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Polish Survivors remember the first day the Germans opened Auschwitz

June 23, 2010

Brooklyn, N.Y. … Polish Catholic survivors of Auschwitz Andrew Garczynski (left) and Walter Kolodziejek (center) present a copy of Dr. Richard Lukas’ book “Forgotten Holocaust -- Poles Under German Occupation 1939—1944” to Asher Novek from the office of the Comptroller of New York City, John Liu.

Mr. Novek represented Comptroller Liu at the plenary meeting of the Polish American Congress Downstate N.Y. Division held at Greenpoint’s Polish & Slavic Center.

The meeting coincided with the 70th anniversary of the day Hitler’s SS began operating the dreaded Auschwitz concentration camp on June 14, 1940.

After invading and occupying Poland nine months earlier, the Germans rounded up and sent 728 Polish prisoners from Tarnow to Auschwitz on the first transport recorded there.

Although Mr. Garczynski was sent to Auschwitz in 1943, his brother Stanley (now deceased) was one of those early arrivals and came there on the second transport from Tarnow.

For the first two years it operated, most of the prisoners in Auschwitz were Polish, according to Garczynski. Mass transports of Jews began arriving there in early 1942 after the Germans developed the idea of the “Final Solution” at the Wannsee Conference.

By the time the camp was liberated in 1945, Jews represented the largest group murdered there. Poles were the second
largest.

Mr. Kolodziejek was marked as prisoner No. 2254 when he arrived in Auschwitz in August, 1940, barely two months after the first transport of Polish prisoners.

Adjusting to his new status as a concentration camp inmate was enough of a trauma. He then found out that the German doctors picked him to become one of the first prisoners in Auschwitz for their special experiments.

The Polish American Congress combined the 70th anniversary of the Auschwitz opening with the 70th anniversary remembrance of the Katyn Massacre.

At Katyn, the Russians methodically executed 22,000 Polish officers, priests, professors, doctors, lawyers and other
professionals during April and May of that year.

Just as soon as the Russians completed their grisly murders at Katyn, the Germans then opened their Auschwitz death factory in June to begin killing more Poles.

Together, Katyn and Auschwitz conspired to make Spring, 1940 “Poland’s Most Cruel.”

Contact: Frank Milewski
pacdny@verizon.net