Expulsions of the local population of Oświecim

Transcription of the podcast

Before the war, Oświęcim was a town inhabited mainly by Poles and Jews. During the Second World War it was annexed to Germany and the name of the town was changed to Auschwitz. At the end of 1939 the town had a population of over 12,500 people, about half of whom were Jews. Near Oświęcim there were several villages, which in December of 1939 were incorporated into the German administrative unit of Stadtbezirk Auschwitz. About 13,000 people lived in these villages. Due to the establishment and expansion of the Auschwitz camp, several thousand Polish and Jewish residents of Oświęcim and nearby villages were forced to leave their homes. In the “On Auschwitz” podcast, we share fragments of testimonies from witnesses and their relatives about these events.

From the testimony of Zofia Przybyłowska, en expelled resident of Bór
Life went on as usual. My father worked in the mine, my mother worked on the land. There wasn’t much land, but the family had to be fed. So she grew grain, potatoes, and beets. And of course, there was also small-scale farming. My mother had a cow and poultry: turkeys, chickens, ducks. Just as it used to be on a farm.

From the testimony of Piotr Bielenin, who’s mother’s family was expelled from Harmęże
The family lived in the house: my grandparents, who had seven children, of whom five survived. My mother was the youngest. When the Second World War broke out, she was seven years old and was about to start school. My grandfather’s brother, who was unmarried, also lived with them. My grandfather worked in a mine. He also had a talent for various kinds of work. He was a mason as well, so he did many things around the house himself. That’s how they were able to build that house.

From the testimony of Helena Grzesło, en expelled resident of Polanka Wielka
Well, my father was a farmer. We lived in Polanka Wielka. There were nine of us siblings.

From the testimony of Aleksander Karkoszka, en expelled resident of Brzezinka
My grandfather had a huge house. My grandmother lived there with the whole family, and her sister as well. Since he was the village head and owned property, they lacked nothing. Everything was destroyed.

From the testimony of Józefa Handzlik, en expelled resident of Brzezinka
A very large house. Two workshops. A huge icehouse. Back then there were no refrigerators, only icehouses. Ice was brought in by horse-drawn carts, in great slabs. There was also a newly built barn. Overall, it was a large farm.

From the testimony of Sabina Rosenbach, en expelled resident of Oświęcim
The Jewish and Catholic population of Oświęcim lived at a high standard. Everything changed in September 1939 with the outbreak of the war.

From the testimony of Marian Górnicki, en expelled resident of Oświęcim
I knew many Jews. There was one who lived on our street and had built a new house. It was one of the most beautiful houses in Oświęcim, with semicircular balconies. It was almost completely destroyed in the bombing. My father had a Jewish friend named Jurkowski. He was a very decent man. He was a bookbinder and an avid fisherman. My father was a fisherman too, so they fished together. He would come to pick up my father. He always remembered my birthdays and name days and would bring me a gift.

Sabina Rosenbach
Before I started school, we lived at the corner by the Hertz Hotel. Later, we moved to 8 Sienkiewicza Street. My father ran the Orbis office on the market square, at the corner of Piłsudskiego Street, in the Hertz Hotel. He also owned a textile and haberdashery shop, where both wholesale and retail sales were conducted. My mother sometimes helped in the shop. I attended Queen Jadwiga Primary School. Relations between Jews and other residents of Oświęcim were very good.

From the testimony of Ewa Neiger, en expelled resident of Oświęcim
On the day the war broke out, Friday, 1 September 1939, a large part of the Jewish population fled Oświęcim out of fear of the Germans. Poles fled as well..

Marian Górnicki
In 1939, I was supposed to go to school for the first time, but that never happened, because at five in the morning the first German bomb fell on my school.

Sabina Rosenbach
On the first day after the outbreak of the war, Oświęcim was bombed. There were casualties. At the beginning, the Germans deported priests and members of the intelligentsia..

Marian Górnicki
Instead of going to school, two days later we fled with the family. By the family, I mean my mother and my sisters.

Ewa Neiger
I also fled on foot toward Kraków.

Zofia Przybyłowska
People didn’t know what to do. Among the neighbors, everyone believed they should go east, that they might find shelter there and escape the war. The wandering began. Air raids began. No one secured lodging or a place to stay.

From the testimony of Wanda Saternus, en expelled resident of Broszkowice
We kept walking, walking, walking. We were already near Ojców. There was a lot of movement. Wagons were passing, and suddenly two planes came. They swooped very low. And then they opened fire with machine guns. Everyone ran. There were wide open fields, no houses, only along the road. Everyone ran into the tobacco fields, into the crops. People hid there. Those who didn’t make it in time were hit. One man lay there. A cow torn apart, a boy killed.

Sabina Rosenbach 
The people in the small towns we passed turned out to be wonderful. They stood by the road and, when evening came, invited us to stay the night without taking any money. They spread fresh straw on the floor for us. They gave the bed to our parents. They welcomed us with all their hearts.

Marian Górnicki 
Military supply wagons were moving along the road for miles, and no one else was allowed onto it. Someone started shouting that we had to run, quickly, because the Germans were already behind us, with tanks coming. Forests were burning on all sides, and we were moving through those burning woods.

From the testimony of Sylwia Bachner, en expelled resident of Oświęcim
After the outbreak of the war, all Jews from Oświęcim evacuated to the east. They did not get far, because the Germans occupied Oświęcim as early as 3 or 4 September 1939, and people began to return.

Sabina Rosenbach
On the way, we saw burned people lying on the sides of the roads. I will never forget that image. For the first time in my life, I saw dead people. Their bodies lay burned, like black logs. We stopped in Kolbuszowa and decided to return. My father’s family from Tarnów advised us not to go back. They told us that the Germans were taking well-known people as hostages.

Wanda Saternus
Some came back after a month, some after a week, and some never returned at all, because their houses had been destroyed. They settled somewhere else, wherever they could.

Marian Górnicki
We reached Oświęcim on foot in the afternoon, already late in the day. When we arrived home, everyone was already there. My father had come first, then my mother with my sisters, and two hours after my mother, we returned. It was already towards the end of September.

Sabina Rosenbach
We returned home at the end of 1939. The apartment and the shop were intact. My mother’s sister had taken care of them. There was little food, but in exchange for fabrics, one could get potatoes from farmers.

At the end of 1940 the German authorities, while implementing their plans for the Germanisation of the region of Upper Silesia, carried out the resettlement of the Jewish population from the western to the eastern part of the Katowice district, including into the town of Oświęcim. As a result, the Jewish population of the city increased at the end of 1940, but began to decline at the beginning of 1941, as Jews were displaced and sent to labour camps located in Silesia.

From the testimony of Anna Hönig, en expelled resident of Oświęcim
The population decreased, but the loss was offset and even exceeded in 1940, as Jews from the surrounding villages were forced into Oświęcim. Rumors spread that the entire population of Oświęcim would be expelled, as it was forbidden to live in the vicinity of a concentration camp.

After the decision was made in the spring of 1940 to establish a concentration camp in the buildings of the former Polish army barracks in Oświęcim, the German authorities expelled about 1,200 Poles. 1,200 Poles who lived in the so-called barrack settlement, located in the immediate vicinity of the army barracks, next to the railway siding that had been taken over for the needs of the newly created camp. The expulsion of the residents was intended to remove potential witnesses and to isolate the camp area from the civilian population. After the removal of the inhabitants from the barrack settlement, the Germans began further expulsions of Polish and Jewish residents from one of the districts of Oświęcim -Zasole, as well as from part of the village of Brzezinka. Further expulsions of the population beginning at the end of 1940 were connected with the creation of the so-called zone of interest of the Auschwitz camp. These expulsions included the nearby villages of Broszkowice, Babice, Brzezinka, Pławy, Harmęże, Rajsko, Bór and Budy. The German authorities took over the houses and all property belonging to the expelled residents. Most of the houses were demolished, while some were handed over for the use of the SS.

Józefa Handzlik
No one expected that there would be resettlement, that we would be expelled. No one expected it.

From the testimony of Helena Mataniak, en expelled residence of Oświęcim
In the spring of 1940, the Germans established a concentration camp on the grounds of the former Polish Army barracks. The residents of the barracks located near the camp received a notice that everyone had to leave. There was no possibility of appeal. Some tried to intervene with the German mayor – unsuccessfully. We were in a desperate situation. No alternative accommodation was provided; everyone had to arrange their relocation on their own. Almost everyone complied with the order. We found shelter in the unfinished house of Józef Oleksiewicz’s son-in-law in Jawiszowice. Since the house was still unfinished, we stayed in the basement. Only after a few months, thanks to the help of neighbors, was the building somewhat completed, and only then could we move into the rooms.

Sabina Rosenbach
Jews who lived near the camp were relocated to the part of the town divided by the Soła River.

From the testimony of Tauba Grünn, en expelled residence of Oświęcim
In this way, the entire Zasole district was cleared of Jews. Three to four families lived in one room.

Józefa Handzlik
Then came 1941, and they slowly began to expel people.

Marian Górnicki
I remember one of those Jewish women saying: now it’s you, and we will probably be next. We were expelled earlier than they were.

From the testimony of Maria Gawron, en expelled residence of Babice
It must have been Holy Week. They were taking us away, expelling us. All of Babice was evacuated, Brzezinka, the surrounding villages as well. And we were taken too.

From the testimony of Janina Stawowy, en expelled residence of Bór
Before the expulsion, the Germans made lists of who was to be taken away and who was to stay.

Zofia Przybyłowska
Maybe it was a month earlier. When they were recording who lived in each house, they marked the houses with a red or green cross.

Janina Stawowy
An employee would walk with two buckets of paint and mark them. An official read out the number, the name – red, green, and so on.

Zofia Przybyłowska
Our house was marked with a green cross. My parents did not know what it meant, whether it meant deportation. Only when a gendarme came in April with an order to leave the house did people later learn, already during the displacement, that those who worked in the mines or had jobs locally had green crosses on their houses. That meant their labor was needed.

Janina Stawowy
Those who worked were needed here – railway workers, miners, or others – so they stayed. The official and the worker marked the houses. Those who were to stay got a green cross, and those who were to be deported got a red cross. It was painted with a brush on the wall near the entrance.

Zofia Przybyłowska
Farmers who did not work anywhere were marked with a red cross and were deported to the General Government.

Janina Stawowy
My parents were farmers. Farmers would not be needed, because the land would be taken for the camp – there were already plans to expand the camp. All those who were not needed, who did not work, were to be removed so as not to overcrowd the area. Several villages – Brzezinka, Babice, Pławy, Harmęże, and Bór – were to be cleared for the camp expansion. People had to be expelled from these areas.

Zofia Przybyłowska
Our house had a green cross because my father worked in a mine, and my eldest brother, twelve-year-old Ireneusz, worked in a bakery.

Józefa Handzlik
And of course they expelled us, and my mother had a heart attack. My brothers took whatever they could, but how could everything be taken when we had such a large farm?

From the testimony of Sylwester Szałaśny, en expelled resident of Bór
It was in spring, early in the morning. Trucks full of soldiers arrived and settled near our barn. I remember they brought out a table, and a man came out – he had a riding crop in his hand, an SS man, tall, red-faced. I remember him as if it were today. He sat at that table and assigned soldiers, where they should go and whom to gather. Houses were marked with red and green crosses. People could only take what they could carry.

From the testimony of Krystyna Szałaśny, en expelled resident of Babice
We had less than two hours, and everything had to go onto the cart. Not everything could be taken – my mother said we were only allowed to take personal belongings.

Zofia Przybyłowska
We could take only what we could carry in our hands and had to leave the house for the address indicated on the paper. It was simply an order to leave. But earlier, they ordered that all livestock – cows, calves, poultry – had to be taken quickly to Mr. Szałaśny’s yard, about 200–250 meters from our house.

From the testimony of Wanda Patyna, en expelled resident of Babice
They loaded onto carts whatever they wanted, and what they didn’t want they kept for themselves. They took the key, and they were the authority. They even took the chickens, the eggs, the cows, the pigs, the piglets – everything from the house.

Zofia Przybyłowska
We had a dog, and it had to be left behind. After handing over the livestock, they returned and went towards Brzeszcze, because they had been ordered to stay with the Włoch family.

Sylwester Szałaśny
They drove all the livestock together. My father had a large orchard, fenced in. The commandant of the agricultural camp, Schwarz – that was his name – was in charge of the whole resettlement. Horses, cows, pigs, everything were driven into the orchard. People took only what they could carry in bundles, were loaded onto trucks, and driven away.

Janina Stawowy
On that day, my mother and I were feeding the pigs. Wanda and Staszka had gone to the retreat service, they were in church, but the church was closed. People shoted that they heard that there was an expulsion, so they ran quickly home. They burst into the house, heard about the expulsion, and ran away immediately. They fled just as they were dressed, toward Harmęże, running across the fields. My mother and I, my mother still in her barn shoes, tried to escape behind the bushes, away from the house. We probably all would have escaped, but my father wanted to hurry, he was harnessing the horse and trying quickly to grab a few things, and he didn’t manage. My mother and I ran as far as what was called “the border,” a field bordering Harmęże. Then, after we had escaped, they caught my father. A car had already driven into the yard and they saw that the farmer was fleeing, and they shouted “Halt, halt.” A soldier ran out with a rifle, and of course they took him back and put him into the car. We were not at home. My mother and I had escaped to that border and hid there, my sisters had fled too, only my father was caught. They took only him.

Helena Grzesło
An order came to pack within a few hours and leave the house. So we carried everything outside in front of the house, and then a cart came for us. Whatever could be loaded onto that cart, that was what we took. Only the driver and my mother sat on the cart, because my brother was very small, and all the rest of us walked behind it to Polanka Górna, to the school. There was a German commission there, and they checked everything and gave us a number showing where we were to go. Then we left from Polanka Górna. We were assigned a number for Malec.

Janina Stawowy
They took people to Oświęcim, to the so-called roofing felt factory. It was a closed factory where there were these covered halls, and they brought the displaced people there, with their bundles, whatever they had.

From the testimony of Henryk Kuczek, an expelled resident of Polanka Wielka
Eighteen families from Polanka were deported to Germany. Entire families, with children, with everything. Some families were sent to Malec, to Bielany, to Łęki, and to Grojec. They were scattered there, and the rest remained in Polanka. Some stayed in their own houses, others, whose houses had been taken by a Bauer, were moved to a neighbor’s house, where they lived and worked. The Bauers took over the farms, before the war our farms had been small, six to eight hectares, up to ten hectares, but they had farms of forty hectares, such large farms. So four or five of our farms were combined into one. And the rest of the people worked for the Bauers.

Helena Grzesło
My father was assigned to a Polish farmer. There were two or three farmers there who lived from agriculture. Otherwise they were poor people. Because he ended up there, he had it quite good, and we did not go hungry.

Henryk Kuczek
My father’s farm was shared between two Bauers. Part of the land went to one, and part to the other. And the building was taken by the military. They used our house because they had civilian workers and there was all sorts of work to be done there. Since it was in the orchard and they were building bunkers, they used our building for the workers. They lived in our house. My father and the family were expelled to the neighbor’s house, and they lived there.

From the testimony of Maria Jurczyk, en expelled resident of Osiek
A man came for us with a ladder wagon. He should have come with a box wagon or one with side panels, not with a ladder wagon. How can you put anything on a ladder wagon? And anyway we were not allowed to take much, only the things my mother had in chests and boxes, just that. Otherwise nothing, no beds, no furniture, nothing was allowed. Everything had to be left behind.

Wanda Patyna
It is difficult, really. There was such commotion, so much crying, so much wailing, it’s hard to describe. House after house it went on. No one had anything to say. Afterwards, they wouldn’t even dare set foot there.

Maria Gawron
I know we only took some things onto the cart. One of my mother’s cousins came with the horse and took them. I know there was the kitchen cupboard, the beds, a wardrobe, and a sewing machine. And my mother was there with the children, with Halinka, with Józio. Soldiers were there, watching what we were taking.

Janina Stawowy
My mother and I did not want to go back into the house. Later my sister came back from that school as well. And we went to the neighbors. We sat in that house. We no longer went back to our own house because we were afraid to enter it. That night my father came back for us. My mother took us, and we went to that felt factory. Just as we were. We had nothing. The animals were left behind, and they probably collected them the next day.

Marian Górnicki
The expulsion took place on 6 March 1941. It was around lunchtime. My mother had almost served dinner. We were eating the first course, I even remember it, it was broth with potatoes. They made us get up from the table and did not allow us to finish. They pulled out a list, checked whether we were all on it, and told us to leave the house. My father was searched, and they took the money he had on him. They did not let my mother or my father go near the wardrobe. We had to leave just as we were. In the kitchen, there was an ottoman under the window, covered with a proper wool blanket, and my mother jumped to it, tore the blanket off, and threw it over herself. The German soldier started shouting at her. But my mother said, “What do you think, that I am going out into this frost in just a dress?” He waved his hand and said nothing. As for me, by the door my mother put on me a sheepskin coat I had. I could not take it in my hands, so she just pulled it onto me. My father took a hat from the hanger and put it on, he was still in his jacket, as he had been dressed. And they led us at gunpoint to Kościuszko Square. On Kościuszko Square there were already covered trucks waiting. They made us climb onto one of those trucks. Then more people came. When the truck was full, we set off. It drove toward the railway station. They took us to a former car factory. There was straw spread on the concrete floor, and that is where they put us. In the morning they brought a train. An officer stood in front of it with a list and pointed to which carriage each family should enter. They put us into one of the carriages. When the train was full, we set off in an unknown direction. It was a cold train, unheated. We were all shivering from the cold, huddling together.

Janina Stawowy
I think it was the next day, the train. There were twenty carriages, and it was made up of passenger cars. The train was brought to the platform in Oświęcim. Everyone got into the carriages one by one and took seats. We arrived in Gorlice. There again we got off the train, in a long line, of course with soldiers on both sides. Some were taken to the synagogue, and some, when there was probably no room left, to the school. The village heads from nearby villages had been summoned. And all the village heads received assignments for these displaced families.

Marian Górnicki
Each farmer was obligated to take in one family and provide them with a place to live. These were farmers with larger houses. We were taken to Łużna. The owner’s name was Śliwa. I remember a tall man taking us in. He gave us a small room, maybe sixteen or seventeen square meters. And in that little room we had to live, my mother, father, me, my sister, and the two children my mother had brought with her. Because when my sister was in the hospital, my mother had to take in those two children of that sick sister. And their grandmother, who had also been expelled with them, got a little room in the house next door. When my sister returned, one of those children died a very short time later.

Janina Stawowy
The village head assigned the families who were to receive the displaced people. He sent a cart for us. We were assigned to Kryg. That was the name of the village. A young fellow came, Jan, maybe nineteen years old. His name was Sajchta. He came, took our family, and he knew from the village head where he was supposed to take us. We entered there. It was March. Where we had come from there was almost no snow anymore, but there, there was still snow. Through the ceiling, you could see boards laid in such a way that you could see the roof and still some snow there. There was no floor, only beaten earth. There was a stove for cooking, but there were no stove plates. Of course, there was nothing else there. And there we were, with a bag, a sweater, a dress, and we were supposed to live there. My mother burst into tears. She embraced us and said, “What are we to do? How are we going to live here? What are we to do?” My father stood to the side, and that Janek Sajchta saw my mother’s despair. He was such a good young man, really, although I later heard he had died. He took my mother by the shoulders, asked us to step outside, and then invited us into their own house.

Marian Górnicki
We stayed in Łużna for about two months. My father and I went around the farms and repaired harnesses, for which we received food and a little money. In the evening the farmer’s wife would always pour milk into a can and give us half a loaf of bread. We carried it back to my mother, my sisters, and the children. After two months, when my father had saved a little money, he wrote to his sister in Congress Poland, in Pilica, the town he came from. His sister said there were still some land there that she had not managed to sell before the war, because she was already living in Klucze. Klucze was already beyond the border, in the Reich, while Pilica was in the General Government. We were allowed to move around within the General Government, so we could go to Pilica. The family home was still there. So we went. The family came together immediately. Each person brought what they could, a bed, another bed, some bedding. And that is how we began to live there.

Wanda Saternus
The Germans came to expel Broszkowice, because they had made the camp and needed prisoners, so Broszkowice had to be emptied. They took three or four families from that side and ordered them to leave immediately. They had to go, because the Germans came with rifles. One came to us shouting, “Los, los, Schweinepolen, Was machst du,” yelling terribly. We still had unfinished rooms there. There was an old brick stove. My mother had a jar full of eggs there. He took a pickaxe and smashed it, and the eggs just splattered. I remember he knocked down the whole stove, smashed everything. Then my father took us across the Soła, because the Soła was shallow, and we packed what needed to be packed and went. He went into town. He must have had some contacts there, I suppose. He found a place on Solna Street, across the bridge, with a man called Paździor. He had a wife, they were older people already, and we were given a basement flat. They gave us a kitchen and a room.

Janina Stawowy
We got off at the Brzeszcze station and went to Nazieleńce, because my father had a brother there. They had only two finished rooms in an unfinished house. There really wasn’t any room to live. But at least it was somewhere to stay. There was no address, no apartment officially. We lived, so to speak, unregistered, unofficially. But my father had been a miner before he became a farmer, before he got married. He went to the mine director, and the director gladly took him on. Once my father started working, he could be officially registered, because he was now an employee and a resident of Brzeszcze, so we needed a place to live. They assigned us a small kitchen room, because there was terrible overcrowding. As I have already mentioned, everyone from the surrounding villages had settled there, and it was terribly cramped. There was not a single free room anywhere. But they gave them such a small kitchen somewhere on Zielona Street, in a place called Kurcabów. At least then there was an address, and it was known that they lived there. They were registered in Brzeszcze. My sisters escaped to Upper Silesia, where they found work as servants on farms. My youngest sister Marysia stayed with our grandmother in Brzeszcze. My mother took me to Oświęcim, to my aunt. They lived on Solna Street. I lived in the first house from the Soła on Solna Street.

Aleksander Karkoszka
In 1941 the expulsions had already begun. I will never forget it. We were still in Brzezinka and passing along the main street where the Jews had their shops and so on. They were bringing our neighbors from Pławy in trucks. They said goodbye to us in tears. They began the expulsions. Pławy, Harmęże, then later Brzezinka, Babice, and so on. Most people wanted to go to Silesia, to Bieruń or Jedlina, so they moved there. And because my father was a railway worker, and the railway workers... well, that was how it had been assigned, we moved to Oświęcim. Everyone from the station went to Oświęcim. Only temporarily, because it was already decided to how long we would be allowed to stay in Oświęcim.

At the beginning of 1941 a decision was made to remove the Jewish population from Oświęcim. Those considered fit for work were deported to labour camps in Silesia and the Żywiec region, while others were sent to the general government. Most of the Jewish population was expelled in early April of 1941 to Sosnowiec, Będzin and Chrzanów. Their houses were taken over by the German authorities and Jewish institutions were dissolved. Most Jews from Oświęcim were sent to ghettos and from there sometime later they were deported to Auschwitz, where the majority of them were murdered in gas chambers.

Ewa Neiger
In 1941, at Easter, at Passover, the complete expulsion of the entire Jewish population of Oświęcim took place. This action lasted more than a week. The community sent out notices. You were allowed to take everything, but as a rule people left the furniture to its fate. The Jews of Oświęcim were resettled to Sosnowiec and Będzin. The wealthy and those who had relatives in Chrzanów tried to get there. The transports went on passenger trains. I was resettled to Sosnowiec. Later I managed to get registered in Chrzanów and went there.

Aleksander Karkoszka
For me it was such an experience, like I said, the beginning of the war. Because I lived on the second floor opposite the castle, and all those streets were entirely Jewish. And all those Jews with their families were driven out of those houses in a single day. I saw mothers walking with children like that, in tears. They were not allowed to take anything. And all of them, an uncountable crowd, went toward the bridge and then to the station.

Tauba Grünn
With heavy hearts, people loaded their belongings onto freight wagons that took the people and their possessions to Sosnowiec.

Sabina Rosenbach
There were posters announcing in advance the expulsion of the Jews, and they also gave the dates of the deportations. We did not know the reasons for this action. One could take whatever one wanted, but not everyone could afford to transport everything they wished to take. Some of the Jews were expelled to Chrzanów. Most, however, went to Będzin and Sosnowiec, where Jews arranged rooms with other families for those who had been expelled.

From the testimonies of Abraham and Jerzy Feiner, expelled residents of Oświęcim
Then the expulsion began. People worked through the nights and days, loading things onto those carts. They still allowed people to take belongings. And they mostly went to Będzin, to Sosnowiec.

From the testimony of Lola Bodner, en expelled resident of Oświęcim
One day they took all of us to the square to stamp our identity papers. We knew this was another trap, because the Germans demanded tribute every time. First money, diamonds, gold, paintings, carpets, furs. Whatever anyone had. Everything had to be handed over. So we knew they wanted something, but we did not know what. The day was beautiful, like today. Everyone was marching and did not know what awaited them. Slowly, slowly. At first there were two tables, and people came up and had their identity papers stamped. If a family came with a head of household, a man, a wife, and children, all went to the right. When older people came with children, or families with children, to the right as well. That meant deportation. At one moment there was rain. We got soaked, but then the sun came out again. Everyone looked neat. My mother had combed us nicely and so on. We approached the table. She did not hurry. She always thought realistically. She said, they will have enough people for the transport, then they will let us go. We came up. My father was already in the camp, my sister, the one in America, was already in the camp, and my brother was in the camp. I was there with my brother, with my foster sister, only with my mother. When we approached, in one minute, I still do not know to this day how it happened, they threw me to the left and them to the right, and from a distance my mother was making signs with her hand. That was the farewell.

Tauba Grünn
It was hard for us to leave our family home and go wandering. But at the same time, everyone felt a certain sense of relief. When the train moved away from that terrible town, to which some later returned. But only to die.

Sabina Rosenbach
My father had a brother in Chrzanów who helped us get there. We took everything we could. My uncle rented us an apartment on Krakowska Street. In our new place of residence, that is in Chrzanów, conditions were worse because we were strangers. We children had not attended school since the outbreak of the war. Jews were forbidden. My father did not work. We lived very frugally. We received food ration cards, but that was not enough. So various things from the house were sold in order to survive. Men were seized in the street for different kinds of work, such as sweeping the streets and clearing snow from the sidewalks. After some time, I think it was at the end of 1941, the Jews in Chrzanów were forced to leave certain districts. We had to move from Krakowska Street to the district where only Jews lived. We moved to Świętokrzyska Street. The Germans often burst into the house, and during searches, if they did not like something, they took Jews away with them. In February 1942, the Gestapo arrested my father and several members of the Jewish Council in Chrzanów. My uncle had acquaintances in town and tried to free my father, but that same night they took them all away as hostages, and as we learned after the war, they were first taken to the Gestapo in Katowice, and from there to Auschwitz. I and sixty other girls were taken to Sosnowiec, and from there to Germany, to Schönberg near Landeshut in the Sudetenland, to a labor camp.

Abraham and Jerzy Feiner
My father rented a small house in Chrzanów and we moved there. My parents, my brother, my sister, and I.

Aleksander Karkoszka
Later they were taken from Chrzanów to Oświęcim. And all those Jews who had been in Brzezinka, who had those taverns and so on, all of them were murdered.

Poles were initially expelled to towns and villages in the Bielsko and Żywiec districts, some were deported to the Sudety Mountains area, but most were sent to the General Government or relocated as part of so-called internal resettlements to villages in the Oświęcim area. Some people found shelter with relatives in nearby localities that had not been affected by the expulsions. Others were forcibly deported with only a small amount of luggage without being informed of their destination where harsh living conditions awaited them. All Poles over the age of 14 were assigned to forced labour.

Piotr Bielenin
My mother’s family was resettled to Jawiszowice. They lived on a farm belonging to a man named Szczerbowski, in the area known as Lipowiec, while my father’s family was resettled to Dankowice.

Krystyna Szałaśny
They took us to Kopciowice, and there we were given one small room. My mother’s father and grandmother lived there, as well as my mother and the three of us sisters.

Maria Jurczyk
We stayed in Grojec, in Puściny, for three months, living in a small shed, and then near Grojec Hill. My father worked there as a wheelwright, and our sister went to Vienna, where she also worked. My brothers worked at the carpentry workshop here in Niwa.

Józefa Handzlik
The whole family scattered. Everyone settled wherever they could, because there was no other option.

Helena Grzesło
My brothers… one got a job in a factory in Bielsko, another in Oświęcim, near the camp. He loaded gravel onto trucks with a shovel by the Soła River. It was hard work. The one in Bielsko had it better, working in a factory. The third brother worked in a mine in Brzeszcze. My sister was assigned to an estate, where she worked on the land. Another sister was sixteen when the war broke out and still at home, but as soon as she turned eighteen, she was sent to a Bauer and taken away.

In the second half of 1942 the German authorities carried out the displacement of residents from part of the village of Monowice, which was related to the construction of the IG Farben chemical plant.

From the testimony of Helena Hoła, en expelled resident of Monowice
In 1942 they began demolishing Monowice, ten houses at a time. The work was carried out by prisoners from the Auschwitz camp. Before expelling the families, the Germans stripped every farm of everything – livestock, equipment, machinery. The displaced people therefore had little to pack. In Dwory, barns in all the farms were converted into living quarters for those expelled from Monowice. These were damp, cold spaces with brick floors. Several families, especially those with older children, were deported for forced labor deep into Germany. Our house was in the second group. We could hear the pounding from the houses being demolished. My father had just recovered after ten months of serious illness. We knew that news of the demolition could be a severe blow to him, so we wanted to send him to relatives beforehand. But he found it suspicious that we were so insistent and kept postponing his departure. One day children ran through the street. My father asked them about the noise. They told him everything – that prisoners were demolishing houses and that people were being deported. Four days later my father died, and two days after his funeral we were thrown out of our home.

Józefa Handzlik
Life was very hard. There was so much suffering. My father was resettled to Monowice with my mother, into a school building. All the girls, even the older ones who had married, stayed there together with my mother. They divided the large classroom with wardrobes and lived there. But it did not last long. From Monowice they were ordered to leave the school because the Germans needed the building. They were moved to Dwory, to Machnaty. There they were somewhat more satisfied, because it was also a school building, though small and single-storey. They did not stay long. Then a Bauer came and they were expelled again, this time to a private house where four people – my father, mother, sister, and brother – lived in one room. The hallway was turned into a kitchen. It was cramped, dark, with doors on both sides and no window. It was tight and uncomfortable, but they had to adapt. They worked for the farmer because there was no other choice. They tried to plant potatoes or vegetables on a small piece of land they were given. It was exhausting. It was not life, it was torment. They were moved again and again: from Monowice to Machnaty, from Machnaty to a private household, then to Stare Stawy. They stayed there for some time, but my brother eventually managed to obtain accommodation at the railway station, because we all longed to return to Brzezinka, to our home.

On January 27, 1945 soldiers of the Soviet army entered the town of Oświęcim. The prisoners in Auschwitz I, Auschwitz II Birkenau and Auschwitz III Monowitz were liberated. In total about 7500 prisoners remained in the camps at the time. After the war ended the expelled Polish residents returned in search of their homes. Often they discovered that they had lost everything they had built during their lives.

Maria Gawron
Then the Russians came in. You could still hear gunfire, because there were clashes on the Vistula, and the Germans were already fleeing. The Russians were advancing from the east.

Zofia Przybyłowska
Everyone wanted to return home. First, my father went with my brothers and my uncle, my mother’s brother, to see what remained of the place where we had lived. It turned out that out of about a hundred houses that had stood there before, maybe ten were left. Everything else had been destroyed.

Maria Gawron
Our family home, over there beyond Śląska Street, was completely destroyed. The entire western wall was full of holes, it was uninhabitable. We heard gunfire, but we went anyway. I went with my younger siblings, my mother, and my sister to see the house. There was nothing left. We returned, and soon after we moved, not into our own house, because that was impossible, but to my grandmother’s.

Marian Górnicki
We only came back at the end of March. We arrived around midnight. The whole street had been bombed. Very few houses were intact. Everything was in ruins. From a distance we saw that our house was still standing, slightly damaged. Apparently a bomb had fallen onto the ceiling and had not exploded. We went inside. The gate was broken, the windows shattered, all the doors forced open. There were no locks anywhere. Everything had been taken from the house. From January 27 until the end of March, there had been enough time for everything to be looted.

Józefa Handzlik
There was nothing left. No houses, nothing. Just empty, leveled ground. No bricks, no rubble, only fields, fields, and more fields.

Janina Stawowy
When we arrived, there was only a barrack left from the camp and the school was closed, still surrounded by barbed wire. Everything felt very recent. If any houses remained, they were empty or devastated.

Helena Grzesło
There was poverty in our home. When we returned after the displacement, we had nothing to eat. All the shops had been looted. We brought flour to bake bread, but there was no yeast. When my mother baked bread without yeast, it was inedible, just a heavy, dense mass. Not everyone could eat it. There was hunger after the war. There were potatoes in the cellar, but the Bauer had taken everything else. He took my father’s horses, all the livestock. We had nothing. We came back to empty walls, an empty stable. Spring was coming, but there were no horses, no cows. Everything had been taken.

Wanda Saternus
The war ended after five years, in 1945. But when people returned, there was nothing. For a long time they continued living in temporary places. Later they were given barracks that had belonged to the prisoners, not in Oświęcim itself but near the chemical plant. They called it IG. People whose homes had been destroyed were given those barracks. Many of them settled in Broszkowice. Houses had been burned down, so people slowly began rebuilding. Little by little they returned and rebuilt their lives.

Zofia Przybyłowska
Only the steps of our new house remained. My uncle said: there is no point worrying. We must roll up our sleeves. There are barracks here that once served as farm facilities for the camp, where livestock had been kept. We will make makeshift foundations from bricks we can find and use the walls from those barracks to build a house, just so the family can return.

Marian Górnicki
There was nothing, absolutely nothing. My father went to the village of Kruki and bought three bundles of straw. We slept on that straw on the floor for almost a month. Only after a month did he manage to get one or two beds. When I was already attending secondary school, I did my homework on a large wooden chest because there was no table. That chest served as our table. There were no chairs, no furniture at all. And no money either. There was no way to earn it at first. Gradually, farmers began to come with small jobs, and my father started working, earning a little.

Janina Stawowy
We had to build a place to live somehow, but there was nothing to build with. So people agreed to dismantle the barracks that had been built for prisoners. Those who had no homes took apart those structures. They were made of wide panels, double boards with slats inside. People transported these panels and used them to build houses. Everyone who could worked to build something. They built small homes, and next to them simple sheds for animals, even though they had no animals yet.

Zofia Przybyłowska
By August we were already living in our own house. It was wooden, with two rooms and a kitchen, and one space was turned into a stable. But although we had returned, there was land but nothing to sow it with. There were no seeds. People shared what they had. If my mother had a good harvest of potatoes, she would share them with others so they could plant the following year. Some had to be kept as seed potatoes, but the rest had to be shared for food so that everyone could survive.

Piotr Bielenin
My family only built a new house in 1965. I was born in that new house in 1969. My older siblings, I am the youngest, were born in a chicken coop. My grandfather, who was a mason, returned in March 1945 and immediately began adapting one of the coops. They could not return to their original place and had to leave Jawiszowice quickly, so they adapted a coop into a living space. Only later, after my parents married in 1952, were they able to build a new house. That happened in 1965. There was no help from anywhere. My father worked, and at that time there were six children in the house, so the living conditions were what they were.

The total number of Jews from Oświęcim who survived the Holocaust is unknown. Few of those who survived decided to return to Oświęcim. According to a report by the town council dated 25 September 1945, only 186 Jews were living in Oświęcim at that time.

Lola Bodner
My husband was the first Jew to return to Oświęcim. The first night he slept at his former cleaner’s home. But that terrible place kept drawing him back. There were still bodies lying around, and people were very ill, yet he kept searching, hoping he might find someone he knew, a relative, anyone. Every day he went to the camp. One day, a child about four years old approached him. We did not know exactly how old he was. My husband took him in. The child came up to him and asked, “Do you want to be my father?” My husband, a man who normally weighed 80 kilos, now weighed only 48, swollen and sick, took him in even though he had no place of his own. He had no home, no apartment at all. He was staying with a Polish family who had known him before the war and gave him shelter.

From the testimony of Tadeusz Firczyk, a resident of Oświęcim
In Oświęcim, before they left, there were Jews, for example the Kerbel family. There were two sisters. One had a grocery store on Mickiewicza Street, and the other ran a butcher’s shop, producing horse meat products. They lived together, essentially in one building. Today no one lives there. Everything was emptied, and as people say, all trace of those residents disappeared, because they were moved elsewhere.

Sabina Rosenbach
I was so ill that I did not understand what freedom meant. I kept telling myself that the English would replace the Germans, that maybe they would treat us better, give us water, and not beat us. The English began distributing food, their canned meat. People, starved for years, rushed to eat it. They developed severe diarrhea and intestinal cramps. They dropped dead like flies. Fortunately, I could not eat. I had a high fever and only wanted to quench my thirst. I kept thinking I must not leave the camp, because maybe my mother would come looking for me. At that time, I did not yet know that my mother and my family were already dead. I learned the truth after the war. At the beginning of 1943, my mother, Amalia Lesser, was sent from Chrzanów to Auschwitz with my three younger sisters: Fajcia (Felicja), Ecia (Erna), and Hajcia (Helena). My brothers, Hesiek (Abraham Civi) and Tulek (Naftali), had been deported earlier to a camp in Germany. One day, an SS man named Lindner came to their camp, ordered a roll call, and took every tenth person. My older brother, Hesiek, was among them. Everyone thought they were being sent to a better camp. My other brother, Tulek, tried to reach him. He was caught, beaten, and forced back. Those taken by Lindner were sent to Auschwitz, where they perished. After some time, I met my brother again. He did not have the courage to return home to Oświęcim.

During the war the Germans displaced approximately eight to nine thousand Poles living in Oświęcim and the surrounding villages as well as over seven thousand Jews from Oświęcim. After the war the town as well as its population structure changed and only traces remained of the and only traces remained of its numerous Jewish inhabitants. These traces include a Jewish cemetery and a small synagogue.

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The podcast features material from the collections of:

The Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum Archives:
- account by Zofia Przybyłowska
- account by Piotr Bielenin
- account by Marian Górnicki
- account by Sylwester Szałaśny
- account by Krystyna Szałaśny
- account by Sabina Rosenbach (transcribed, read by a narrator)
- account by Helena Mataniak (written down, read by a narrator)
- account by Helena Hoła (written down, read by a narrator)

Museum of Remembrance of the Residents of the Oświęcim Region:
- account by Helena Grzesło
- account by Aleksander Karkoszka
- account by Józefa Handzlik
- account by Wanda Saternus
- account by Maria Gawron
- account by Janina Stawowy
- account by Wanda Patyna
- account by Henryk Kuczek
- account by Maria Jurczyk
- account by Tadeusz Firczyk

Jewish Museum in Oświęcim:
- account by Abraham and Jerzy Feiner
- account by Lola Bodner

The Emanuel Ringelblum Jewish Historical Institute in Warsaw:
- account by Ewa Neiger (written down, read by a narrator)
- account by Sylwia Bachner (written down, read by a narrator)
- account by Anna Hönig (written down, read by a narrator)
- account by Tauba Grünn (written down, read by a narrator)