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Biographical Dictionary in Remembrance of Rybnik Victims of Nazi Repression
Taking the form of a biographical dictionary, this book consists of 430 pages filled with the biographies of about 1,300 residents of the Rybnik area, Wodzisław Śląski, Żory, and Raciborz who suffered repression at the hands of the Germans in World War II.
These people suffered varying fates. A few were released immediately after arrest, others were taken to various isolation sites, and many perished—they were shot, starved to death, or brutally murdered in the concentration camps.
The book does not include all the residents of the area. This is because many police, camp, and court documents are missing or were destroyed in the final phase of the war.
The available biographies are varied: some are extensive, and others are laconic and contain nothing beyond the information that someone was arrested and sent to a concentration camp. Where possible, photographs accompany the texts.
The author cooperated closely in the preparation of this book with the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum in Oświęcim. Biographical notes on about 550 Auschwitz prisoners are included.
The image of occupation-era Rybnik that emerges from this volume is far different from the one-dimensional textbook version of history. This is an advantage. The author inserts his own commentary in some places, but does so with great restraint and allows his readers to draw their own conclusions.
Above all, these biographies attest to the heroic attitudes, suffering, and martyrs' deaths of individual people identified by name, who are fully deserving of remembrance.
About the author:
Jerzy Klistała, born in Rybnik in 1935, has devoted the last several years to gathering material on the resistance movement during the Nazi occupation. His father, Jan Klistała, was arrested by the Nazis and imprisoned in Auschwitz concentration camp, where he was murdered in 1943.
The author says, "The heroes whose memories I am perpetuating had names, but they became mere numbers in the concentration camps. Erecting another memorial tablet dedicated 'To the victims' is not enough—THEY HAD NAMES OF THEIR OWN! It is a moral imperative to honor the memory of those who had the dedication to take up the struggle against an exceptionally ruthless occupation regime in a fight for the freedom of their native land!"
Publication is supported financially by:
- Jan Musiolik
- The Rybnik Branch of the Association of Mining Engineers and Technicians
- The Board of Trustees of the Auschwitz Preservation Association
- The Council for the Protection of Memory and Martyrdom in Warsaw
- Auschwitz-Birkenau Death Camp Victims Memorial Foundation in Oświęcim
- The Municipal Bureau in Żory
Other publications by Jerzy Klistała:
- 2002 Działacze rybnickiego ZWZ/AK w obozach koncentracyjnych cz. I [Rybnik ZWZ/AK activists in the concentration camps, Part I]
- 2003 Działacze rybnickiego ZWZ/AK w obozach koncentracyjnych cz. II [Rybnik ZWZ/AK activists in the concentration camps, Part II]
- 2005 Harcerstwo w miastach i powiatach Bielska i Białej w latach 1925-45 [Scouting in Bielska and Biała Cities and Townships, 1925-1945]
Jerzy Klistała. Martyrologium mieszkańców Ziemi Rybnickiej, Wodzisławia Śląskiego, Żor, Raciborza w latach 1939-1945. Słownik biograficzny [The martyrdom of residents of the Rybnik area, Wodzisław Śląski, Żory, and Raciborz, 1939-1945: a biographical dictionary]
Towarzystwo Opieki nad Oświęcimiem 2006
430 pp., illus., name index, profiles of some camps, 24 x 17.5 cm.
ISBN 83-916718-2-8
