The Auschwitz Volunteer: Beyond Bravery Read online

  PUBLISHER’S NOTE

  This Edition

  The Auschwitz Volunteer: Beyond Bravery presented us as publishers with an editing challenge. Captain Witold Pilecki’s original 1945 Report was not written for publication—it was written for his Polish Army superiors, and done rather hurriedly as Pilecki was preparing to embark on another (ultimately fatal) secret mission into postwar Poland where a virtual state of civil war raged between the Soviet-backed Polish communist regime and the various anti-communist resistance organizations scattered throughout the country.

  Pilecki did not have time to edit, revise or polish his writing. As a result, this report of his Auschwitz mission has a rare immediacy and a particularly personal voice—it reads almost as if Pilecki were sitting in the room with us, telling us his story.

  Translator Jarek Garliński wanted to preserve this special energy and authenticity of Pilecki’s Report, and we agreed with him.

  As a result, we have for the most part left uncorrected the numerous inconsistencies in style, formatting, punctuation and references that would normally have been corrected during the editing process.

  While Pilecki wrote his Report in Polish, he also uses a number of German words throughout, because German was the language of the Nazi German concentration camps. Contrary to proper German-language standards, Pilecki either does not capitalize the German nouns or does so inconsistently. Instead, he incorporates the German words into his writing as if they were Polish words and in Polish, as in English, common nouns are not capitalized. Further, Pilecki adds Polish word endings to form plurals or other parts of speech as needed. At that time, both Pilecki and his Polish Army superiors would have known German well enough to understand the Report without need for a translation, and they would not have found this practice regarding language unusual.

  We have for the most part followed Pilecki’s idiosyncratic capitalization of the German words in this translation of his Report. We also generally form plurals of the German words as if they were English, by adding an “s” at the end—similar to Pilecki’s practice in incorporating the German words into his Polish narrative. Except for proper nouns, dialogue and quoted material, we italicize the German words the first time they appear. Recognizing that many English-language readers will not be fluent in German, in most cases we follow such words throughout the text with an English translation, unless the meaning is clear from the context. In addition, we have included a Glossary.

  Pilecki occasionally uses the Polish shorthand date notation, which we have translated to a form that would be more familiar in English. For example, Pilecki’s 16.ii.43 is translated as 16 Feb. ’43.

  In writing about his friends and comrades, Pilecki frequently refers to them by nickname or a diminutive (e.g., Tadek for Tadeusz; Janek, Jasiek, Jaś or Jasio for Jan). Also, as Mr. Garliński describes in more detail in his Translator’s Introductory Note, in most cases Pilecki replaced names with code numbers or letters to protect people. Therefore, in addition to the general index, we have included an index of the code numbers and/or letters and the names associated with them to the extent they have been identified, which also gives the related nicknames or diminutives, if any, used by Pilecki for each such person.

  The true names of people and the translations of German words are inserted throughout the text in square brackets, to distinguish from the regular parentheses used by Pilecki.

  The Report is roughly chronological, but was written as one long piece without chapter divisions or section headings. We maintain this unbroken form of Pilecki’s narrative, but to help orient readers, we indicate the year in the running head, and include both a brief selection of highlights from Pilecki’s 1945 Report in the front material of the book and a more detailed chronology of the Report in the Appendices.

  Translating Pilecki’s Report was a demanding project. The original Report is more than one hundred pages of single-spaced lines, with miniscule margins, typed on a manual typewriter with numerous handwritten interlineations. In this translation of Pilecki’s Report, we benefit not only from Mr. Garliński’s linguistic skills, but also from the added dimension of his extensive scholarship and knowledge of literature, history and the military, as well as his personal connection to the material.

  Pilecki’s 1945 Report had no formal title; we have chosen to call this translation The Auschwitz Volunteer: Beyond Bravery. Since Pilecki was, by all accounts, a modest person, it is doubtful that he would have chosen such a title himself. We have done so to honor this most extraordinary and courageous man.

  Captain Witold Pilecki’s 1945 Report occupies a unique place in the history and literature about Auschwitz. It is with great pride that we publish this essential primary source in English for the first time.

  The Polish Language

  In The Auschwitz Volunteer: Beyond Bravery, Polish names and words are written in the Polish language which, with its strings of consonants, diacritical marks and that strange “l with a slash” (“ł”), can appear impenetrable to most native English speakers. Below is a very abbreviated pronunciation guide which may help to demystify the language.

  Polish is fairly phonetic in its spelling (i.e., unlike English, the way a Polish word is spelled is usually how it is pronounced); therefore each sound is represented by one letter or a standard combination of letters. Polish and English both use the Latin alphabet, so the Polish alphabet is similar to, although not exactly the same as, the English alphabet— here are a few of the principal differences:

  1) There is no letter “v” in the Polish alphabet, so Polish uses the letter “w” for the “v” sound. When “w” is the last letter of a word, it is pronounced more like an “f.”

  2) The “w” sound, in turn, is represented by the Polish letter “l with a slash” (“ł”).

  3) There is no letter “q” in the Polish alphabet, so Polish uses the letter “k” for the “q” sound.

  4) The Polish “j” sounds like the “y” in “yes.”

  5) The Polish “c” sounds like the “ts” in “cats.”

  6) The strings of consonants, sometimes with an accompanying vowel, generally break down into standard clusters, each of which represents a certain sound. Some of the major clusters are:

  “ch”—like the “h” in “hand”

  “ci”—like the “ch” in “cheap”

  “cz”—like “tch” in “itch”

  “drz”—like the “j” in “just”

  “dz”—like the “ds” in “beds”

  “dzi”—a softer version of “dz,” similar to the “j” in “jeep”

  “rz”—like the “s” in “pleasure”

  “sz”—like the “sh” in “show”

  7) The diacritical marks under or over certain vowels and consonants change their pronunciation; for example, “ę” is pronounced like “en” as in “ten” or as “em” before certain consonants; “ó” like “oo” as in “moon”; the “ć” as a soft “tch.”

  The accent on Polish words of more than one syllable is usually on the penultimate, or next to last, syllable.

  So, for example, “Warszawa” (the Polish word for “Warsaw”) is pronounced: var-SHA-va. People who live in Warsaw are called “Varsovians” in English—derived from the Latin word for Warsaw, “Varsovia,” and perhaps from the pronunciation of the Polish “Warszawa.”

  This is how some of the names in The Auschwitz Volunteer: Beyond Bravery would be pronounced:

  Witold Pilecki—VEE-told pee-LETS-kee

  Oświęcim—osh-vee-EM-cheem

  Tomasz Serafiński—TO-mash se-ra-FEEN-skee

  Sławek Szpakowski—SWA-vek shpa-KOV-skee

  Władysław Surmacki—vwa-DIH-swaf sur-MATS-kee

  Aquila Polonica Publishing

  Pilecki Family

  Witold Pilecki with his wife Maria in Legionowo–1944.

  SELECTED HIGHLIGHTS

  FROM PILECKI’S 1945 REPORT

  (A more detailed chronology of Pilecki's 1945 Repor
t is included as Appendix 4.)

  1940

  – Deliberately walks into a German SS street round-up in Warsaw—transported to Auschwitz, inmate no. 4859

  – Begins setting up a military organization: the first “five”

  – Serious killing starts up again. Weakening, but could not admit to others

  – Christmas: the first parcels from home—no food allowed

  1941

  – Sick: in the hospital, overrun by lice

  – New meaning for “organize”

  – Camp orchestra formed

  – New camp word: “Muselmann”

  – Collective responsibility for escapes

  – First Bolshevik prisoners of war

  – Second Christmas in Auschwitz

  1942

  – Change in attitude toward Jews

  – Typhus-infected lice cultivated and released on SS men

  – Builds a radio transmitter; broadcasts until autumn 1942

  – First women prisoners brought in

  – Transports: mostly Jews from throughout Europe, sent directly to the gas chambers at Rajsko-Birkenau

  – “Canada”

  – Typhus: recovering thanks to comrades’ care

  – “Able to take over the camp on more or less a daily basis”—awaiting orders from Home Army High Command

  – Germans begin sexual experiments on inmates

  – Third Christmas in Auschwitz

  1943

  – Gypsies brought to Rajsko-Birkenau

  – Avoids transport to other camps

  – Escape

  – On the outside, meeting the real Tomasz Serafiński

  – Return to Warsaw: working in Home Army High Command

  1944

  – A few post-Auschwitz experiences

  LIST OF MAPS

  Europe 1939

  Poland–September 1939

  Occupied Poland 1939 –1941

  Auschwitz and Environs

  KL Auschwitz I

  Pilecki’s Escape Route from Auschwitz

  SM

  Fragment of a Polish Eagle military cap badge.

  HISTORICAL HORIZON

  Captain Witold Pilecki: The Report, the Mission, the Man

  The Report

  Witold Pilecki’s 1945 Report is a powerful document. It is powerful not because of cadences of prose or striking imagery. Indeed, it was never meant to be a work of literature. Pilecki wrote it in Italy in the second half of 1945 as a report to his military superiors, which Pilecki’s covering letter to General Pełczyński makes clear. In his report Pilecki often uses short sentences and paragraphs, and he freely admits that, had he had the time, he might have spent more time polishing it. Yet it is powerful because of its immediacy and because it illuminates the savagely perverted world of Auschwitz in a way that only someone with recent firsthand experience of it could have done.

  Pilecki was not a sociologist trying to fit Auschwitz into neat little boxes or theories, nor did he over-intellectualize his experiences there. He was an honest, by all accounts unassuming man, without any political or ideological axe to grind except love of his own country and his Catholic faith, who followed the code of “Bóg, Honor, Ojczyzna” (“God, Honor, Country”) and who wrote down what he had personally seen and felt, occasionally venturing into the realm of philosophy and self-reflection.

  By any stretch of the imagination, he was also an extraordinary man. Endowed with great physical resilience and courage, he showed remarkable presence of mind and common sense in quite appalling circumstances, and a complete absence of self-pity. While most inmates of Auschwitz not slated for immediate death were barely able to survive, he had enough reserves of strength and determination left to help others and to build up an underground resistance organization within the camp. Not only that, he managed to keep a clear head at all times and recognize what he needed to do in order to stay alive which, for instance, often meant fighting his own physiological impulses and saving some food for the following day: a task requiring almost superhuman willpower. He also enjoyed a fair portion of luck and even had time for some wry irony, noting that the inner and outer pairs of digits of his own camp number 4859 both added up to thirteen!

  He claims to have attained quite quickly an almost spiritual state of serenity. He felt “happiness” at the solidarity which the camp’s terrible conditions had created amongst the Poles: “Then, I felt a single thought coursing through these Poles standing shoulder to shoulder, I felt that finally we were all united by the same anger, a desire for revenge, I felt myself in an environment perfectly suited to begin my work here and discovered within me a semblance of happiness...” There is even a hint of the mystical, Solzhenitsyn-like belief that only those who have experienced a labor camp can really understand the deeper meaning of life. He writes: “We were cut with a sharp instrument. Its blade bit painfully into our bodies, yet, in our souls, it found fields to till...,” and later: “A man was seen and valued for what he really was...”

  The Report is powerful, too, because it highlights an aspect of Auschwitz less well known outside Poland and the world of concentration camp survivors and historians. While most people have heard of Auschwitz in German-occupied Poland in the context of the Holocaust and know of the abomination of the gas chambers and the unspeakable crime of gassing living human beings, fewer know that in the first stage of the camp’s existence most of its victims were Christian Poles, many of whom were savagely killed or worked to death. Indeed, Auschwitz was initially set up in 1940 as a camp for Polish political prisoners, and only later was it turned into a death camp for the Jews of Europe. Moreover, how many people in the West, outside the academic community, know that Soviet prisoners of war were sent to the camp to be killed?1 The Report describes, sometimes in chilling detail, the relentless, ceaseless and at times almost casual brutality where no moral limits were recognized. Indeed, it shows to what depths human beings can sink when there are simply no moral rules.

  Pilecki Family

  Cavalry Officer Second Lieutenant Witold Pilecki

  Pilecki Family

  Witold Pilecki-Auschwitz inmate no. 4859

  At the same time, the Report also represents a beacon of hope, in that it demonstrates that even in the midst of so much cruelty and degradation there were those who held to the basic virtues of honesty, compassion and courage. Pilecki describes men who were able to rise above their circumstances and who, while recognizing the need to save their own lives, were not prepared to do so at the expense of others. He writes too: “... but there we also developed respect for this strange human nature, stronger for possessing a soul, and containing something apparently immortal within itself.” While Pilecki was indeed a believer, his Report is not a testament per se to Christian values, but rather a reminder of the universal human virtues to which all faiths and religions subscribe.

  Yet he expresses anger at a world that could have sunk so far: “We have strayed, my friends, we have strayed dreadfully. What’s worse is that there are no words to describe it... I would like to say that we have become animals... but no, we are a whole level of hell worse than animals!” He wonders which world is real: the perverted one of the camp, or the uncaring and shallow world outside.

  Christian though he is, Pilecki also makes it clear that fire must be fought with fire. Exceptionally cruel Kapos (inmates serving as camp “trusties” or supervisors), SS men and informers were killed without compunction by the camp inmates, as often as not in the hospital. Although Pilecki does not mention it, his underground organization, the ZOW (Związek Organizacji Wojskowych—The Union of Military Organizations)2 in fact set up a kind of court.3 It was a brutal fight for survival in which the timid, the selfish or the fainthearted stood no chance.

  Perhaps the most extraordinary episode described is the shooting of two hundred or so young Polish men who knowingly marched to their deaths without a guard, understanding full well that the sole result of any attempt on their part to revo
lt would be brutal reprisals against their families. Nevertheless, Pilecki states that had these men indeed decided to revolt, his organization would have taken a stand and made a fight of it.

  Pilecki’s achievement was considerable. Not only did he establish an organization capable of helping people to survive the camp, but his efforts led to a rapprochement between the Polish political parties represented in the camp: no mean feat, given the interwar tensions and animosities. He notes wryly: “So one had to show Poles daily a mountain of Polish corpses in order for them to reconcile...” Given his very junior military rank and the fact that he was a complete political unknown, this was a remarkable accomplishment and a testament to his character.

  His organization also sent a number of reports to the Polish government-in-exile in London by way of the Polish Home Army (the Armia Krajowa, or AK) on conditions in the camp, including the first details of the gassing of Jews in large numbers. It is a measure of the Nazi Germans’ violation of all human and moral codes that even men like Pilecki, who were actually there and saw terrible things happening around them, could not initially comprehend the enormity and scale of the crime which would later become known as the Holocaust. Little wonder, perhaps, that the outside world was slow to react to the news.

  Yet Pilecki’s Report ends on a note of frustration, if not anger. Pilecki, who, it must be remembered, had gone voluntarily to Auschwitz, was upset that the Home Army commanders, and for that matter the other Allies, were unwilling to organize any kind of military attack on Auschwitz to take advantage of the organization he had built up there: “Should there be an airborne assault or an arms drop... Neither we nor our Allies contemplated such a thing— or even conceived of it—so our enemies did.” Indeed, he felt that they were more or less indifferent to the suffering in the camp and he writes about the outside world’s “continual, ignorant silence.”