BIOGRAPHY: Jan A.

On 6 April 1940, after being summoned by the employment office, Mr and Mrs A. were forced to leave their family in Gostynin near Kutno in Poland. The couple was put to work on farms as forced labourers. Their daily lives were heavily restricted by the “Poland edicts”. On the “Schlossgut” (castle estate) near the town of Neuwedel (Drawno), Jan A. was arrested on 15 January 1944 for illegally listening to the radio and sentenced to be shot. Only the intervention of the estate manager on his behalf prevented his execution being carried out.

In May 1944, after an odyssey through a number of prisons, Jan A. was sent to Neuengamme concentration camp near Hamburg. There, with his identity reduced to the number 29883, he worked in the brickworks. In autumn of that year he was transferred to Watenstedt-Leinde concentration camp. Together with between 1 500 and 2 000 other prisoners, his transport was destined for the “Reichswerke Hermann Göring”, one of the largest armaments factories in all of the Third Reich.

Jan A. worked in the Brunswick steelworks, a subsidiary company of the “Reichswerke”, producing munitions. One of his tasks as a “centring man’ was to drill openings into the shells. These were then turned on lathes and filled with explosive. On several occasions Jan A. was brutally beaten up by the guards, and a French inmate he worked with was shot dead when he collapsed at his workplace. Lack of sleep and food caused many work accidents, but these were interpreted by the Germans as sabotage and severely punished.

After their workshifts the prisoners were made to build further barracks. Thus, a working day that began in the munitions factory at the crack of dawn was not over until around midnight. “At four in the morning we would all assemble on the parade ground in front of the barracks and stand there in all weathers, in snow or high wind, until 7. At seven the Oberscharführer [first sergeant] would arrive to receive the report of the barrack elder, who related the number of prisoners, and only after each barrack had made its report would we then march off to the factory”, Jan A. recalls. At midday a watery swede soup was distributed. Similarly, for breakfast and supper the hard-working men also received only the barest of starvation rations: bitter ersatz coffee, 100g of black bread, margarine and jam.

The hygienic conditions in the camp were abysmal. The men’s underwear was disinfected three times a month, and only on these days were they also permitted to wash themselves with warm water. In summer as in winter, all the prisoners were given to wear were wooden clogs and their striped prison uniforms. Only rarely, when it was extremely cold, were pullovers distributed. “...when there was frost our entire bodies hurt, so we massaged each other. In the three hours we were kept standing on the parade ground the older men collapsed, while the younger ones tried to jump up and down or massage themselves. I’ll never forget Watenstedt.”

Finally, as the Allies were getting ever closer, the camp was abandoned. The prisoners were to be transported to Ravensbrück concentration camp by train. Many died en route. Their corpses had to be buried by the stronger ones. The journey lasted eight days. Kept in uncovered freight wagons, without water or food, the transport finally arrived in Ravensbrück. While some of the prisoners were made to continue their journey, Jan A. remained in Ravensbrück concentration camp until its liberation by the Soviet forces on 30 April 1945.

Jan A. returned to Gostynin to his parents and his wife. After the war poor health forced him to give up his profession as a baker. He took up work as a chauffeur and driver. Today Jan and Joanna A. live in Warsaw. They have a daughter and two grandchildren.