I remember that in winter, on cold days, people made alleged boilers. This was due to the fact that 1 man stood, and around him there was a wreath of people – everything to make them warmer. At that time, our slob took a noose and poured cold water on these mediocre people... – says Jerzy Leśniak, erstwhile KL prisoner in Dachau. present it is 80 years since the liberation of the concentration camp.
You belong to those pre-war inhabitants of Warsaw who moved to her from the province, from the village.
Jerzy Leśniak: My parents were farmers. They had a tiny farm, many of which before the war in Świętokrzyskie, and besides after the war. erstwhile individual had a four-hectare farm, he was almost rich. We were not rich. In 1937, the full household moved to Warsaw. My father took a lowly position in the capital, but it yielded a steady income. Namely, he became a janitor in a tenement home on 87 Siennej Street. It wasn't easy, but until the war started, we were living, and the first years of the occupation, too.
Our nightmare began after The outbreak of the uprising in August 1944. Although a terrible horror has already lasted rather close – in the judaic Ghetto. I remember 1 of my father's friends who entered the ghetto area through canals (he lived close the entrance to the canal). The same man smuggled food into the ghetto, but not for free... After each trip, he came back with his leg hanging under his trousers with gold watches... This was a ‘gold business’. delight compose that both erstwhile I am a kid and present erstwhile I am at the end of my life, I find specified conduct disgusting.
Were there any signals to your parents about what was going on in the summertime of 1944 in Warsaw?
My father had a captain friend from National Army. The same captain was registered in our building, but did not live in it – for conspiracy reasons. And before the uprising, he warned my father, saying, “Mr. Lesniak, take your wife with 2 small children to the country, for there will be fighting in the days.” My father listened to him – notabene this ark broke the order of silence at “W”, but possibly he saved my parent and younger siblings... So the only thing left with my father was me and my older brother Tadeusz. The first moments of the uprising were not hard for us – there were no direct fights on Sienna. I was besides young to become a soldier, but like many of my peers, I became active in auxiliary service. For example, I carried food to the barricade crew on Iron Street.
After the first enthusiasm and August struggles around, there came the hardest for us Warsawians, September ’44. At the end of this month, the Germans threw out our vicinity with flyers addressed to civilians with an appeal to leave their homes and cities. They threatened that otherwise they would bomb residential areas so much that no 1 would leave alive. Then all the streets around – Sienna, Pan, Iron – became empty. This crowd of people under the escort of SS men with their guns unsealed went to the congregation point, which was arranged around the church on Wolska Street. My father, my older brother and I stayed outside in a crowd like us mediocre people, and the following day, the selection began: women separately, men separately and children separately. But then I lay in the grass, grabbed my father's leg, and in the naive religion of my child, I thought that I would stay with my father. And my dream came true! Esesman came up to us, hit me twice with a firearm in the back, but seeing as I didn't let my father go, he waved an impatient hand and left us alone.
You could say "human SS man"...
Indeed. Or just convinced that we'd all die where we were meant to go... After this selection we were driven to the West Railway Station, and from it – to Pruszkow, where there was a transitional camp. We were here 24 hours and we were loaded into cattle cars. We drove 4 days to a camp in Dachau. Of course, at the time we didn't know where our final halt was. No doors have been opened at all this time. Before being loaded into the wagons, the Germans gave us half a loaf of bread, or half a kilo, and 2 onions each – and that had to be adequate for all the way. There were about sixty people in each carriage – imagine what happened erstwhile hungry people ate this bread and onions... The stench was unbearable!
Did you have any water?
Absolutely not a drop! erstwhile the train pulled up to the camp ramp, an SSman would enter each of the wagons and throw people distant – yes, it was not a metaphor – outside. I was twelve, and I jumped out, and my father was over fifty... After we were thrown out of the cars, we were given a cup of water in which the bran floated. After drinking this “soup” we were kept at the appeal square all night. In the morning of the following day we saw that the square was covered with tables, and at these tables there were Polish priests – prisoners who were ordered to evidence our data. And imagine that erstwhile we approached the table assigned to us, it turned out that Father Malinowski, who came from the same village as his father, was sitting next to him! erstwhile he saw his father, he stood up and said, “Felek, we had to meet here after so many years...”. Fr Malinowski survived the camp and was later parish priest in Międzylesie close Warsaw.
What were the next stages of admission to hell on earth?
The SS ordered us to undress bare and drove us to the bathhouse. After the bath we got camp clothes – but then Germans no longer had stripes, we were given things from erstwhile prisoners. After all these, say, preliminary actions, our transport was divided into individual blocks. The 3 of us went to block 25 – blocks were called camp barracks. In this block there were 4 pieces [of the room], and in 1 part there were about 1,200 people. It's been a week, and 1 day, the kapo started hailing people from our block after numbers. My camp number is 105,608. And among those called my brother. It turned out that he was assigned to a group which was assigned to work at Frankfurt am Main Air Stations. As the U.S. Army approached Frankfurt, prisoners working there were evacuated back to Dachau. I'm sorry to cry erstwhile I remember this moment, due to the fact that I've got it all in my head... Just erstwhile my brother got back, I was in the hospital. I lost so much hunger and consciousness twice, I can't remember who carried me to the infirmary block... Twice the camp doctors saved my life – literally, due to the fact that the second time they just left me with them, without discharge from the infirmary, although I was already healed. And the second time I was conscious, they asked me if I had a brother named Tadeusz. erstwhile I confirmed it, they just said he just got back from the mill to camp. The father was at the time in the area of alleged free blocks – that's what they were called due to the fact that their residents were going to work outside the camp. Father had no thought about tailoring, but he volunteered to work as a tailor and sewed buttons on his uniforms behind the camp wires.
Are you assigned to any peculiar work in the camp?
No, I was in the alleged closed blocks – actually the dying rooms. My brother was taken to the factory, my father got into the tailor's plant, and I spent all day inactive – and it was torture, with breaks to the hospital... After night, you had to go outside from the barracks, of course, regardless of the weather. I remember that in winter, on cold days, people made alleged boilers. This was due to the fact that 1 man stood, and around him there was a wreath of people – everything to make them warmer. On my szlub was German, without 1 hand – I remembered it well, who took a hose and poured cold water on these mediocre people... There no 1 was sick for long – man stood, and in a minute he fell to the ground and did not get up... So in Dachau, people died both through hard work beyond human forces and during idleness... And the binder of all sufferings was hunger. But let's go back to the gathering with my brother – my communicative may seem chaotic, but it's a good time... I ran out of the infirmary consecutive to the gate behind which my father stood among another prisoners, and I ask him through that gate where Tadeusz was. And then my father got tears from his eyes, and next to him the standing boy cried – a skeleton stretched with skin... “You don’t know your brother” – my father replied to me, and this “living corpse” next to me was Tadeusz... Hot eyes deep in the eye sockets... [crying] But he survived! We all survived...
Do you remember erstwhile that was exactly?
About a week or 2 weeks before the liberation of the camp by Americans [the liberation occurred on April 29, 1945 – ed.]. My brother went to the infirmary and I'll tell you what saved him. Namely Western European prisoners – Belgians, French and others – received packages in which there were medicines in addition to food. And while specified a prisoner – despite these packages – was dying, doctors utilized his medicine to treat those mediocre people who received nothing, i.e., us, the Warsawians. I remember erstwhile the first American soldiers – 300 scouts on jeeps entered Dachau. It was said that 3 prisoners had escaped from the camp, penetrated the front line, and it was thanks to them that these scouts reached Dachau so quickly. They were scouts from the 3rd Battalion of the 157th Lieutenant Colonel Felix L. Sparks. The first thing they saw was 30 freight wagons standing in an honest field. erstwhile they approached them, he struck their nostrils with a terrible fetor, and erstwhile they opened them, each of them was filled to the brim with the names of bare bodies – or actually human skeletons with skin. After what they saw, they gave the SS a bloodbath, and they had a very bad luck, due to the fact that The scouts were commanded by Pure Blood Cherokee, Lieutenant Jack Bushyhead of the Indian name Chief celebrated Eagle. He put captured SS men against the wall and personally opened fire on them with a cocaine. The American military authorities absolved him, and the prisoners called him a benefactor. I don't know if I'd have acted the same way in the Lieutenant and his soldiers' place if I'd seen those cars...
All I'm gonna say is that the joy of seeing these American boys is unspeakable... Unspeakable! After our liberation, we stayed in Dachau for about 2 weeks. Paradoxically, it was a very hard time, due to the fact that these scouts and another American soldiers threw food at us. Many prisoners, incapable to resist, consumed this bread and canned food—and died. I remember erstwhile the doctors sent me to the blocks to appeal and ask me to refrain from eating due to the fact that the hungry organism reacted with a twist of guts and death. any listened... After these 2 weeks, the Americans transported us to the German military barracks, where as dipis, we waited respective months for transport to the country. It turned out that it would be a Russian train to return to the Russians – prisoners and forced ro botnics. 1 Polish car was added to this transport and we hung a white-red flag on this carriage. erstwhile that flag on the border of their business region was seen by Americans, our wagon was ordered to unhook due to the fact that they feared what would happen to us in the communist zone.
However, we very much wanted to return to Poland and already in another transport we passed without our flag. The Soviets towards us and another erstwhile prisoners behaved terribly – violently. Imagine that along with us, the cordon crossed respective Americans dressed in civilian clothing – possibly for intelligence purposes. erstwhile the solstice approached 1 and began to tug him to return the “times”, he pulled out the weapon and injured 1 of them and then ran away. The Russians exported virtually everything from Germany, including the cut-out tree from the forest. And the least crucial thing about these shipments were people... including their own countrymen.
Most of whom awaited the lagers for “the shame of being in German captivity...
Exactly. Our further journey through Germany looked like we were catching various trains that were heading east – sometimes with approval from convoys, and sometimes not... Dangerous was the way. Fortunately, however, we reached Legnica. Here in the repatriation office we received a 100 zlotys per individual and moved on to Warsaw. Unfortunately, at the scene, our home was completely ruined. My father decided to go to the country, to my family, where my parent and my younger siblings were.
In this village, we had to start over... Postwar poorness is unimaginable today. I'll just tell you that sometimes we were more hungry than in Dachau... My father didn't know much about management, but he tried. Unfortunately, he had tummy cancer and died. Everything fell on my shoulders – a 14-year-old... due to the fact that the eldest brother immediately left for Warsaw. I worked hard in the countryside until 1949 and decided to return to Warsaw. My first business was the work of a bishop in the publishing cooperative “Book and Knowledge” and then the secondary school – electrical technology. And life went on, but these moments from the Dachau camp are unexplorable...
The interview was published in the 4th issue of the quarterly “Army Poland. History” in 2024.
