Why, oh God, Why

[tailor marc]

Hi 4thskorpion, Joanna is directly related to Halina Gorcewicz. It was her Grandmother.
Im hoping to head over to see her this weekend and i will see what pictures i can get and anymore info . Maybe a copy of the book aswell

[StefanM]

So Halina had further children through a second marriage?

I wonder why she wrote that she was approaching old age and alone in the ending of her book?

Maybe she found happiness again by marrying in her old age and with step children?

[tailor marc]

yeah as far as i know she lived alone . Joanna uesed to tell me that she was going to visit on some weekends and that she was alone . I will see if i can do up a quick family tree from what Joanna and her mum know. he mum and dad may know more.

Also it looks like the diary onlines now gone and no books exist. Maybe its fate that i came across this and my mission to get these back online and published??? Would this help alot of people? If it does i will start right away from this weekend

[StefanM]

Why, Oh God, Why was never published in print form and was only ever available online from very late 1990's until early 2002 or thereabouts until Jerzy Kilinger died and for a shorttime after the website hosting fees presumably stooped being paid.

At the time I tried unsuccessfully to get the web hosting company in Western Australia to reinstate the site if I paid the hosting fees myself but the content and domain space were permanently deleted and I needed to be based in Australia to register an Australian domain name.

The manuscript even as translated by Jerzy still needed a great deal of editing and correcting in many places as well as detailed footnotes to explain who all of the characters Halina mentions were and put them in context....as mentioned in a previous post I did start doing this for my own personal pleasure and although an extremely time consuming process I found it began to add a great deal to the narrative of Halina's remarkable diary/memoir. It is definitely a book that deserves professional editing and production to get the best out of the material.

[StefanM]

Halina's account of her escape from the German transport evacuating "STUTTHOF–WALDLAGER" (KL Stutthof) ahead of the advancing Red Army:

"In the evening we were driven to the square in front of the crematorium where stood a goods train with an engine. There we entered the wagons. Mrs. Lutostańska had a bundle tied to her breast containing my little son. From the day of his birth she took him under her protective wing.

It was stifling again in the wagons with the doors closed and locked from the outside so that we could not open them. An armed German soldier from the Wehrmacht sat on the roof of each wagon.

Late at night the train dragged itself to the vicinity of the standard gauge line at Nowy Dwor and halted before the semaphore (railway signal), waiting its turn to cross. Some Kashubian railwaymen who worked at this station ran up to the train. They opened the doors and gave us bread, biscuits and even fruit and meat preserved in jars. We learnt here that we were not going to Berlin after all and would not be transferring to the standard gauge line, but that the train would be shunted to a line going back to the camp, straight to the gas chamber. They told us also that they would not lock our wagon because it was the last one, so we had a chance to escape. The railwaymen also told us that a few days previously a similar transport had a normal railway wagon with double doors attached to it. On the return journey this was filled with poison gas and everyone was killed. This train was no different, so they wanted to help us escape the same fate as those other women.

Not all the women in our wagon could decide to try to escape. Some were totally worn out and hardly made it into the transport. Others were completely resigned to everything, nervously exhausted, broken psychologically. Five joined us. Madame Lutostańska immediately instructed us how to jump out of the wagon and at what intervals, which we were to count off in our heads.

When the train moved off and was passing through some fields Madame Lutostańska gave a signal and we started to jump one by one. First Madame Lutostańska with my little son in her arms. I followed her, then Maria, then the rest. The goods train was not moving quickly, juddering and rolling about. Of the brave ones, only we three found each other. What happened to the other five we did not know. It was not possible to call them or look for them, especially as the guards were shooting from the roofs of the train. And so one did not know whether they succeeded, or were killed or wounded and had to remain there."

This paragraph is especially interesting as it was not a murder method I had ever heard of before...

"The railwaymen also told us that a few days previously a similar transport had a normal railway wagon with double doors attached to it. On the return journey this was filled with poison gas and everyone was killed."

... although Jan Karski does mention in his book Story of a Secret State: My Report to the World of witnessing murder victims being held in cattle cars and being killed by throwing quick-lime over the floor previously and then closing up the wagon doors.

[porta]

Interesting thread gentlemen.

[greimers]

There are aspects of this thread that have serious credibility issues, I'll say no more.

[StefanM]

Another interesting snippet from the manuscript about Halina's entry into "STUTTHOF–WALDLAGER" (KL Stutthof):

"We were entered in the camp records as Polnische Kriegsgefangene (Polish Prisoners of War). We were allocated numbers from 101946 to 101985 and these numbers were stencilled on the backs of our striped blouses. So, from that time, I became prisoner No. 101961. To distinguish us from other prisoners we wore an armband on the right sleeve of our blouses with the letters ‘AK’."

Before reading this manuscript I had never come across previous mention of some A.K. members at a concentration camp wearing armbands to mark them out as A.K. PoWs to distinguish themselves from other inmates?


With regards to medals for Halina, she writes: "The victims of that camp were given the symbolic award of the Grunwald Cross 2nd Class."



Grunwald Cross 2nd Class

However there would also have been other Polish medals/awards instituted after Halina emigrated to Australia that she would also have been entitled to receive.

[navyman]

I would be very interested to read this manuscript. Please go ahead with your efforts to make it available.
Good luck,
navyman.

[Chopperman]

Great thread .