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:
Czesław Lewandowski (born 1928), member of the Gray Ranks, Warsaw Uprising fighter, prisoner of KL Stutthof. Captured by the Germans during the Warsaw Uprising, Lewandowski was taken deported to Stutthof concentration camp. Having arrived in the camp, the prisoners encountered a large number of SS men with dogs and were then subjected to quarantine, which was supposed to teach them that from that point onwards they were only numbers who must obey the rules such as humbly taking their hats off to every German. The cruel kapos often hit prisoners with sticks or whips before even telling them what to do. Every prisoner was assigned to one of the kommandos tasked with pointless jobs that were designed to torment them. The harshest was the kommando unloading goods from barges on a nearby canal. Czesław Lewandowski worked there for several days. Nearly every day someone from the kommando would die. When the prisoners returned to the camp, they weren’t allowed to rest - they had to stand for several hours during evening roll-call, while the camp doctor selected those who were no longer fit for work. Some of them were taken to the camp “hospital”, but the majority were sent straight to the gas chamber - no one came back. Some older prisoners looked after the 16-year-old Czesław Lewandowski, trying to make him understand that he shouldn’t exchange his bread rations for cigarettes, as that could turn out to be deadly. They saved his life. Shortly after, Czesław Lewandowski and several hundred other prisoners were sent to the Stutthof subcamp in Elbląg, where the conditions were even more strict than at the main camp. They worked 12 hours a day at a huge factory and had to walk 5 km to and from work. The residents of Elbląg would spit and hurl insults at them. Everyday someone would die on the way. Everything was designed in such a way as to make the prisoners feel that they would never make it out of there alive.
Copyright by Instytut Solidarności i Męstwa im. Witolda Pileckiego.
27 май 2021
