The Auschwitz Volunteer: Beyond Bravery by Captain Witold Pilecki, Translated from the original 1945 report by Jarek Garliński, Aquila Polonica (U.S.) Ltd., Los Angeles; ISBN 978-1-60772-009-6 ©2012, $34.95, p. 401, including pictures, maps, appendices, index, and discussion questions
By Fred Reiss
WINCHESTER, California — On September 10, 1940, the German battleship Bismarck fired six shells against a raiding British aircraft without any hits; Italian troops crossed the Libyan-Egyptian border; Adolf Hitler postponed the decision for launching Operation Sealion, Nazi Germany’s plan to invade the United Kingdom; and at 6:00 a.m. Witold Pilecki (pronounced Vee-told pee-Lets-kee) went to the corner of Wojska and Felińskiego Streets in Warsaw so that he could be rounded-up by the Nazis and sent to Auschwitz.
Pilecki, an unassuming apolitical Catholic, volunteered to go to Auschwitz so that he could assist the Polish Home Army boost morale in the camp by getting news from the outside world, sending out reports about the camp at a time when its purpose lay in the destruction of Christian Poles deemed political prisoners by the Nazis; and preparing, if possible, for an in-camp armed uprising. Later, Auschwitz-II, built by the inmates themselves, became a death camp. In 1945, he wrote a first-person account of his experiences in the camp to his commander, General Pełczyński, now translated for the first time into English under the title The Auschwitz Volunteer.
This report, written for the most part in cold, objective prose tells of the horrors experienced by Pilecki and his comrades in their fight to survive the unspeakable hardship imposed by their Nazi captors. There is little doubt that Pilecki’s ability to survive under these conditions, establish numerous in-camp Polish cells, which, like Al-Qaida cells, were unknown to each other in case the Nazis captured a cell member, and finally escape Auschwitz, point to a man of exceptional resilience and character.
Pilecki’s report, like a diary, moves in chronological order describing conditions in the camp, the attitude of various Nazi overlords and capo inmates, his turns of good luck, and his own wily tactics to secure work indoors where an inmate has a better chance of surviving.
Pilecki also describes the treatment of non-Poles as they entered the camp. He tells us that in August 1941 the first Bolshevik prisoners, 700 of them, appeared in the camp. He writes:
The first Bolshevik prisoners, for the time being just officers, were brought in and after seven hundred of them were locked into one room on Block 13… and packed so tightly that none of them could sit, the room was sealed (we did not have gas chambers). That same evening a group of German soldiers led by an officer arrived. The German team entered the room and, after donning gas masks, threw in a few gas canisters and observed the effects.
Later, Pilecki writes that in November he saw hundreds of completely naked people, Bolshevik prisoners of war, being urged on by German soldiers’ rifle butts. They entered the gas chamber, the doors were shut, and one or two canisters of gas were dropped from above. His fellow Poles, working three round-the-clock shifts could not keep up with burning the remains. They were cremated for the simple reason that Auschwitz did not have sufficient accommodations for the POWs.
He mentions Jew, too. Of the German interaction with the Jews he notes “the German murderers’ bestiality, which underscores the depraved instincts of the outcasts and criminals…” He also tells of the brutal experiments performed by German camp doctors brought in just for this purpose. But, Pilecki and his fellow Poles were not above retribution and he describes the killing of cruel SS men, and their assistants some with the knowledge of higher-up camp officers who did not really want someone with extensive knowledge of the camp alive.
Pilecki clearly distinguishes between ethnicity and Jews by always referring to people as coming from one country or another, but rarely do we know the country of origin of the Jews. Jews are just Jews. This undoubtedly is a sign of the times, as Pilecki shows no animus toward the Jews. To the contrary, he is quite sympathetic towards them.
Titles and degrees made no difference in Auschwitz. In fact, those in the professions often fared worse because they lacked the physical stamina needed to survive the cruel outdoor work. Skilled craftsman had it better and barbers, it seemed had it best. Pilecki describes in detail the theft, (or is it theft Pilecki wonders?), of food and particularly gold from the corpses and the ensuing underground economy involving both Nazis and inmates. He reports having never participated in such crimes and resents his fellow Poles for doing so.
Pilecki created a significant in-camp Polish underground that helped other Poles survive the camp’s work details, shortages of food, and poor health conditions. He was even able to send out reports back to Poland through inmates whose families were able to buy them freedom as early as the month after he arrived. It is amazing that in such close quarters with the Nazi’s ability to bribe inmates with better conditions, they suspected, but never gained any hard evidence about this group.
By April 1943, Pilecki was planning his escape: fooling his friends in Block 6 and at the parcel office where he should be working, convincing two bakers not to show up for work without arousing suspicion, getting to the camp bakery, gathering supplies, and so forth, and finally being led under guard with seven others to the bakery—the initial spot for the escape. Failure to escape from Auschwitz meant certain death. Of course, Pilecki escaped only to die at the hands of his own countrymen in May 1948, performing other undercover work against the Communists in Poland.
Pilecki concludes his report by saying that during his stay 97,000 inmates with prison numbers had been killed, but if one includes the people who were sent en masse to the gas chambers and burnt, without being formally processed, the number exceeds two million. Inmates who were there longer and who witnessed the daily gassing of 8,000 people reported a death toll of about five million.
For the Jews, Pilecki is no Oscar Schindler, although there is no doubt that through his secret organization he saved the lives of many Poles. By the same token, he is no righteous gentile. However, after nearly seventy years, Pilecki, an unbiased dispassionate observer of camp life, and his report stand as honest witnesses against Holocaust deniers and to those who reject the atrocities committed by the Nazis in Auschwitz. The Auschwitz Volunteer is as painful as it fascinating to read.
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Dr. Fred Reiss is a retired public and Hebrew school teacher and administrator. He is the author of The Standard Guide to the Jewish and Civil Calendars; Ancient Secrets of Creation: Sepher Yetzira, the Book that Started Kabbalah, Revealed; and a fiction book, Reclaiming the Messiah. The author can be reached at fred.reiss@sdjewishworld.com.