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Page 1
Record of witness testimony No. 306
(Text, Manuscript)
Language
Polish
Persons
Nowak, Edmund
, 1919-
(interviewee)
Kurowski, Bożysław
, 1911-2006
(interviewer)
Origin
Trelleborg
, 1946-05-16
Physical description
ff. 13
Format:
Non digital + Digital, reformatted digital
Abstract
This document is part of a series of interviews with former prisoners of Nazi concentration camps. The interviews were conducted in 1945-1946 by the Polish Research Institute in Lund.
On 20 May 1940, the witness was arrested by the border guards, accused of crossing the border into Slovakia. He was taken for interrogation to Gestapo’s HQ in Zakopane where he was put into an overcrowded prison cell. The witness along with other inmates tried to escape but they were betrayed and punished by the Germans. Shortly afterwards the witness was transferred to a prison in Tarnów where the sanitary conditions were awful. On 9 August 1940, the witness was among 460 other prisoners who were loaded onto cattle wagons, 40 prisoners to a wagon, and transported to Sachsenhausen. When they arrived at the railroad station, they were counted and herded to the camp. Among the newcomers were a number of priests who were humiliated by the Nazis. Prisoners were ordered to turn in all items in their possession and change their clothes. They were assigned to a quarantine barrack. During the period of quarantine the new prisoners were forced to do physical exercises which was one of the most feared forms of punishment. After eight weeks, the quarantine ended and the witness was assigned to a work crew. Some prisoners hurt themselves in the hope of avoiding work. The daily life consisted of corporal punishment, hard physical labour and starvation. On 21 April 1945, the camp was evacuated and the prisoners were set out on a trek.
Notes
About the collection: At the end of World War II approximately 20,000 Nazi concentration camp prisoners were evacuated to Sweden. Many of them were Polish citizens. In order to document their experiences, Zygmunt Łakociński founded the Polish Research Institute in Lund. The collection contains 512 in-depth interviews with survivors, materials that they brought with them to Sweden, and also other material that the institute collected, compiled, and created.
External links
The Polish Research Institute collection
Document type
Interview
Subject, topics
Prisons
Gestapo
Interrogations
Polish underground
Escape attempts
Food
Sanitary conditions
Priests
Physical exercises (Punishment)
Prisoner functionaries (German)
Quarantine
Theft
Work crews (Speer)
Diseases
Atrocities
Jews
Trade
Personal belongings
Wages
Evacuation
Red cross
Hunger
Catholic interviewee
Male interviewee
Subject, geographic
Sachsenhausen
Schwerin
Contact
Contact us
Location
Lund University Library
Helgonabacken
Box 3
221 00 Lund
The Polish Research Institute in Lund (PIZ)
Identifiers (general)
urn:nbn:se:alvin:portal:record-103094
(nbn)
Identifiers (local)
alvin-record:103094
(alvin)
Licensing of the work
Public Domain Mark (No Known Copyright)
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Link to record
Permanent link
http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:alvin:portal:record-103094
Direct link
https://www.alvin-portal.org/alvin/view.jsf?pid=alvin-record:103094
Appendix
Download document (PDF)
Download document (PDF), 12405 KB
Transcription (PDF)
Transcription (PDF), 236 KB
Translation (PDF)
Translation (PDF), 279 KB
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About Alvin
Alvin is a platform where digitized cultural heritage and digital collections are preserved and made available, as well as a catalogue of materials not yet digitized.
Copyright
All digitized materials in Alvin may be downloaded and used freely!