Description
Object description
Polish civilian member of Polish Resistance in Poland, 1939-1941; inmate of Auschwitz I Concentration Camp, Poland and Mauthausen Concentration Camp and Gusen Subcamp, Mauthausen Concentration Camp, Austria, 1941-1945
Content description
REEL 1 Background in Linów, Poland, 1925-1939: family origins; education; reaction to outbreak of Second World War, 1/9/1939. Aspects of period as member of Polish Resistance in Poland, 10/1939-2/1941: joining Resistance, 10/1939; role with Resistance; cell organisation of Resistance; arrest and interrogation by Gestapo in Lubin Castle Prison, 2/1941; Gestapo beating to death of his Polish interrogation translator for protesting. Recollections of period as inmate of Auschwitz I Concentration Camp, Poland, 1941-1942: arrival at camp with brother; reaction to post-war visits to Auschwitz I and Mauthausen Concentration Camps.
REEL 2 Continues: work constructing Auschwitz II-Birkenau Concentration Camp; initial arrival at Auschwitz I; initial work carrying bricks; consequences of German failure to have gradation of punishments; memories of Kapo 'Alois the Bloody'; gassing of brother; question of surreal nature of camp; question of survival rates of working class and middle class; method of surviving in camps; question of heroism and nobility in camps.
REEL 3 Continues: question of morality in camp; paradox of hospital treatment; effects of contracting meningitis; work in shoe-making workshop. Recollections of period as inmate in Mauthausen Concentration Camp and Gusen Subcamp, Mauthausen Concentration Camp, Austria, 1942-1945: reasons why he was sent to camp; work in quarry; poetry he wrote and receiving a literary prize for poem 'Madonna Pavement' in clandestine literary competition, 1944 ; psychological value of writing poems; character of fellow inmate who awarded him the literary prize; comparison between Mauthausen and Auschwitz I Concentration Camps.
REEL 4 Continues: work in factory, 1944; liberation of camp, 5/5/1945; attitude towards revenge taken on Kapos on liberation; behaviour of Kapos; role of Schutzstaffel (SS) in camps; selection of Kapos; character of Gusen Subcamp. Reflections on Holocaust experiences: question of presence of Jewish inmates; misunderstanding which occurred between himself and Jewish guest at party regarding nature of inmates of Auschwitz I Concentration Camp.
REEL 5 Continues: separation of Jewish and other inmates in camps; Schutzstaffel (SS) killing of inmates by injection; methods Schutzstaffel (SS) employed to kill inmates; question of resistance in camps; instances of sabotage; problems of making moral judgements about individuals.
REEL 6 Continues: occasion when he was beaten by Schutzstaffel (SS) NCO in Auschwitz I; Schutzstaffel (SS) ranks in camps; subject of his camp poems; question of religious belief in camps; question of accuracy of memories; question of psychological effects of experiences. Aspects of membership of Polish Resistance, 10/1939-2/1941: nature of organisation he belonged to; trading restrictions under Germans; question of achievements of Polish Resistance; question of accuracy of concentration camp literature; story of self-sacrifice of Father Maximilian Kolbe at Auschwitz.