Letter I, without date[1]
Dearest! Thank you so much for a letter and a page of “Dzwon.”[2] It was like some of you vigorously shook a hand with each of us as a sign of being close to us.
Keep being calm; we can endure and wait.
You are writing that you know what our life looks like. Let us try in this letter to describe it more precisely. We want to provide you with facts that we hope you will pass to our country and London. We do not know if those facts are known there; it requires decisive and absolute intervention. We do not know if the agreement with Roosevelt, where Germany abolished the death penalty for women (France, Holland, and Belgium used it), covers us since executions continue. The number of Polish political prisoners is about three thousand. We live in six barracks. Living conditions are appalling – it is crammed (in a barrack initially built for 250 inmates live 500) due to noise, dirt, lice, and inability to keep fundamental rules of hygiene. The situation gets worse by the lack of bedding and personal underwear. (They provide us with new underwear every three months). This lack of hygiene conditions spreads diseases.
Medical care is insufficient. Bad attitude toward us plus lack of medicine presents a picture of the medical care. Add to that is our fear of “rewir” (camp hospital –translator’s comment). They kill patients in severe and infectious cases (euthanize by lethal injection – translator’s word). Food is more than appalling. The quality and quantity of it leave a lot to wish for. As a result of harmful ingredients in food, skin and blood diseases spread even more since some food additives adversely affect women’s bodies. The daily rations of food are not adequate for the required labour. Since December, we have received parcels from families, which improved the situation. However, only a tiny percentage of women get it. Working is hard, long and exhausting. Both workshops were produced for the army (sewing clothes, sheepskin coats etc.) and outside the camp; work hours lasted 11 hours daily. In winter, working hours depend on the length of the daylight. Work in workshops is even more challenging since it is continued at night, and treatment by SS guards is typically German – shouting, beating, kicking and reporting. Work outside the camp like planting; reloading is equally challenging. Working conditions improve only when they send us out of the Ravensbrück camp to work on farms.
Work avoidance is severely punished by imprisonment in the bunker – a dark cell without bread and water, beating and penal block (imprisonment lasting from 3 months to one year). This year the attitude of camp authorities to Poles got worse. We feel it not only by the way they treat us but also because they do not send us outside the camp to work on farms and remove Poles from supervisory positions. Instead, Poles and Ukrainians are sent out to factories. Two shipments of prisoners went to Grüneberg (ammunition factory) and near Carlsbad to the porcelain factory. They plan them more like that.
Executions:
Prisoners’ cargo into the “unknown” is happening continuously. Executions are done in groups by city and transport arrival date to the camp. The latest one (in the footnote, the publisher gives the date of March 18th, 1943) caused the Polish inmates’ reaction. When the camp’s SS led girls out for execution at dusk, the crowd of Poles poured out from barracks onto the camp’s main street, wanting to say the last farewell to the girls to be executed. At that moment, camp female guards tried to block the crowd causing a skirmish between guards and inmates. One of the guards was beaten up when she wrote down the prisoners’ numbers of those participating in the group. Since it was dark, there were no punishable consequences of the incident. However, a couple of days later, Polish prisoners were removed from “Efekts” (storage of the camp clothes), where they did camp clothes sorting to prevent them from finding returning underwear and clothes of executed compatriots; additionally, those working in “Efekts” were threatened with repressions. Girls who had been led for execution were quiet and behaved with dignity.
Medical experiments: There have been 80 experiments (conducted only on Poles, girls mainly from Lublin) despite the victims’ protest. Five died. The rest- are crippled, unable to walk normally. Their legs were operated on; probably, bones were removed. The operations are conducted in secret without the assistance of prisoners’ nurses. The operated victims suffer tremendously. They will probably be crippled for the rest of their life. Dr. Gebhardt from Hohenlychen (where there is a sanatorium for invalids) conducts operations. The criminality of those experiments cannot be compared to anything.
We are strong despite the brutal conditions. We are waiting for the day of freedom. We are waiting for Beautiful and Strong Poland. We believe that she will be fantastic bright and unite the feelings of all Poles. She will protect the poor and weak, making them strong and beautiful in spirit. We are learning and writing. And live encouraged by letters from Poland. We attached the camp poetry to the notes. We regularly participate in self-education (history, Polish language, philosophy, astronomy, geology, foreign languages). We gather on Sunday for discussions. Representatives of different political options discuss the future of Poland. If we have different opinions on the subject, we try not to poison our ideological struggle but to respect each other. We read newspapers. Like us, we believe that you are motivated in life despite miserable circumstances by a good spirit and similar ideas. We believe that together we return to Poland to build her up. Our love for her was the reason we ended up here. We warmly shake your hard-working hands and wait to see you again.
[1] The letter was written by Zofia Pociłowska. It does not have a date. Based on the information in the letter about the execution of Polish inmates, it may be assumed that the date is between March 18th, 1943, and April 28th, 1943.
[2] ‘Dzwon’ was an illustrated periodic written and issued by POWs in Stalag II/A commando 75A