Bunkerbuch - memories
The right bunker book was kept by SS officers of Block 11. Because of the fact that as a rule the prisoners included in the list of the entire camp were taken to the bunker, I was responsible for indicating changes in the number of prisoners jailed in the bunker, in a separate column named K.A. (Kommandantur-Arrest), when I presented Stärkemeldung. During the first days of my new job this column brought me a lot of difficulties and discrepancies. It turned out that I relied on what was said by SS officers of Block 11, sometimes prisoners on duty, Pennewitz and Borgowiec. Because the SS officers did not keep the book updated and did not enter records properly before jailing somebody, it often happened that someone was taken to the bunker, someone was released but no one knew where etc. Wanting to fix the situation, I started recording on my own which was tacitly accepted by the SS officers of Block 11.
Franciszek Brol (no. 1159)
The bunker book was the only document in Block 11 where a block recorder recorded every Schutzhäftling directed by Lagerführung or by a political unit to the bunker. When I came to the block on December 1942, I saw this book and continued to keep it, but for the sake of clarity I crossed out with blue ink those who left the bunker and the block alive, and with red ink those who were killed. Initially, I wrote “+” and “überst. K.B.” (transferred to the hospital) beside the killed ones. Later, as it concerned all of the killed prisoners except for those who died from hunger, I ceased making such annotations.
The book was complete in March 1943. I started a new one, much bigger, which after my leaving in 1944 still was in Block 11. The second book is only a copy of the original second book reproduced in Block 11 by two prisoners who at that time were on the first floor of this block. (…) I can’t remember their names. The copy contains some of the names of the prisoners jailed in the bunker from March 1943 to February 1944 as the book was created in March 1944. I did not make any further copies. (…) The first bunker book was copied as well, but it remained in the block instead of the original. I gave the original of the first book and the copy of the second one to my friend Cyrankiewicz from Block 20 in the room of my friend Kłodziński.
Jan Pilecki (no. 808).
Jan Pilecki, a prisoner (no. 808) and recorder of Block 11, brought us both of the bunker books in hard cover to Block 20 (camp hospital). We took them in room 3. In order to make their delivery easier, we ripped the hard covers off, rolled the books up and, having agreed a “delivery route”, we sent them via a prisoner nicknamed “Pierożek” (Józef Róg). Both of the books were smuggled by “Pierożek”, having them attached to his leg with adhesive tape and a piece of string, through a camp gate during a march of working groups to the workshops. His working team worked for Wagner, the company which constructed camp roads. This company engaged to work also civilian workers who were close to the camp resistance movement.
According to an agreement reached by “Pierożek” and Franciszek Walizka, Róg put the books under the threshold of a narrow-gauge train at the construction site. Then Walizka took it and secretly delivered to the resistance movement headquarters in Brzeszcze and subsequently to “Tell” (Teresa Lasocka-Estreicher) in Cracow.
After the liberation, Teresa Lasocka passed both of the volumes of the bunker book to Jan Sehn, a member of the Main Commission of Nazi Crimes Research in Poland. In correspondence with “Tell” we explained the significance and content of the document. She acknowledged the receipt. (…)
Józef Cyrankiewicz (no. 62933)
