News
National Day of Remembrance of Nazi Concentration Camps Victims
On June 14th, representatives of the directors and employees of Auschwitz Memorial, together with Dyonizy Lechowicz, former prisoners of Auschwitz and Mauthausen-Gusen camps, laid a wreath under the Execution Wall situated next to Block 11, to commemorate the National Day of Remembrance of Nazi Concentration Camps’ Victims. 74 years ago German Nazis brought to the newly built Auschwitz concentration camp a group of 728 Polish political prisoners from the prison in Tarnów. This date is considered to be the day when the camp began to operate.
Before noon special intention mass was held to commemorate the victims of Nazi concentration camps. The mass was presided over by Bishop Roman Pindel, Bishop of Bielsk-Żywiec Diocese. In his sermon, the preacher stressed that when he stood in front of the altar he realised that he was holding a mass in the place where so many people lost their lives. ‘Today we celebrate this mass to commemorate the beginnings of the camp and its first prisoners who arrived here,’ he stated.
The Bishop in particular distinguished saint Michał Kozala, auxiliary bishop of Wrocław, who was murdered in Dachau concentration camp. ‘He is a good voice to be remembered on such occasion. He leads us towards the Holy Mass (...) not in times of peace but during the war. For him the Holy Mass was to be experienced as a wish and a call to stand united against differences, national dissimilarity and hostility,’ further said.
In 1940-1945, Nazis deported to Auschwitz about 150 thousand Poles. After Jews, they were the second biggest group of prisoners. At least half of them died in Auschwitz, and many others after being transferred to other camps. Based upon the decision of the Polish Parliament issued in 2006, the day of 14th of June is celebrated as the National Day of Remembrance of Nazi Concentration Camps’ Victims.
June 14th 1940
On June 14th 1940, the transport from the prison in Tarnów amounting to 728 Poles arrived to Auschwitz. Among the prisoners, who were brought to the camp, there were soldiers participating in the September Campaign, members of underground resistance organisations, secondary school students and higher education students, as well as a small group of Polish Jews. They were given numbers from 31 to 758 and were placed in quarantine in the buildings of former Polish Tobacco Monopoly, which were located near to the today's area of Auschwitz-Birkenau State Musuem (first camp numbers were given to German "criminal" prisoners who arrived earlier and became functionary prisoners). From total of 728 prisoners brought in the first mass transport to Auschwitz on June 14th 1940, 298 survived the war, 272 died, and the history of 158 is unknown.
Conversation with Kazimierz Albin, a former prisoner of Auschwitz number 118, member of the Museum Council and the International Auschwitz Council
Paweł Sawicki: We usually remember the day of 14th of June. But the story of your transport began a day before in Tarnów. I would like to ask you about your memories and emotions from those days.
Kazimierz Albin: Emotions were incredible. After half a year spent in various prisons: Slovakia, Muszyna, Nowy Sącz, Tarnów and .... then it is beginning of June and prisoners found out that we might be transported somewhere. It was most possible that we would go to work in Germany, so we were quite happy as even the worst outside work was still much better than being imprisoned in those gloomy walls, especially for young people, well for everyone I guess. And finally we left on 14th of June .
There were 728 of us. We reached the train station in Tarnów, where the prepared train was waiting for us. Those were the cars of old type, in which one could enter each compartment. In every compartment there were 10 people. We were packed like that. This wasn't a freight train, but a passengers train, in the corridors there stood officers of Schutzpolizei. The train stopped at the main train station in Cracow. The heat was unbearable, so those officers opened the windows. We heard the music, and then: ‘Achtung! Achtung! German army have conquered Paris’. I was a student of Cracow’s secondary school of Nowodworski, so my German was rather decent, especially that during my prison time I learned some more and we all understood the message. Then we broke down completely. You can imagine that. This great French army, so powerful in Europe, and one we didn't manage to join...
A few minutes later the train started to roll. We continued to the West. After some time the train stopped. As it turned out it was the border of General Government and Reich. Then we arrived to the big train station and we saw Gothic lettering: Auschwitz! Older colleagues said that it was Oświęcim. I had never been to this town before, so had no idea even though I travelled a lot around Poland. Shortly after the train took a turn and stopped in front of a huge building. There was the fenced square with guarding towers. Someone from outside opens the door and a fat SS officer shouts: ‘Alles raus!’ So those officers of Schutzpolizei, who behaved decently till then, got some sort of push and chased us out. We were thrown out of the compartments and found ourselves on the square. In this enormous square there stood the line of SS officers. We noticed as well a rather large group of kapos. At first we had thought they were sailors, because they wore stripped uniforms but their caps were marine blue. It turned out later, when they pulled us out and started to line us up, make order... We were lined up in ten lines, in one long column and then they counted us. One of them reported to an SS officer that we were 758 prisoners. There were only 728 of us, and then we realised that those 30 were prisoners as well, but not political ones like us. Then we got our numbers. I got 118, in front of me was my brother - he got 116, and our friend, a rittmeister (captain), received 117.
And then this horrible period started. So called sport. First one had to teach this undisciplined bunch how to march, run, sing songs, but mostly they would use something they called ‘sport’. Frog hops, then crawling, then go down! Get up! Get down! Get up! Crawl! Roll! etc. in this horrible dust. And on 14th of June the heat was immense, there must have been around 30 degrees. After few months in prisons we were exhausted, and we haven't had much of exercise there, we could only walk. After a week we noticed prisoners outside, dressed in striped uniforms, and we didn't get any yet and wore clothes in which we arrived. We so envied them, because they would walk somewhere and work and we thought it wasn't fair that we are being given such hard time here and they just walk around and carry things from place to place.
PS: And during this first night, in those first hours, did you have a chance to think where you were... Did you understand seriousness of the situation?
KA: We understood it very well. Among us were 8 maybe 10 Jews. It was the time without ghettos. They were there as Polish citizens. But then they found them. And priests. Those Jews immediately became victims. One would play jokes on them for instance a Jew had to climb a tree and a priest was supposed to help him ... they called it quarantine. We slept in a building, on straw, all together on the floor and during the night it was forbidden to open windows. We were so down.... all we wanted was to go to work. And here the heat was so immense and we would be just running, crawling in this dust. It was something horrible. It is hard for me to tell you some more.
