Out of the Inferno: Poles Remember the Holocaust

Henryk Werakso

175 Henryk Werakso to make clear to them that sick human beings, not war material, were being transported. Soon the planes flew away. We tried to help those wounded in the attack. The Germans, scattered in the field, returned to the convoy , and the trip resumed. Before long, we reached the suburbs of Lubeck, where I spent the last days of the war in the barracks of Bad Schwartau, originally built for the German army. We were liberated by the British on the Polish national holdiay-May 3, 1945. Wagner, professor of law at the University of Detroit was educated in Poland, France, and the United States. He is a distinguished scholar and author. HENRYK WERAKSO In 1941 Lieutenant Kacper Milaszewski, known by the pseudonym Lewald, began to organize the Union for Armed Struggle (later the Home Army) in the county of Stolpce (strictly speaking, the communities in the region included Derewno, Naliboki, Rubiezewicz, and part of Iwieniec). He selected me as his adjutant, in which capacity I served during the organization and early operations of partisan units under his command in the Nalibocki Forest (the Seventy-eighth Infantry Regiment and the Twenty-Seventh Cavalry Regiment). When we had our framework ready, we began to penetrate German offices and place our own people there, with the aim of gathering and transmitting news about German actions. The most valuable information was transmitted by Hipolit Samson and J. Borysewicz, both of whom the Germans later put to death. They told us which ghettos would be exterminated and when it would occur. In the spring of 1942, we learned that the Germans planned to liquidate the Rubiezewicz ghetto in June. Lieutenant Milaszewski immediately sent me to Rubiezewicz to relay this information to the Jews. The Rubiezewicz ghetto was not enclosed by a wall or barbed wire, allowing the Jews to walk freely around the town. They depended on the generosity of the Polish people for their food; the Germans did not give them any means of living. My first conversation was with Rabbi Pentelnik from Derewno and his daughter, Nieszka, a former schoolmate. The rabbi advised me to talk with Bratkowski, 176 Out of the Inferno the former commander of a unit, called Talbot, from Derewno. Upon my return, Lieutenant Milaszewski was clearly pleased with my trip to Rubiezewicz. After some time, we received information about a plan to liquidate the ghetto in Stolpce. The ghetto was wired and well guarded. We knew that the Germans used ghetto labor for slaking lime and working in the sawmill in Nowe Swierznie, two and one-half kilometers beyond Stolpce. I was sent to the quarry under the pretext of buying lime. I met Jewish acquaintances and relayed the news of what awaited them. As they filled the bags with lime, three Jewish women asked me if I could take them along with the lime and carry them to the woods. I replied that we would try it and asked them sit in the wagon. At the gate, the German police stopped us and sharply asked me where I was taking the women. I replied through an interpreter that the Jews had asked me to carry them to Stolpce, where they would pick up certain items from their abandoned houses and then return to work. The Germans conferred with each other. Eventually a German sergeant approached me. He expressed agreement, on condition that I hand over my German identity card, which would be returned to me after I brought the Jews back to work. At first I excused myself on . the grounds that I lacked the time to bring the women back and could not see what I would get out of it. He replied that I would receive something. I readily handed over my identity card because that was not my real name on it anyway. We moved away as the Germans waved us on. I responded with a friendly wave too. After I crossed the railroad track, I did not travel over the bridge by way of Stolpce. I chose a longer road on the left side of the Niemen. After one kilometer, I threw the bags of lime into the ditch, and away I went with my Jewish charges. (This incident would be confirmed by a former resident of the Stolpce ghetto Mrs. R.N., who now lives in Manchester, England.) In July and August 1943, action against the partisans began in the Nalibocki Forest. Several German divisions, aided by thousands of police...