The video was recorded by the Pilecki Institute as part of the “Witnesses to the Age” project.
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Our today’s interviewee:
Stanisława Imiołek (born 1923) was arrested by the Germans on 15 May 1943 in Rzeszów, along with her entire family. She was imprisoned at the Lubomirski Castle, where the Gestapo faked her execution to force a confession out of her brother. Her parents and brother were brutally interrogated. Stanisława was then deported to the camp in Pustków. The women’s block commandant Karol Czapla turned out to be a decent man who treated women with respect. The conditions in the female camp were bearable. The situation was much worse at the male camp, where SS men tormented the prisoners. Especially brutal was one Harke, who often got drunk and beat prisoners to death. Stanisława Imiołek saw Harke beat a prisoner to death because the man tried to pass on a letter to his sister. The windows of Stanisława’s barrack overlooked the so-called Death Hill, where executions took place and corpses were burned. One day, she saw several trucks arrive nearby, carrying a large number of people. Stanisława watched as they were marched in twos to a location behind the bushes. Next, she heard machine gun shots which lasted for over an hour. For the next few hours, fire and clouds of smoke floating above the camp made it difficult to breath. The Germans burned the bodies of the victims - Poles from the surrounding districts who had been sentenced to death. The front was advancing in 1944, so the female prisoners from Pustków were transported westward. They were supposed to be deported to Auschwitz, but the camp wasn’t admitting new prisoners, as it was overcrowded. Stanisława spent two days and nights next to the Auschwitz crematoria and saw the Holocaust with her own eyes. The women were eventually transported through Wrocław, Poznań and Berlin to KL Ravensbrück.
Copyright by Instytut Solidarności i Męstwa im. Witolda Pileckiego.
31 мар 2022
