Letter VIII, dated October 2nd, 1943,[1]
Dear Boys! This time we have a piece of bad news for you. After five months of a break, the new executions started again. On Tuesday, September 28th, six of our friends were executed.
On four of them, medical experiments had been performed previously – they belong to our group transported to the camp (three from Lublin, one from Warsaw[2]) – and two healthy from Lublin transport. The day was unusual for us; besides the above fact, which shook us again after some calmness, something happened that we may call a miracle. The same day, Holly Communion, which you sent to us, was given to us, including two from our block to receive the Sacrament just before the execution. We thank God for the Grace and you as intermediaries in the act of the Providence; we send you our deepest gratitude.
Our friends went to death courageously, calm and proud. They took them under the false pretence of sending them out of the camp to Wroclaw (previously, it was given Auschwitz). The lie was not even camouflaged. The German camp policewomen who finalized some formalities (leading the girls to a changing room) did not pretend they knew what fate was waiting for our girls. The camp authorities issued directives to prevent any form of manifestation.
Before the last execution, there was a gremial protest. As a result, some female supervisors who tried to disperse us were beaten up. To avoid the situation, they called the girls going to death during dinner break when everybody was rushing to work, and then after work rollcall, nobody was allowed to enter the camp’s main street. They led the girls to so-called “effects” to change their dresses, and after a couple of hours, they showed them beyond the camp gate. Before that, they offered them food packages from a kitchen. However, the girls did not accept that. Beyond the gate, they led them to a political office then the camp car took them away. After five minutes, the vehicle returns empty. We have learned that the execution was done the same evening somewhere near the camp. On Wednesday, the girls’ bodies were transported to the crematorium. On their bodies were found bruises of unknown origin. Those new victims of the crime added to the total number of 184 executed Polish political prisoners. But it is not all from the chronicle of that horrible day.
On Monday, one of our friends, Edwarda Włodarczyk, died of tuberculosis after staying one year in the camp hospital in horrible conditions and without medical care. As far as the issue of the operation, they continue. Five of our friends have undergone experimental surgical procedures in the bunker for the second time and even a third time, yet among them are those who were operated on a few months ago many times. Victims of fifth and sixth surgical procedures are not unusual here. Characteristic is the last ruling of the Lagerfürer prohibiting any medical assistance to operated patients – no massages, no medical healing lamp treatment even in most needed cases unless she has a high temperature, then she might be sent to the camp hospital and be treated as any other sick prisoner. The bestiality of our tormentors reached such a degree that it overpasses the most bestial Middle Ages tortures. No forgiveness would erase crimes committed by that nation. We know that the only way is to erase that bloodthirsty tribe. It does not need our hate and revenge – it will be everlasting justice governing the fate of nations and the world. But we must survive, believing that Goodwill prevails, and Love will be born of martyrs’ blood in the end. From the beginning of that horrible war, we pray not with a weak complaint but with solid demand:
“Come down, Powerful Spirit, and increase our strength beyond the mind, beyond feeling over women's and men's weeping Increase our strength over brotherly graves Over widows’ and orphans’ despair”[3]
Our strength will not be broken until the last day or the previous night. And we all will go to death with bright eyes having in our spirit radiant vision of her who will raise excellent and robust from the end – because she is immortal!
Those who will perish are like the seeds sown resting in the earth to give a crop because they must die what has to offer life.
[1] Written by Zofia Pocilowska
[2] According to a roster of operated there were: from Lublin transport – Rozalia Gutek, Maria Zielonka, Aniela Sobolewska, from Warsaw transport – Apolonia Rakowska
[3] The poem by Kazimierz Wierzyński translated by Jarosław Józef Gajewski