Many Polish families, resettled from the Zamość Region were deported to KL Auschwitz in December 1942 and February 1943. Of over 1300 people brought in three transports, at least 150 were children and youth. Their fates, especially of the boys, were tragic. After a few weeks’ stay in the men’s camp at Birkenau (Sector BIb) most boys were murdered with shots of phenol to the heart in Block 20, which functioned as the hospital in Auschwitz I, on the command of the camp’s authorities.
Source: Zamojski Museum in Zamość. Collection of Zygmunt Klukowski
Deportation of the Polish population from the Zamość Region (1942).
Source: A-BSMA
Antonina and Antoni Cielecki from Niwirkowo (Hrubieszów county), deported with their nine children in January 1943 to the camp in Zamość. Antoni and the youngest of his children, Halinka, died there. The youngest four surviving children, aged from 9 to 14 years were transported to Siedlce, while Antonina and the elder four children were transported to KL Auschwitz on 5 February 1943. Only the eldest daughter, Stanisława, returned from the camp. The photograph from 1927 shows the parents and the five eldest children.
Source: A-BSMA
Czesława Kwoka. Born on 15 September 1928 at Wólka Złojecka. Brought to KL Auschwitz on 13 December 1942 with her mother from the camp in Zamość. Czesława was given number 26947 and was transferred to the women’s camp in Birkenau together with her mother, Katarzyna. Her mother was killed in February 1943, and Czesława died on 12 March 1943 at the age of 14.
Source: A-BSMA
Death Certificate of inmate Czesława Kwoka.
Source: A-BSMA
Józefa Głazowska. Born on 19 March 1930 in Sitaniec, a village near Zamość. Detained with her parents and other Polish families from the same village in November 1942, they were transferred to the camp in Zamość, from where they were transported to KL Auschwitz on 13 December 1942. Her father was sent to the men’s camp in Birkenau, where he was killed shortly after. Józefa was transported, with her mother, to the women’s camp (Sector BIa) in Birkenau and given number 26866. However, they didn’t stay together long, as following a selection of inmates, little Józefa’s mother was taken to Block 25 (known as the Death Block) and killed in the gas chamber a few days later. The girl survived in the camp until its evacuation. On 17 January 1945 she was taken with other children to the camp for children and youth in Potulice near Bydgoszcz (Ostjugend-Verwahrlager) where she survived until liberation.
Source: A-BSMA
Michalina Petrynko. Born on 9 November 1929 in Przedmieście Majdan near Zamość. She was transferred with her parents from the Zamość camp to KL Auschwitz on 13 December 1942 where she was assigned camp number 27018. The whole family were killed in the camp: her mother with her unborn sibling after three months in Birkenau, and then Michalina herself on 13 August 1944 at the age of 14. Her father, Ignacy, was also killed in the camp.
Wire of 26 October 1942 from Rolf Günther (RSHA) to Hermann Krumey on providing transport trains from Zamość to Berlin and Oświęcim
General Government Chief of Security Police and SD
Received on: 26 October 1942.
No. 17,297
Telex
Dr. Bln. Nue No. 193 780 26/10.42. 14.23 = Wel
To SS-Ostubaf. Krumey – currently Lviv
B) To SS-Ostubaf. Krumey — currently Cracow.
Urgent: deliver immediately.
Re: Evacuation of Poles from the Lublin-Lviv and Radom districts. —
Follows: Telephone conversation on 23 October 1942.
RSHA — Roman 4 B 4 — 3666/42 lowercase g — (l 505)
signed by authorisation Günther, SS-Stubaf. +
Source: Biuletyn Głównej Komisji Badania Zbrodni Hitlerowskich w Polsce (Main Commission for the Investigation of Nazi Crimes in Poland against the Polish Nation, hereafter GKBZHwP), Warsaw 1960, vol. XIII, pp. 16–17 (document 2).
Among the first people killed in this manner were the two youngest boys from the group, nine-year-old Tadeusz Rycyk and 12-year-old Mieczysław Rycaj. They were murdered on 21 January 1943 when the camp’s authorities discovered that their mothers had smuggled them, dressed in girls’ clothes, to the women’s camp.
Former Auschwitz inmate Stanisław Głowa (number 20017), employed as a night warden in Auschwitz I hospital block (No. 20), witnessed the murder of boys from the Zamość Region among others. During his questioning in Cracow in 1946 he testified as follows:
In winter 1942/43, Rapportführer Palit[z]sch brought from the camp in Brzezinka two boys who had arrived in a transport from the Zamość Region. He initially had them placed in Block 11, and on the following day took them to Block 20, where Pańszczyk ‘needled’ them. The boys’ names were Rycaj Mieczysław and Rycyk Tadeusz. The parents of both boys and their younger siblings were gassed. [They were actually sent to the camp and registered – author’s note]. Rycik and Rycai were among a few of the boys aged from 8 to 14 who were selected from the entire transport. The remainder, that is around 90 boys were led by Palit[z]sch to Block 20, where they were killed with injections by sanitary non-warrant officer Scherpe. Because Pańszczyk broke down after killing Rycyk and Rycaj, he stopped ‘needling’ and was taken by a transport to Neuengamme. The documents I am being shown concern both boys, that is Rycyk and Rycaj, who I testified about a moment ago. I note that number 83911 was the boy Rycaj Mieczysław, which is why the surname of Ryc stated on this sheet is an error.
Source: GKBZHwP Bulletin, Vol. XIII, pp. 37–38; excerpt from a testimony of 30 September 1946 by Stanisław Głowa to Judge of Regional Investigations Court, Jan Sehn, in Cracow. (Rudolf Höss case file, vol. IV, sheets 160–163.]
Source: A-BSMA
Reports of the SS camp physician at KL Auschwitz of 21 January 1943 on the death of inmates: Mieczysław Ryc (actually Rycaj), born on 3 May 1930 and Tadeusz Rycyk born on 9 October 1933.
Source: A-BSMA
Reports of the SS camp physician at KL Auschwitz of 21 January 1943 on the death of inmates: Mieczysław Ryc (actually Rycaj), born on 3 May 1930 and Tadeusz Rycyk born on 9 October 1933.
On 23 February 1943, a further 39 boys from the Zamość transports were killed. Several days later, on 1 March, a group of the 82 youngest, teenagers of Polish, Russian and Jewish nationalities were selected at the morning roll call in the men’s camp in Birkenau on the pretext of organising a transport of inmates to a paramedical course; their number included 16 boys from the Zamość Region.
'In the first days of March', testifies one of the former inmates who witnessed the murder of boys from the Zamość transports, 'two groups of boys arrived at Auschwitz. The first consisted of over 40 people, and the second of 81 people. They were sons of families of Polish and Jewish nationality deported from the Zamość area and murdered in Birkenau, aged between 8 and 14 years. All the boys were murdered with lethal injections. The injections were carried out by Schörpe [Herbert Scherpe: an SS paramedic at the mother camp since March 1942 – author’s note]. I recall that it was 3 March, a day that we found unbelievable at the same time, as several of us heard the cries of murdered children calling – Mummy!'.
Source: Kazimierz Frączek, A-BSMA, Zespół Proces Hössa, vol. 7a, p. 155.
Source: A-BSMA
Brothers Sasin (actually Koch), Józef (right, aged 16) and Roman (13). The photo was taken in the summer of 1942 in Skierbieszów, the village they were deported from. After three months the whole family was subsequently transported to Auschwitz from the transit camp in Zamość in December 1942.
Source: A-BSMA
Death certificate of Roman who was killed on the 1 March 1943 with a shot of phenol. The cause of death is given as Bronchopneumonie i.e. bronchitis.
Although no such mass actions of “needling” were applied to the girls from the Zamość Region in the women’s camp (sector BIa), the ghastly hygienic and sanitary conditions prevalent there combined with illnesses, primarily typhus, as well as the frequent selections conducted among the women, resulted in the excessively high death rate. Only 44 girls and 5 boys from that group survived Auschwitz.