“Auschwitz. A Monograph of the Human”. Part 5. Friendship

Transcription of the podcast

The book ‘Auschwitz. A Monograph on the Human’ is the first of its kind in the world to try to depict human emotions within the reality of Auschwitz camp. Its author, Museum Director Dr. Piotr Cywiński, draws on fragments of memoirs and testimonies from more than 450 Survivors. It is the words of these direct witnesses that form the basis of this reflection on the human condition amid the process of dehumanization at the German Nazi concentration and extermination camp Auschwitz. In the podcast, we present ten chapters of this unique story about humanity facing the most extreme test.

Part 5. Friendship
Ready by: Grey Stafford

Was it possible, while experiencing camp solitude in the brutality of a new, inherently incomprehensible community with hierarchical levels inaccessible for the Zugang to establish closer human relationships? This is an important question. It is all too easy to say that such relations are natural, human, normal, inevitable and, when faced with a common threat and common hardship, that it was perfectly logical to look for methods of interpersonal reciprocity and solidarity. Yet such an approach would be an attempt to apply our understanding of today’s world to that of the concentration camp world. This template does not withstand the test of the testimonial sources. The situation in the camp was more complex. Undoubtedly, establishing a deeper human relationship requires time. Free time, in relative peace and seclusion, when two or several people could join together away from the crowd. These were the three conditions that were notoriously lacking in camp life. Prisoners were always in a crowd, hurried and constantly subjected to orders, prohibitions and coercion.

Jadwiga Apostoł-Janiszewska
“There wasn’t a day or even an hour of peace in the camp. That is why in this vast mass of people it was difficult to make friends or even keep in touch with your loved ones”.

Above all, it was difficult to build a stable relationship in a situation where there was a constant turnover of people. Some perished, others were transferred to a different barrack, Kommando or subcamp, and others disappeared from view overnight for reasons completely unknown, while other prisoners appeared immediately in their place. Thus the crowd was constantly reshuffled.

Jan Marszałek
“The constant influx of new prisoners, continually new and unknown faces. This did not create the conditions to form friendships. In this hell, a person felt lonely, abandoned, lost, intimidated, constantly threatened and constantly helpless”.

Maxime Antelin
“The one who lay next to you last night, with whom you had talked and exchanged words of comfort and despair, that was the one you never saw again. The next evening some stranger took his place, you became acquainted with him, and then he also disappeared. You were always in the same group, a part of which you did not want to be. So many unknown living bodies disappeared: I never learned their names and now I’ll never know them. That was Birkenau”.

Suzan Cernyak-Spatz
“… do not get too attached to anyone or to anything in the form of possessions. It and they could disappear in a flash, be it through selections, through delousing, through death”.

This difficulty meant that in the long run only in the privileged groups, less exposed to everyday changes, could one possibly build longer-lasting relationships. These groups, however, comprising the camp aristocracy, functionaries and old numbers, were very insular. For the vast majority prisoners, every day was a new struggle for survival. Therefore, every conversation, every meeting with a good acquaintance could be the last.

Miklosz Nyiszli
“We parted company after exchanging firm handshakes. Nowhere else were farewells s sincere and heartfelt as over there, in the concentration camp. Every time we said goodbye, we did not know whether we would ever meet again. Saying farewell was virtually like parting company for eons”.

Another very important factor standing in the way of maintaining good interpersonal relations and even friendships was the atmosphere of constant tensions, which—together with loss of strength due to hard labor and malnourishment—resulted in increased levels of anxiety in everyone, as well as overt nervous breakdowns.

Raya Kagan
“What I saw undermined my trust in what I had read in books. In hopeless circumstances, when people lose control over themselves, friendship does not strengthen, it disappears”.

Primo Levi
“Living in such a large population was not easy. A hungry and beaten human, a human living in constant uncertainty of tomorrow, a human brutally stripped of everything that seemed necessary to live in times of freedom, becomes specifically nervous and reacts in a totally different fashion, even to the simple facts of everyday life, unlike you and I today, Dear Reader”.

Wanda Brzosko
“There was next to no heart in Auschwitz… Everyone in their greedy selfishness, striving incessantly to live, proceeded without regard for others, not hearing the groans, not looking back, a selfish loner wandering among the corpses”.

Jerzy Pozimski
“Among many prisoners I observe a downward trend as they lose their moral way—and it’s hardly surprising. Bad character traits, kept hidden in normal circumstances, concealed by prosperity, here in the camp come to the fore. Virtues, in turn, disappear… Taken out of the world of regulated relationships, they lose their sense of balance. They become at once audacious and obsequious… Many no longer believe they will ever return to the normal life, that is why there are so many cases of all the misery and doubts being unloaded in petty quarrels… The constant bickering gives rise to mutual hatred and enmity”.

The inability to be alone for at least a moment caused frustration. This nervousness was easier to keep in check in the daytime, during work. When in haste and under the supervision of the kapo, there were few chances for longer interactions with others. At night, however, in moments of longed-for peace, respite, and time to collect one’s thoughts, the overcrowding of the barracks and blocks, the berths and bunks caused a sharp rise in aggression.

Jakub Wolman
“Eventually we went to bed. It was hard to fit three people in a bed like that. Very hard. People were tired, very agitated, any little thing that one normally pays no attention to caused people to cross swords, pick an argument—like rabid dogs, simply put. It was they who turned these people into animals—not just animals, but rabid animals”.

Olga Lengyel
“When the koias were filled to the breaking point, incidents among the internees were all too frequent. During the day, the bedlam which reigned in the barrack made us hate each other. The most peaceful souls were occasionally seized with a desire to strangle their neighbors. At night the exasperation reached its height under the effects of the physical closeness”.

Pelagia Lewińska
“The atmosphere of cohabitation in the block can only be imagined if one remembers that we were three-dimensional human beings not intangible spirits. How could one move, get dressed, undressed, eat, sleep, generally live cramped in such complete darkness? Stepping on someone’s leg, kicking someone’s head while trying to get off or get onto a berth, knocking over a bowl with coffee on a blanket, groping in the dark for you clog and taking someone else’s by mistake, these things were unavoidable. Tired and exhausted, they all had limited patience, so in the block an atmosphere of constant extreme nervousness prevailed”.

Despite the concentration of so many people and a clear common goal shared by everyone—to survive—a social space did form in which human ties could strengthen, deepen, take on mature and stable traits.

Primo Levi
“We Italians had decided to gather every Sunday evening in a corner of the Lager, but we stopped at once, because it was too sad to count our numbers and to find, each time, that we were fewer, and more disfigured and desolate. And it was so tiring to walk those few steps: and then, upon meeting, we would remember and think, and it was better not to”.

On the contrary, instead of tightening human bonds, the concentration camp was a place where they were subjected to specific thinning, weakening and minimizing.

Zofia Kossak
“The casual social relations of pre-camp times, the normal camaraderie of people working together, generally did not withstand the test”.

Heinz Salvator Kounio
“We rarely spoke out. What one could say? We had to pay attention to what we did and become blind to the actions of others. We had to become inhuman in order to survive and, above all, we had to survive. This was the only thing that kept me going. I had to survive”.

Very telling in this respect are the attempts in many accounts to remember the first names and surnames of fellow prisoners from a Kommando, barrack or even the same bunk.

Ajzyk Szwarc
“Regarding the names of the prisoners I worked with, unfortunately, I hardly remember any of their surnames. We usually only knew each other’s first names. I never met any of the prisoners from my Kommando after the war”.

Emotional and empathetic detachment among prisoners increased with the time spent behind barbed wire. This is something new prisoners often could not understand or forgive the “old numbers.” It is because at the start of their concentration camp ordeal people could still promise themselves that they would not succumb to such degradation.

Max Eisen
“I stood and watched as men dove into the canisters headfirst to lick up every remaining drop. I had never seen people act in this way, like a pack of dogs fighting over a piece of meat. I was determined that no matter what happened, I would never stoop to that level”.

After some time, after a person had acquired certain camp experiences, especially after honing one’s everyday short-term goals and fully engaging in one’s own struggle to survive, the problems of others were no longer of interest to anyone else. Even the death of others would not move some prisoners, discernable in many memoirs, such as this description of a scene following the battle of some Muselmänner who wanted to steal soup from other prisoners:

Abraham Kajzer
“Four corpses lay in the square. For a few sips of soup, they paid with their lives. I looked at this scene. It did not make an impression on anyone. It was as if such an incident was something understandable and normal. No one even took the trouble to find out what the names of those killed were”.

It should be noted, however, that these tense nerves and emotional distancing were not the only factors inhibiting interpersonal relations. I have already mentioned many other relevant issues, such as hunger, apathy, dullness or the processes of becoming a Muselmann, but here it should be reminded that external circumstances also did not encourage much openness between prisoners. The camp was an emanation, or even the quintessence of a totalitarian system based on terror, surveillance and total police state oppression. In this respect, the border between the SS and the Politische Abteilung (camp Gestapo) and the prisoners’ world was somewhat fluid. Just as the kapo was a supervisory extension of the SS, so too the Gestapo had its own network spies and informants. Some prisoners were interrogated and tortured. There were also spontaneous denunciations, submitted by prisoners in the hope of at least saving their own lives. Therefore, the system itself and the invisible dangers created an atmosphere where the first rule in interpersonal interactions was mistrust, and overcoming it was a calculated risk to achieve a given purpose.

Władysław Bartoszewski
“Camaraderie existed mainly among those who had arrived in Auschwitz following political investigations. … Ordinary prisoners caught in street roundups, of which I was one, such experienced prisoners treated with caution, having first to identify, investigate and only then accept us. From their point of view, this was perfectly understandable because there could easily be criminals and informants among us”.

Paula Gruber-Herszkopf
“I also came upon a girl with whom I had been at school; she was also there as a non-Jew and was startled to see me. I assured her that I would tell no-one about her origins. I never sought contact with her again so as not to arouse suspicion”.

But it was primarily because everyone was focused on their own daily problems, more than one of which could have been an accelerator of death, the individual primacy of the will to survive, the trivialization of the suffering and evil that was observed and experienced all around on a hardly imaginable scale, along with the above-mentioned loosening of interpersonal ties and relations, as well as, and most likely, the activation of powerful self-defense mechanisms in the minds of experienced prisoners—all of these factors weakened the reactions of prisoners to the problems of others and perhaps a little too hastily could be construed as a form of indifference.

Shlomo Venezia
“Showing solidarity was a luxury that few could afford; a mouthful of food given to someone else was a mouthful less for you…”.

“There was solidarity only when you had enough for yourself; otherwise, you had to be selfish if you were going to survive”.

Zofia Posmysz
“When the murder began, did anyone rush to save the victim? Far from it! We stood there in silence. I stood in silence. No one was pleading for anything. On the contrary. At last a respite, we could rest. That murder went on and on. It seemed to drag on forever, we could hear the reactions of the murdered woman, but for us— above all—it extended our break from work. Invaluable seconds, subsequent minutes to rest”.

Ryszard Friedman
“We watched our fellow prisoners beaten, kicked, hung, tortured and shot. We pushed this reality out of our consciousness with such determination because we hoped it would never happen to us! Or maybe in an effort to preserve out dignity, we should have accepted the inexorable reality? But then we would have to have died with dignity, looking straight into the eyes of the enemy. No! That would be too theatrical. Impossible. So perhaps we are simply cowards? Perhaps, we selfishly tried to save ourselves at the expense of fellow human beings? Such dark, depressing, paradoxical questions were constantly going through my mind”.

The following quote is an indictment against prisoners who had been in the camp for a long time. But maybe that is why it is quite generic in character. It describes the moral cost of survival.

Zofia Kossak
“Every creature’s innate instinct of self-preservation, requiring them save their own life at any cost, makes them predatory and ruthless. This instinct is expressed in the following logic: “If we can only save our lives over the bodies of other female prisoners, let’s trample them! Let the weaker one’s perish!””.

Extreme versions of this “indifference” were often a problem, but sometimes they could, in a sense, be helpful. Much has been written about the camp as a place of dehumanization. This was not only so from the perspective of the SS. The dehumanization also had a real impact on how prisoners perceived each other—basically, as objects.

Zofia Czerwińska-Kossakiewicz
„[During the return from work] blows fall on the head of the one carrying the dead body of her fellow prisoner. At last you can drop that cursed weight that was put on shoulders today and you learn to hate people. And the hatred is so strong that nothing will drown it out”.

Perceiving other prisoners as a threat increased when one had something to hide. Halina Birenbaum’s description below very tellingly shows the virtually characterological changes that occur in people who suddenly come into possession of more than others. Once the decision to only save oneself had been made, other prisoners were viewed at best as pangs of conscience, and at worst the threat of losing what one possessed.

“By chance Basia met a man cousin who was working in the Sonderkommando at the crematorium. This cousin began helping her by sending food or clothes through men who worked in our camp as carpenters, electricians and the like. Members of the crematorium labor details burned corpses at SS orders. They also supervised those condemned to the gas chambers as they undressed and sent their belongings to a labor detail where they were sorted and disinfected before being sent to Germany. So these men always had more than enough to eat, also clothes and even jewellery. Most of them helped relatives and friends in the camp, and sometimes strangers too, if the opportunity arose. Basia obtained various gift packages from her cousin. Some made a considerable impression on her. She immediately stowed them away in her bag and looked after them watchfully. She began avoiding people. She became increasingly taciturn, distant in manner and secretive. She behaved begrudgingly and rudely to her comrades in the underwear factory. To me she spoke peevishly, dismissing my questions or giving elusive answers. After some time, I realized she wanted to get rid of me, so as not to see my hunger”.

Rivalry among prisoners, the prize of which was, at best, a chance at survival because no one could actually guarantee survival, was an everyday experience. It began with the morning roll call, with the forming of Kommandos, the selection of work tools, obtainment of some more soup, gaining the favor of a kapo or block supervisor, a piece of swede found on the way to work, right up to the selection (anti-typhus, for example) so as not to be among those sent to the gas chambers. Descriptions of these selections, where the stress of the competition was most extreme, present very clearly the mutually exclusive struggle of individuals striving to survive.

Viktor Frankl
“The selection process was the signal for a free fight among all the prisoners, or of group against group. All that mattered was that one’s own name and that of one’s friend were crossed off the list of victims, though everyone knew that for each man saved another victim had to be found”.

With all the above-mentioned difficulties in building friendships or any kind of closer relationship, it nevertheless must be stressed that being alone greatly reduced one’s chances of survival in the camp. For who could support a prisoner in moments of doubt or mental breakdown? Who would find medicines or at least an onion when one was sick? Who would share the contents of a received parcel, who would appeal to the block supervisor for another prisoner, hold him or her up when roll call was prolonged? Then again, one still has to remember that in extreme situations, the difference between friendship—a natural feeling in the world of freedom and disinterested choices—and simply having a common purpose, a co-insurance in such a dangerous situation,1035 is not easy to identify and unequivocally define.

Roch Wystrach
“Friendship in the camp was essential. I believe that without friendship, prisoners were very quickly worn down and could not survive the camp. Mutual help was the best resistance movement in the camp, one whose goal it was to survive. Moreover, individuals who did not seek friendship and were not friendly towards others became warped and negative persons in the community; very often they became camp criminals”.

Józefa Szkodzińska
“Friendships varied in the camps; people had seen various things, ones they didn’t tell anyone about, because in the camp there were people with various attitudes, including those who would help if they saw a benefit in it for themselves, then again others only thought about themselves, to survive and not to be hungry—in short, friendships varied”.

From the moment they arrived, Zugangs tried to find relatives, colleagues, friends in this ocean of suffering as a way to experience anything resembling a community.

Jerzy Brandhuber
“Prisoners in the camp lived in groups. This was a necessity conditioned by the prevailing situation in the camp. It was very difficult to get by without colleagues and friends. This was particularly strongly felt by newcomers”.

Maurice Cling
“Quarantine, with all its brutality, was basically tolerable, despite the grueling exercises and the distressing concerns about the future. I owe this to my older brother, but also to companions from France who formed a small, tightknit, relatively supportive community”.

Henryk Jaworski
“My Father and Brother also died because of the selection. Depressed and heartbroken by the experience, I wandered around camp in search of colleagues who could help put me back on my feet again. I met my primary school teacher Jan Redziej, who was also looking for us. He took great care of me, giving me a bowl of soup and piece of bread every other day”.

Despite all the adversities that I, examples of camaraderie and friendship did not disappear, but perhaps rather changed their scope of influence. There were things that people could provide to each other, and there were things beyond everyone’s reach. Apart from the purely emotional sphere, concentration camp reality required prisoners to form temporary or slightly longer-lasting alliances. The structures of these alliances in the male camp were somewhat different from those in the female camp. This is very apparent in survivors’ memoirs, and it seems to reflect the differences between school classes dominated by boys and those dominated by girls. In this context, it would seem fairly natural. In the men’s camp, small groups were formed of men who had similar backgrounds, experiences and convictions. Though small, these were open and inclusive groups, whose membership frequently changed. Belonging to one of these groups did not exclude also belonging to another group. In the women’s camp by contrast, groups of several women would form which were very exclusive. These were sometimes called “families.”

Ludwik Rajewski
“Despite the harvest of death and the sheer poverty of the prisoner masses, already in the first months of my stay in the camp (October-December 1940), a division into groups began to be clearly defined. There were groups of military professionals, both left-wing and right-wing. Particularly astonishing was the behavior of some of the military men who spoke openly about an illegal organization, not taking into account the fact that they had found themselves inside a death camp”.

Another specific binder of groups was that of political ideas. This particularly concerned the communists, who identified and supported each other, sharing a belief in the rebuilding of a world that in their opinion would be just.

Raphael Esrail
“Another specific binder of groups was that of political ideas. This particularly concerned the communists, who identified and supported each other, sharing a belief in the rebuilding of a world that in their opinion would be just. Ideological commitment played a role, especially among the communists. For those deported, both Jews and non-Jews, “functionaries” and ordinary Häftlinge, their political commitment was decisive. They were able to create a solidarity that could really save them”.

Bożena Krzywobłocka
“Ada Jaranowska was a liaison officer for Comrade Logi-Sowiński. She was from Łódź. She was a communist and belonged to the communist collective, which was based in block 5. … I sometimes participated in the meetings of the collective. … During the celebration of the October Revolution, despite having a fever, I recited Broniewski’s “Paris Commune” in block 5. Irka Szczypiorska recited Svetlova’s “Grenada.” Later we sang revolutionary songs. At the celebration, there was also Dr Lubow, who gave a speech. It all happened at night”.

Another natural axis for creating interpersonal relations were the Kommandos. In blocks and barracks, the prisoners slept, but they spent most of their waking hours working together in the Kommandos. Particularly in the better Kommandos where the work required human interaction and was not especially exhausting, there were many occasions to establish and tighten relationships between specific prisoners.

Aleksander Giermański
“Those who had managed to get into a good Kommando, also tried to arrange for their friends in need to join the same Kommando”.

Tadeusz Żaboklicki
“Working for a long in the same Kommando, I soon struck up friendships with those colleagues I could trust”.

Michał Ziółkowski
“I, for example, worked in the Kommandantur Reinigung, and Eugeniusz Niedojadło worked in the SS Ward near to my place of work. I wasn’t a Muselmann and he wasn’t a Muselmann. So, we contacted each other. This contact between old prisoners was more intensive than with the others”.

A different social model—as mentioned—emerged in the women’s camp. The women prisoners formed emotionally very closely-knit groups called families”, which were clearly separated from the rest of the prisoner community. Each such group contained almost an entire world of cultural exchange, empathy, mutual support, solidarity and sacrifice. These prisoners divided the world into the internal one of their “family” and the external world, which was alien, hostile or at best indifferent. Such groups were formed by women from all parts Europe, of various cultures, religions and nationalities. I do not believe this phenomenon can be reduced to that particular generation of women, which was far more socially restricted than it is today, beginning with the right to appear alone in public areas, to studying at universities and publicly expressing political opinions. It seems to me that this group model must have come from certain anthropological depths, a kind of atavism, the need to form basic social cells that were close to, or represented female human nature. This would seem to be especially true because such groups did not appear anywhere within the men’s camp, regardless of the region, culture or religion of the prisoners. So, what was the meaning of this model?

Eva Libitzky
“But I did not feel alone in Auschwitz. From the beginning I formed, a close bond with four other Jewish girls from my transport, about my age. We didn’t know the English phrase “All for one, and one for all,” but that described us perfectly”.

Kitty Hart-Moxon
“One acquired some bread, another found a handkerchief or a pencil and some scraps of paper, another a mug of water. Members of a group helped each other and defied the rest. Outside the family there had to be bribery; within there was love and mutual help”.

Zofia Kossak
“Friendship was a wonderful gift from God. It helped the united little group get through trials and tribulations without breaking down, without feeling the captivity. For at any moment they could achieve the illusion that they were free, that they could think as if they were free, speak as if they were free, imagine that they could fly over the barbed wire fence, live a former or a future life. It effectively countered the destructive atmosphere of the camp. Women belonging to such a group were really privileged and worthy of envy, much more so than those wallowing in expensive products. But such groups were rare”.

This does not mean that apart from “families” there were no normal friendships between two people in the women’s camp. Such friendships did exist, with all the reservations taken from the men’s camp, for it is difficult to distinguish between genuine friendship and a mutually beneficial security arrangement.

Ester Friedman
“With time, I realized that someone who was alone had no chance of survival, whereas the one who had friends and tried to be with others had a greater chance in the struggle for life. He had support; he could count on the help of others. That is why friendship was so important”.

Pelagia Lewińska
“My friend and I promised each other that as the ultimate proof of mutual devotion we would never let the other die in the mud. Unbelievable, isn’t it? The ultimate proof of friendship was to give someone a hand when they have fallen into the mud? Actually, it was. Dragging someone out of the mud meant taking the risk of remaining with that person in the mud”.

Against the background of quite objective difficulties in building closer interpersonal relationships, there are of course many examples showing that acts of altruism truly existed, breaking all barriers and stereotypies, involving incredible dedication. It would neither be good nor honest if the above examples were to obscure this truth. The following quote shows that friendship could break national and political barriers as well as those intrinsic to the concentration camp. Józef Polak, a prisoner functionary, kept the Soviet Lieutenant General Dmitry Karbyshev in hiding as his Stubendienst, unidentified by the Gestapo:

Józef Polak
“As a block writer in the vicinity of the Soviet prisoners’ block, I often visited them, and they often visited me because I was very much befriended with many of them”.

Bolesław Dziewięcki
“When I first received such a beautiful parcel, people swarmed me, even those I didn’t know. For example, a beggar from Jędrzejów, here with a shaved head, he looked quite human. There was also a Jew, an elderly man called Księski. I broke off a little bit, very reluctantly because his truck had killed my sister Hela. We failed to win the trial because the Jew was wealthy”.

However, we should be careful not to exaggerate in the opposite direction. The camp did not exclusively comprise heroes who had managed through the anonymous prisoner masses to reach history textbooks and public awareness. The histories of Kolbe, Pilecki, Gradowski, Cyrankiewicz, Vrba, Leszczyńska or Küsel are not typical, nor representative histories of the uschwitz prisoner. And this is not so much about a sociological mean, as about the sheer scale of human experience.

Antoni Golemo
“Apart from the noble cases of mutual, often quite heroic dedication to others, the average prisoner, thrown into the degradation of humanity, terrible conditions, the dirt, the misery and hunger, the relentless struggle to survive, turned into a virtual beast, not caring about anything other than staying alive and trying remain in the background, sometimes in a most despicable way. God, I have seen so many terrifying examples of this that with some bitter irony I recall Gorky’s adage “man, how proud that word sounds,” since, with a few extreme exceptions, it could hardly apply to any instances in the camp”.

This was the fifth episode of the podcast based on the book by Dr Piotr Cywiński ‘Auschwitz. A Monograph on the Human’.
Read by: Grey Stafford

The voices of the survivors were provided by volunteer narrators from the Auschwitz Memorial:
Toon Dreessen
Sarah Edwards
Greg Littlefield
Mike Skagerlind
Michael Takiff
Tom Vamos
Kate Weinrieb
and Therese McLaughlin

Adaptation for the podcast: Agnieszka Juskowiak-Sawicka
Introduction words: Paweł Sawicki
Music: JivexMusic

Testimonies and memories used into the podcast:
Jadwiga Apostoł-Staniszewska (26273), „Echa okupacyjnych lat”, p. 315.
Jan Marszałek (18857), cited in: Ryn, Kłodziński (20019), „Śmierć”, p. 63.
Maxime Antelin (145808), “Chronique maladroite d’un candide”, p. 43.
Suzan Cernyak-Spatz (34042), “Protective Custody”, p. 160.
Miklosz Nyiszli (A 8450), “I Was Doctor Mengele’s Assistant”, p. 78.
Ratya Kagan (7984), “Des femmes au bureau de l’enfer”, p. 295.
Adam Ziemba (21855), “A Piece of Bread”, p. 7.
Wanda Brzosko (64404), Account in: Memoirs, vol. 71, p. 21.
Jerzy Pozimski (1099), Account in: Memoirs, vol. 52, p. 176.
Jakub Wolman (33611), Testimonies in the trial of Rudolf Höss [IPN GK 196/87]:
Chronicles of Terror, vol. 5, p. 113.
Olga Lengyel (25403), “Five Chimneys”, p. 40.
Pelagia Lewińska (32292), “Oświęcim”, p. 29.
Primo Levi (174517), “If This Is a Man”, p. 33.
Zofia Kossak (64491), “Z otchłani”, p. 90.
Heinz Salvator Kounio (109565), “A Liter of Soup and Sixty Grams of Bread. The Diary of Prisoner Number 109565” (New York: Bloch Publishing, 2003), pp. 54-55.
Ajzyk Szwarc (92811), Account in: Testimonies, vol. 33, p. 103.
Max Eisen (A-9892), “By Chance Alone”, pp. 87-88.
Abraham Kajzer (n.n.), „Za drutami śmierci”, p. 35.
Władysław Bartoszewski (4427), “Mój Auschwitz”, p. 27.
Paula Gruber-Herszkopf (n.n.), “Lasting Pain”, p. 117.
Shlomo Venezia (182727), “Inside the Gas Chambers”, p. 101.
Ibid., p. 100.
Zofia Posmysz (7566), „Królestwo za mgłą”, p. 102.
Ryszard Friedman (B-4112), „Jeden spośród wielu” (Kraków: Znak, 2017), p. 183-184.
Zofia Kossak (64491), „Z otchłani”, p. 88.
Zofia Czerwińska-Kossakiewicz (49973), Account in: Memoirs, vol. 16, p. 46.
Halina Birenbaum (48693), “Hope Is the Last to Die”, pp. 147-148.
Victor Frankl (119104), “Man’s Search For Meaning”, p. 18.
Roch Wystrach (10241), cited in: Jagoda, Kłodziński (20019), Masłowski, “Przyjaźnie oświęcimskie,” p. 67.
Józefa Szkodzińska (32293), cited in: Jagoda, Kłodziński (20019), Masłowski, “Przyjaźnie oświęcimskie,” p. 43.
Jerzy Brandhuber (87122), Account in: Testimonies, vol. 76, p. 151.
Maurice Cling (A-5151), „Wy, co wchodzicie tutaj”, p. 86.
Henryk Jaworski (31071), Account in: Testimonies, vol. 13, p. 87.
Ludwik Rajewski (4217), Account in: Testimonies, vol. 21, p. 107.
Raphael Esrail (173295), “L’espérance d’un baiser”, p. 133.
Bożena Krzywobłocka (83264), Account in: Testimonies, vol. 15, p. 84.
Aleksander Giermański (716), Account in: Testimonies, vol. 74, p. 200.
Tadeusz Żaboklicki (21668), Account in: Testimonies, vol. 78, s. 146. The Kommando referred to here was the carpenters’ Kommando.
Michał Ziółkowski (1055), “Byłem od początku w Auschwitz”, p. 29.
Eva Libitzky (n.n.), “Out on a Ledge” (River Forest: Wicker Park Press, 2010), p. 114.
Hart-Moxon (39934), “Return to Auschwitz”, pp. 79-80.
Zofia Kossak (64491), „Z otchłani”, p. 89.
Ryszard Friedman (A-26615), „Daleka droga do domu”, p. 80.
Pelagia Lewińska (32292), “Oświęcim”, p. 34.
Józef Polak (3288), Account in: Testimonies, vol. 12a, p. 186.
Bolesław Dziewięcki (125546), „Z dna piekła”, p. 50.
Antoni Golemo (9256), cited in: Jagoda, Kłodziński (20019), Masłowski, “Przyjaźnie oświęcimskie,” pp. 42-43.