankiewicz was not killed only because Dr Garbień was one of the fugitives.

Dr Józef Garbień before the War. Source: Przegląd Lekarski – Oświęcim, 1971.

Dr Garbień did not alter his attitude at all when he was transferred from a dungeon to a “free” cell and allowed to resume his work in the dispensary. As before, he helped prisoners, treated and provided them with information, and engaged in other illicit activities for their sake. He was quite open with the Gestapo, letting them know what he thought of their actions against Poles. It took courage to do that, and they respected him for it. Besides, they needed him, because he was an excellent physician, whose knowledge and skills could be trusted completely.

Dr Garbień, Dr Łazarski, Więckowski, and Kubacka were released on 16 May 1942. Dr Garbień hired four hansom cabs, which arrived at the prison gate, and each of them went home. Following his release and a few weeks’ rest, already in June 1942 Dr Garbień took the oath to serve as a physician for the Home Army. He also found a job in Kraków’s social insurance company, where he worked as a family doctor. He liked talking to people released from Montelupich. He also enjoyed a social life and played bridge. In his capacity as a member of the resistance movement, he issued false medical certificates to save people from slave labour in Germany or digging trenches.⁷⁷

Dr Garbień, as well as Maria Gontarska and Irena Gontarska, both of whom were released from Montelupich in February 1942, kept in touch with inmates. Their go-betweens for the delivery of parcels and messages to prisoners were Gestapo wardens Lukas, Bautz, and Friedrich. Friedrich had been punitively sent to the eastern front, where he lost a leg. He returned to Kraków to serve with the Pomorska Gestapo. While employed there, he often paid visits to the Gontarskis and talked about his experiences on the front which had changed his attitude towards the Poles.

Friedrich openly offered his services to the Gontarskis to relay help to inmates. Gontarska introduced him to Dr Garbień and he served as a communication channel. Soon after his release, Dr Garbień started providing surgical care for wounded resistance soldiers who were hiding in the woods on the outskirts of the city. Nominally, he was chief physician of the Silesian Region of the Home Army. His task was to prepare hospitals for an uprising (codenamed W Hour) and combat in the eastern parts of the Silesian Region. He had to plan how many staff to take on and who should work on the surgical teams that were to join the combat units. Garbień appointed Drs Stoch and Sokołowski chief physicians for the Sosnowiec area. His other collaborators were Antoni Siemiginowski in Katowice, who headed the Home Army intelligence service, and Adam Rysiewicz, Teresa Lasocka (now Estreicherowa), Dr Helena Szlapak, and Dr Marian Ciećkiewicz⁷⁸ in Kraków.

In his house on Karmelicka he performed surgeries to remove the numbers tattooed on the Auschwitz fugitives’ arms and did skin grafts for them. Due to the after-effects of his confinement in Montelupich, he was often unwell. He had been held in a damp cell, which left him with inflamed joints leading to chronic, progressive rheumatoid arthritis, so his fingers became swollen and deformed.

In December 1944 Dr Garbień went through another distressing spell, because he was likely to be arrested and had to leave home. He hid in the Pauline monastery at Skałka in Kraków. Luckily, that period did not last too long, because on 18 January 1945 Soviet troops entered Kraków.

In 1945, Dr Garbień came out into the open⁷⁹ and declared he had served in the Home Army. He was promoted to lieutenant colonel and awarded the Gold Cross of Merit (First Class)⁸⁰ with Swords. By that time he was head of Chorzów hospital.

In 1946 a football game was played in Gliwice between erstwhile rivals, a team from Kraków against a team from Lwów, with footballers who had been on the Polish national team. Garbień, Bacz, and Kuchar again played as three excellent forwards and actually all the participants were once Poland’s best footballers. Kraków won. The aim of the event was to bring together sportsmen who had taken an active part in the resistance movement and were held in jails and concentration camps, but survived German occupation.

Since Dr Józef Garbień was employed the social insurance company’s Chorzów hospital as its head and surgeon, his workload was immense. The surgical ward alone had 120 beds and Dr Garbień had only one assistant, Dr Marceli Majkowski. For three years, these two men were on duty interchangeably in the ward. Dr Garbień easily adapted to the difficult working conditions. He had practically no time to sleep. He set a good example to his junior colleagues, which was extremely important, as there were no handbooks. In a country ravaged by the War, he knew how to find equipment for his hospital. He focused on cleanliness, aseptic conditions, and keeping precise, factual medical records. He used to say that during operations he was resting from the paperwork. His technique was elegant: he was careful to stem bleeding and check the operative field after each stage, so as not to damage too much tissue, keep everything clean and aseptic, and concentrate at the operating table.

He found time to write articles on surgery and published seven of them in the Polish journal of surgery Przegląd Chirurgiczny, enhancing his research achievements.

He had warm relations with his brother, who worked as a doctor in Cieszyn. They often discussed medicine and were each other’s mentors. Dr Garbień enjoyed taking part in sports events and sometimes played tennis.

He performed his last operation in 1948; the patient was Dr Majkowski’s son. After the procedure, which he found exhausting, he was in much pain. He suffered more and more from advanced rheumatoid arthritis, which made his fingers stiff. In 1949 Dr Garbień gave up both his jobs in Chorzów hospital, as its head and surgeon. He became a physician for the Kościuszko Steelworks, where he worked until the end of his life despite frequent spells of hospitalisation.

Dr Józef Garbień died on 3 May 1954, when he was staying with his brother in Cieszyn. The proximal cause of death was cerebral artery thrombosis. He was buried in Chorzów and the funeral was attended by crowds of mourners.

This biography of Dr Garbień shows some of the landmarks in the history of Montelupich prison in 1941–1942, especially those connected with prisoners’ relief and their resistance operations. Of course, an account of these episodes cannot aspire to the status of a comprehensive study of this matter, which deserves a monograph of its own.

***

This article was compiled on the basis of my own memories of confinement in Montelupich (18 June 1941—12 August 1941) as well as oral and written accounts from several people. I received invaluable source information from Eugenia Byczkowska, Dr Marian Ciećkiewicz, Halina Garbień, Maria Gątkiewicz, Wanda Geidgowd, Maria Gontarska, Dr Edward Hanke, Wincenty Hein, Stefania Herzog, Gen. Zygmunt Walter Janke, Dr Jerzy Jasiński, Katarzyna Kaletowa, Paulina Karwatowa, Janina Kubacka, Stanisława Kumała, Zofia Kurdziel, Irena Larska née Gontarska, Dr Marian Łazarski, Dr Marceli Majkowski, Izabela Marcówna, Wanda Marokini, Zofia Meres, Wanda Mysłakowska, Elżbieta Orkanowa, Antonina Piątkowska, Dr Jan Reyman, Dr Zygmunt Rogowski, Stefan Rzeźnik, Antoni Siemiginowski, Dr Helena Szlapak, Genowefa Ułan, Maria Zazulowa, and Wanda Żak. I also used the personal notes and documents of Dr Józef Garbień, thanks to the courtesy of his wife, the 1904–1939 yearbooks of Pogoń Lwów, as well as press stories and articles.

***

Translated from original article: Kłodziński, Stanisław. “Z historii więzienia Montelupich (1941 — 1942). Dr Józef Garbień.”Przegląd Lekarski – Oświęcim, 1971.

1. A book on Montelupich prison was published in 1985, i.e., after Kłodziński’s article. It covers the entire period in the history of Montelupich when it was used as a place of detention for political prisoners, i.e., by Nazi Germany and later by the Communists, but unfortunately, is available only in Polish. Łysak, Katarzyna, and Roksana Szczypta-Szczęch, Monte: więzienie dwóch totalitaryzmów, 1939-1989. Kraków: Instytut Pamięci Narodowej. Oddział w Krakowie, 2021.^a
2. Currently the street is again called Pomorska. No. 2, the premises once used by the Gestapo and later by the Communist security service, now houses a museum exhibition on the place’s notorious past.^{a, b}
3. The establishment is again serving its original purpose as an old people’s home.^c
4. When Germany invaded and occupied Poland, it divided up the territory, annexing the western part of the country and setting up an entity known as the Generalgouvernement (also known in English as the General Government, the General Governorate, etc.) in the rest of Poland, with Hans Frank as Governor-General and an all-German administration.^c
5. Presumably these were documents relating to the arrest of Kraków’s university staff on 6 November 1939 and their concentration camp confinement in the notorious Sonderaktion Krakau—Aktion gegen Universitäts-Professoren See the Jagiellonian University magazine Alma Mater, Nos. 64 (2004), 118 (2009), 178 and 179 (2015), and 188 (2016) online at https://almamater.uj.edu.pl/archiwum.^c
6. Józef Cyrankiewicz (1911–1989), a prominent member of the PPS (Polish Socialist Party) before the War, involved in the wartime underground resistance movement both at liberty and when held in Auschwitz. After the War Cyrankiewicz joined the PZPR (Communist) Party and served for many years as Prime Minister of People’s Poland.^c
7. The Union of Armed Struggle (Związek Walki Zbrojnej) was an underground army formed in Poland on 13 November 1939. It operated until 14 February 1942, when it was renamed the Home Army (Armia Krajowa, AK).^c
8. Szare Szeregi (the Grey Ranks) were a paramilitary group which evolved in the Polish scouting movement during the Second World War. They worked for the Polish underground state and the AK (Home Army) resistance movement, engaging in combat, medical aid, liaison, and transport services. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish_Scouting_and_Guiding_Association.^c
9. Związek Odwetowy was a Polish World War II resistance organisation established on 20 April 1940. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Union_of_Retaliation.^c
10. PPS, Polska Partia Socjalistyczna, was a large political party with several wings or splinter groups spanning a broad ideological range from moderately socialist to radical or almost communist views.^c
11. When Germany and the Soviet Union invaded Poland in September 1939, most of the Polish government fled abroad, via Romania and Hungary, eventually establishing a government-in-exile, first in France and later in Britain after the fall of France in 1940.^c
12. Stanisławów was a city in eastern Poland prior to the War; it is now known as Ivano-Frankivsk in Ukraine. A voivode is the governor of a voivodeship, a first-tier territorial unit in Poland.^c
13. The Schutzpolizei des Reiches or Schupo was the State (Reich) protection police of Nazi Germany and a branch of the Ordnungspolizei (the regular police force). Schutzpolizei is the German name for a uniformed police force. Later Kłodziński says the prison was guarded by the Sipo, that is the Sicherheitspolizei (the German security police). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schutzpolizei_(Nazi_Germany. ^b
14. The photo in the Wikipedia article on the prison clearly reads “Sicherheitspolizeigefängnis Montelupich.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montelupich_Prison.^b
15. Łysak and Szczypta-Szczęch, 21, confirm the names of the successive Nazi German governors of Montelupich, arranged in a different order and some spelled in a slightly different way (Neubert instead of Neuberg, and Wehmeyer instead of Wehmeier). According to this book, the first German governor was Willi Hemsig.^a
16. Komisja Badania Zbrodni Hitlerowskich w Polsce (the Commission for the Investigation of Nazi German Crimes in Poland) was established in 1945 to collect evidence for the prosecution of Nazi German criminals and operated (under several names) until 1949. Its records are now kept in the archives of the IPN (Instytut Pamięci Narodowej, the Institute of National Remembrance).^c
17. This conference (“Więzienie Montelupich w Krakowie w okresie okupacji hitlerowskiej”) was organised by the Kraków branch of the Commission for the Investigation of Nazi German Crimes in Poland as well as the Commission’s Section for Nazi German Prisons and Concentration Camps. The other papers were authored by Wincenty Hein and Czesława Jakubiec, who spoke on Montelupich in the Nazi German system for the extermination of the Polish People (“Więzienie Montelupich w hitlerowskim systemie eksterminacji narodu polskiego”), and T[adeusz] Wroński, who discussed the fate of the prisoners held in Montelupich in “Losy więźniów więzienia Montelupich”). The conference programme also included research announcements and a discussion.^d
18. Gliwice is the Polish name of the city but until the shift of the border in 1945 it belonged to Germany, and its German name was Gleiwitz. Kłodziński follows the regular publishing practice in the Polish People’s Republic (on the grounds of an official decree issued in 1946) and uses the Polish names of places on territories allocated to Poland in 1945, regardless of the fact that prior to 1945 these places belonged to Germany. https://isap.sejm.gov.pl/isap.nsf/download.xsp/WMP19460440085/O/M19460085.pdf.^c
19. Patronat was a Polish charity providing aid for prisoners in jails and concentrations camps. It was affiliated with the RGO (see Kłodziński’s original footnote below).^b
20. Rada Główna Opiekuńcza, the Main Council of Relief, the only Polish charity officially recognised by the Germans in occupied Poland.^c
21. Związek Byłych Więźniów Politycznych, the Association of Former Political Prisoners. Not to be confused with the NGO currently (2022) registered in Gdańsk and operating under the same name, which provides aid for veterans of Polish pro-independence movements active in 1945–1956 (i.e., during the Second World War and the Stalinist period of the Polish People’s Republic). https://spis.ngo.pl/193115-zwiazek-bylych-wiezniow-politycznych-zarzad-glowny.^c
22. Max Kwast, aka “Quasi” (1909–1948). Kwast and two other Montelupich Gestapo men were in the escort of 40 inmates held in Montelupich as “hostages,” and attended their public execution, carried out on the corner of Botaniczna and Lubicz on 27 May 1944. https://muzeum-ak.pl/cogdziekiedy/77-rocznica-rozstrzelania-40-polakow. After the War, Kwast was put on trial, sentenced to death and executed on 18 August 1948. IPN Archives Kraków branch, Ref. No. 010/3900, Maks Kwast case; and Ref. No. 425/302, prisoner: Kwast Maks. Alicja Jarkowska-Natkaniec, “Collaborators, Informers, and Agents in Occupied Krakow: A Contribution to Further Research,” The City and History 9 (2020): 69–92, p. 76. https://zenodo.org/record/5091440#.Y2YI5eSZNPY.^c
23. Now respectively Lviv and Ivano-Frankivsk, Ukraine.^b
24. In fact, Quiel was tried by the Regional Court of Szczecin (not Kraków). IPN Sz 451/72 VIII K. 446/48, V K 162/49, GK 289/72 SOSz 72. https://truthaboutcamps.eu/ftp/baza-ss-oswiecim/wyroki/SOSz_V_K_162_49_07_12_1949.pdf.^c
25. Jerzy Karwat (1923–1941), Polish resistance fighter, member of Związek Odwetowy (see Note 9). Wanted by the Gestapo for involvement in several resistance operations. Finally arrested in June 1941, held in Montelupich and sent to Auschwitz, where he was executed by a firing squad, November 1941. Posthumously awarded the Virtuti Militari Silver Cross and the Auschwitz Cross. http://malopolskawiiwojnie.pl/index.php?title=KARWAT_Jerzy.^c
26. This city was in Germany before the War, and until 1945 its name was Königshütte.^b
27. For more on Dr Budziaszek, who was later a prisoner of Monowitz, see the following English versions of articles on this website: Zenon Drohocki, “Electric shock at Monowitz hospital;” and Antoni Makowski, “Prisoners’ improvements to the hospital facilities in the Monowitz camp.”^c
28. Dr Szczepan Kruczek was later a prisoner of Auschwitz. He is mentioned in the following English versions of articles on this website: Stanisław Kłodziński’s biography of Dr Janina Kościuszkowa; Jan Stanisław Olbrycht, “A forensic pathologist’s wartime experience in Poland under Nazi German occupation and after liberation in matters connected with the war;” Zbigniew Pęckowski, “Block 19 of the prisoners’ hospital in Auschwitz I: an account by a male nurse;” and Tadeusz Orzeszko, “A surgeon’s account of Auschwitz.”^c
29. Dr Pochopień is mentioned in Stanisław Kłodziński’s biography of Prof. Janina Kowalczykowa (English version on this website).^c
30. A biographical note on Dr Preiss (by Janina Kowalczykowa) is available on this website in English in Danuta Bystroń-Pytlik et al., “Biographical notes on some of the deceased Polish doctors and medical staff who rendered distinguished service in the care of Auschwitz prisoners.” He is also mentioned in Stanisław Kłodziński’s article “The contribution of the Polish medical profession to saving prisoners’ lives in Auschwitz.”^c
31. For more on Dr Janina Kościuszkowa, see her biography by Stanisław Kłodziński, and the following articles available in English on this website: Wanda Półtawska, “From the research on the Auschwitz children,” Janina Kościuszkowa, “The fate of children in Auschwitz,” Stanisław Kłodziński’s biography of Dr Białówna, and Janina Kościuszkowa’s biography of her sister-in-law Stefania Kościuszkowa in Danuta Bystroń-Pytlik et al., “Biographical notes . . .”^c
32. Dr Michalikowa is mentioned in the following English versions of articles on this website: Stanisław Kłodziński’s biography of Prof. Janina Kowalczykowa, and his biography of Dr Białówna, Maria Nowakowska’s article, “The women’s hospital at Auschwitz-Birkenau,” and a biographical note about her by Janina Kościuszkowa in Danuta Bystroń-Pytlik et al., “Biographical notes . . ."^c
33. Marian Gieszczykiewicz is mentioned in the following English versions of articles on this website: Stanisław Kłodziński’s article “The contribution of the Polish medical profession to saving prisoners’ lives in Auschwitz;” and “The health service in Auschwitz main camp” by Władysław Fejkiel. He has a separate short biography by Janina Kowalczykowa in Pytlik et al., “Biographical notes . . .”^c
34. Dr Kostarczyk is mentioned on this website in the English version of Józef Bellert's article “The work of Polish doctors and nurses at the Polish Red Cross Camp Hospital in Oświęcim after the liberation of Auschwitz concentration camp.”^c
35. Janina Kowalczykowa has a biography in English (by Stanisław Klodziński) on this website. The English version of her article “Hunger disease in Auschwitz” is available on this website as well, and is quoted in Antoni Kępiński's “Nightmare,” and “The psychopathology of concentration camp starvation” by Zdzisław Ryn and Stanisław Kłodziński. She is also mentioned in the English versions of the following articles: “The SS Institute of Hygiene laboratory, Auschwitz: Human broth” by Stanisław Kłodziński; “Recollecting the women’s hospital in Birkenau“ by Helena Włodarska; Stanisław Kłodziński’s biographies of Dr Irena Białówna and Dr Helena Szlapak; as well as in Maria Nowakowska’s article “The women’s hospital at Auschwitz-Birkenau” and in Artur Metera and Wit Maciej Rzepecki’s article “Thoracoplasty in Dachau.” Prof. Kowalczykowa contributed three short biographies, of Dr Maria Werkenthin, Prof. Dr Marian Gieszczykiewicz, and Dr Witold Preiss, in Pytlik et al., “Biographical notes . . .”^c
36. Dr Zdzisław Przybyłkiewicz is mentioned in Jan Miodoński’s article, “A few recollections of Sonderaktion Krakau.” Dr Przybyłkiewicz was one of the academics of Kraków deported to Sachsenhausen in November 1939.^c
37. The names of some of these prisoners are listed on the Muzeum Historii Krakowa website, Archiwum ofiar terroru nazistowskiego i komunistycznego w Krakowie 1939-1956, http://krakowianie1939-56.mhk.pl/pl/ (English version: Archive of the victims of the Nazi and the Communist terror in Kraków 1939–1956, http://krakowianie1939-56.mhk.pl/en/).^a
38. Perhaps Kazimierz Kierzkowski (1890–1942), a Polish professional soldier and social activist who joined the wartime resistance movement but was arrested in the early summer of 1941 and sent to Auschwitz, where he was killed in March 1942. https://krakow.ipn.gov.pl/pl4/aktualnosci/72160,Malopolscy-Bohaterowie-Wrzesnia-1939-Kazimierz-Kierzkowski-1890-1942.html and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kazimierz_Kierzkowski.^c
39. According to a statement made by G. Winkowska née Skowrońska, the first transport of women from Kraków for Ravensbrück, comprising 65 prisoners, left on 13 September 1941. See Polski Instytut Źródłowy w Lund, protokół świadka 285, Stockholm, 23 March 1946, https://www.alvin-portal.org/alvin/attachment/document/alvin-record:103039/ATTACHMENT-0022.pdf.^a
40. Now Stryi, Ukraine.^b
41. Now Lviv, Ukraine.^b
42. Sokół was a Polish patriotic sporting organisation.^b
43. The Polish rifle squads were a paramilitary organisation which later took part in the combat during World War I and for the restoration of Poland’s independence.^b
44. The Polish Legions, commanded by Józef Piłsudski, made a key military contribution to the restoration of Poland’s independence in 1918.^c
45. Formally, Piłsudski’s Legions served under the colours of Austria-Hungary. In 1917 they were required to take an oath of allegiance to Germany. Those who refused were drafted into the Austrian army. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oath_crisis.^c
46. Kłodziński’s text is deliberately vague on this point. It is not clear whether he means the defence of Lwów in the 1918–1919 in the Polish-Ukrainian war for the city and its environs, or the 1920 defence of Lwów against the Red Army during the Polish–Bolshevik War. The reason for the vagueness was to avoid trouble with Communist censorship in the People’s Republic of Poland, which did not permit any reference to the Bolshevik invasion of Poland to appear in print.^c
47. Mieczysław Batsch (1900–1977) and Wacław Kuchar (1897–1981), well-known footballers for Pogoń Lwów, both in Poland’s soccer team at the 1924 Paris Olympics. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mieczys%C5%82aw_Batsch; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wac%C5%82aw_Kuchar.^c
48. Other sources say it was for four years running and a couple of times as vice-champion.^b
49. Złoty Krzyż Zasługi.^b
50. The name of the street is misspelled in the original Polish article. Formally, it should be “ulica Wulecka.”^b
51. Centralny Instytut Wychowania Fizycznego.^b
52. Poland’s September defence campaign began on 1 September 1939, when Nazi Germany invaded Poland, starting the Second World War. On 17 September, the Soviet Union, Germany’s ally at the time, invaded Poland from the east. Fighting in the defence campaign continued until the first week of October 1939. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invasion_of_Poland.^c
53. Now Ternopil, Ukraine.^b
54. See Note 10.^c
55. As soldiers of the Polish Legions in the Great War, Kubacka, Łazarski, and Więckowska were released on 16 June 1942 from Montelupich and Jarecki was released from jail in Nowy Sącz. We now know that the Gestapo did that in order to persuade former soldiers of the Legions that they should join a new, anti-Soviet Legion. Reportedly, the inspiration came from Hans Frank and preliminary talks were held between Hamann, governor of the jail in Nowy Sącz, and Jarecki. Later the Gestapo abandoned the idea.^d
56. Wanda Marokini was arrested on 27 May 1941. See http://krakowianie1939-56.mhk.pl/pl/archiwum,1,marokini,2197.chtm, accessed Oct. 2022.^a
57. Maria “Ciotka” (“Auntie”) Zazulowa (1880–1957). Worked for Patronat, distributing parcels with aid for prisoners. See Stanisław Kłodziński, Krakowski “Patronat” więzienny, online at http://pck.malopolska.pl/krakowski-patronat-wiezienny. For her statement in the proceedings against Josef Buhler, see Chronicles of Terror, Document No. IPN GK 196/324. Online at https://zapisyterroru.pl/dlibra/publication/9512/edition/9455/content?navq=aHR0cDovL3phcGlzeXRlcnJvcnUucGwvZGxpYnJhL3Jlc3VsdHM_YWN0aW9uPUFkdmFuY2VkU2VhcmNoQWN0aW9uJnR5cGU9LTMmc2VhcmNoX2F0dGlkMT02MSZzZWFyY2hfdmFsdWUxPVphenVsb3dhJTIwTWFyaWFcOyUyMDIwLjA1LjE4ODAsJTIwUm9wY3p5Y2UmcD0w&navref=N2M4Ozdhbg.^c
58. Zygmunt Klemensiewicz (1874–1948), Polish politician and director of the Kraków branch of the national insurance company. Social activist during the War and member of the Polish Red Cross, RGO and Patronat dispensing aid for prisoners. Arrested by the Gestapo and imprisoned in Montelupich, Dec. 1941-Jan. 1942. See https://senat.edu.pl/historia/senat-rp-w-latach-1922-1939/senatorowie-ii-rp/senator/zygmunt-klemensiewicz and Stanisław Kłodziński, Krakowski “Patronat” więzienny, online at http://pck.malopolska.pl/krakowski-patronat-wiezienny.^c
59. Prisoners were assigned to the workers’ cell by the Gestapo when their investigation was over. Usually they were given different chores on the premises. For instance, they attended the stoves, worked in the laundry or the dispensary, cleaned the offices and the interrogation rooms.^d
60. Under German occupation, it was illegal for Polish doctors to treat Germans. Breaking that law was a risk both to the physician and the patient who wanted to consult a Pole, relying on his or her medical qualifications.^d
61. Patronat was a charity organisation affiliated with the Main Welfare Council in Kraków. Just like the Polish Red Cross, it supplied the local prisons with extra food, medicines, soap and detergents etc. See Note 16.^d
62. See also Stanisław Dąbrowa-Kostka, “Jerzy Karwat-„Kryński”. Apel poległych.” Wrocławski Tygodnik Katolicki [no year or issue number is given], p. 7.^d
63. The quote comes from her letter of 14 November 1969 to me.^d
64. Jan Edward Reyman (1902–1984), footballer and Auschwitz survivor (No. 37302), played for Wisła Kraków and in Poland’s national soccer team. https://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jan_Reyman.^c
65. Dr Garbień had recently been subjected to corporal punishment and held in a dungeon cell for an attempted escape.^d
66. Genowefa “Pytia” Ułan (1908–1996), ZWZ sabotage group liaison officer. Arrested in 1941. Sent to Auschwitz, 18 August 1942 (Prisoner No. P 17528). https://kpbc.umk.pl/Content/201548/Ulan_Genowefa_2894_WSK.pdf. After the War Ułan made a statement now in the Chronicles of Terror https://www.zapisyterroru.pl/dlibra/show-content?id=3370&navq=aHR0cDovL3d3dy56YXBpc3l0ZXJyb3J1LnBsL2RsaWJyYS9yZXN1bHRzP2FjdGlvbj1BZHZhbmNlZFNlYXJjaEFjdGlvbiZ0eXBlPS0zJnNlYXJjaF9hdHRpZDE9NjMmc2VhcmNoX3JhbmdlMT0xOTQ0MDYyM34xOTQ0MDcwNiZwPTI3&navref=Mm01OzJsbSB5aDt5MiAybTk7Mmxx&format_id=6.^c
67. That was the official German name of Grodzka in Kraków.^d
68. Migreno-Nervosin, nicknamed Cockerel Tablets for the picture on the label.^d See also the illustration in https://muzea.malopolska.pl/en/objects-list/1968.^b
69. Now Orlová, Czechia.^b
70. Following the proclamation of an independent Polish State and Czechoslovakia after the First World War, a territorial dispute erupted between the two countries in the Cieszyn area of Silesia, which is on the Polish-Czech border and has a mixed population of Poles and Czechs. A plebiscite was to be held under international auspices, but the plan was abandoned and the Council of Ambassadors, a body established at the Versailles Conference, demarcated a border between the two countries. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cieszyn_Silesia; https://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plebiscyt_na_%C5%9Al%C4%85sku_Cieszy%C5%84skim,_Spiszu_i_Orawie.^c
71. The hospital was called Miejskie Zakłady Sanitarne (the Municipal Sanitary Institution) at the time. It is now known as Krakowski Szpital Specjalistyczny im. Jana Pawła II (the John Paul II Specialist Hospital, Kraków). https://www.szpitaljp2.krakow.pl/historia.^c
72. Złoty Medal PCK and Srebrny Krzyż Zasługi^c
73. His name is misprinted in the original article.^b
74. Podręcznik dla członków drużyn ratowniczych PCK, before 1936, Katowice: PCK.^b
75. See Dr Szlapak’s biography by Stanisław Kłodziński on this website.^c
76. See Teresa Lasocka’s biography by Stanisław Kłodziński on this website.^c
77. In the summer of 1944, when the Red Army was approaching Kraków, the German authorities rounded up local people and forced them to dig trenches for the city’s defence against Soviet forces and to prevent the outbreak of another uprising like the one in Warsaw. https://ciekawostkihistoryczne.pl/2016/11/05/czy-w-krakowie-w-1944-moglo-wybuchnac-drugie-powstanie-warszawskie.^c
78. Dr Marian Ciećkiewicz (1893–1999), Polish physician (and towards the end of his life the oldest member of his profession in Poland). When the War started, Dr Ciećkiewicz was chief physician in the Polish national insurance company. He had to cede his post to Dr Albrecht Puppe when the German occupying authorities took over the company, but remained as the chief Polish doctor on its staff. http://www.malopolskawiiwojnie.pl/index.php?title=Cie%C4%87kiewicz_Marian.^c
79. On 2 August 1945 the new Communist authorities of Poland issued an “amnesty,” encouraging resistance combatants to come forward and make public their wartime activities. Many of those who did so were treacherously imprisoned or deported to Siberia. Some of those who did not “declare” continued to hide in new combat units against the Communists. Now known as “The Indomitable Soldiers” (Żołnierze Niezłomni), they conducted combat operations against much larger and far better equipped Communist units. Józef “Lalek” Franczak, the last Indomitable Soldier, was killed in 1963. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cursed_soldiers; https://ipn.gov.pl/ftp/wystawy/wolnosc_i_niezawislosc/win_wstep.html^c
80. Złoty Krzyż Zasługi I klasy z mieczami.^c

a—notes by Katarzyna du Vall, Expert Consultant for the Medical Review Auschwitz project; b—notes by Marta Kapera, the translator of the text; c—notes by Teresa Bałuk-Ulewiczowa, Head Translator for the Medical Review Auschwitz project; d—notes translated from the orgiginal Polish source.

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