Description
Object description
Polish officer served with 14th Telephone Coy, 14th Infantry Div in Poland, 1933-1939; member of Polish Union of Armed Struggle (ZWZ) and Polish Home Army (Armia Krajowa) in Warsaw, Poland, 10/1939-12/1943; inmate in Gross-Rosen and Dachau Concentration Camps, Germany, 4/1944-4/1945
Content description
REEL 1 Background in Posen, Germany and Poland, 1908-1925: family; education; privations and death of father in German Army during First World War; question of Polish loyalty to Germany. Aspects of period as officer cadet at No 3 Cadet Corps, Polish Army in Rawicz, Poland, 1925-1930: decision to join Polish Army; reasons for wanting to specialise in signals; background of cadets; discipline at Cadet School in Rawicz; attending course at officer school in Warsaw, 1930-1932. Aspects of period as officer with 14th Telephone Coy, 14th Infantry Div in Poland, 1933-1939: dependence of Polish Army on horses; use of foreign equipment.
REEL 2 Continues: arrival of Polish signals equipment; conscription system; presence of foreign officers in Polish Army; opinion of inevitability of war with Germany from 1937; attitude towards Nazi regime; German interest in Polish equipment; officers' attitude towards Soviet Union. Recollections of operations as officer with 14th Telephone Coy, 14th Infantry Div during German invasion of Poland, 9/1939: reaction to lack of action by French and British after declaration of war, 3/9/1939; mobilisation, 8/1939.
REEL 3 Continues: reaction to German attack; encirclement of division at Lublin; evading capture by German forces; opinion of German Army. Recollections of period as member of Polish Union of Armed Struggle (ZWZ) and Polish Home Army (Armia Krajowa) in Warsaw, Poland, 10/1939-12/1943: conditions in Warsaw, 10/1939; behaviour of German Army in Warsaw and search for ex-Polish Army troops; German takeover of Polish industry; his decision to remain in Poland and search for resistance groups; contacting ex-military signals personnel, 10/1939.
REEL 4 Continues: attempt to assemble radio equipment; forging radio contact with Polish Consulate in Budapest, Hungary, 4/3/1940; security precautions when sending radio messages; establishing other radio links including with London, GB, 9/1940; technical problem of 'dead ground'; monitoring of transmissions by Germans; concealment of radio equipment under house; German raid on house, 3/2/1941.
REEL 5 Continues: reaction to fall of France, 6/1940; degree of German surveillance of Polish men of military age; assembling radio equipment; overcoming technical problems of reception and transmission; signs of impending German invasion of Soviet Union and reaction of Polish Union of Armed Struggle (ZWZ), 6/1941; degree of collaboration in Poland; security measures taken by his unit; measures taken against collaborators; size of unit, 1940-1943.
REEL 6 Continues: use of London to transfer signals between different parts of Poland; adoption of mobile operating system as a security measure; degree of knowledge of Warsaw Ghetto; evading German street searches and capture at checkpoint. Aspects of arrests and interrogation by Germans in Warsaw, Poland, 1943-1944: first arrest and release, 10/1943; background to second arrest, 8/12/1943; removal into Gestapo custody.
REEL 7 Continues: reaction to arrest; interrogation at Gestapo Headquarters, 2/1944; narrow escape from execution. Recollections of period as inmate in Gross-Rosen Concentration Camp, Germany, 4/1944-2/1945: transfer to camp, 4/1944; electrical work in camp; treatment of inmates by guards; conditions in camp; sleeping arrangements; execution of attempted escapers; evacuation from camp, 2/1945; conditions on board train; attitude towards confinement in concentration camp.
REEL 8 Continues: allocation to mining work for week at Hersbruck and repairing railway lines near Nüremberg on route to Dachau, 3/1945. Aspects of period as inmate in Dachau Concentration Camp, Germany, 4/1945: march to camp; German execution of inmates; liberation by American troops; comparison between Dachau and Gross-Rosen Concentration Camps; treatment by French occupation forces; transfer to Austria, 6/1945. Recollections of period as member of Polish Union of Armed Struggle (ZWZ) and Polish Home Army (Armia Krajowa) in Warsaw, Poland, 10/1939-12/1943: use of hand and bicycle generators; securing equipment from electrical factory in Warsaw; near discovery of resistance radio equipment by Germans, 1941.
REEL 9 Continues: German search for radio equipment in forest near Warsaw; psychological strain of radio operating with resistance; problems for radio operators sent from GB; establishing radio link with Soviet Union, 1942; providing assistance to Polish Peoples' Party; provision of link between Polish Government-in-Exile in Poland and GB; question of German policy towards Polish elite.