Photo by Andrzej Banaś
The death
camps were
only built
in Poland.
But they were
established
and operated
by the Germans.
We must keep
remembering this
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Halina Krzymowska, a KZ Ravensbrück survivor, finds it impossible to accept that the foreign press repeatedly writes news items about “Polish concentration camps”. The people who do this haven’t got the foggiest idea of those times and the tragedy. Someone has to tell the truth! says Halina Krzymowska.
She is very brief and yet moving in her account of the atrocities that were inflicted on those living in the camps. The Germans treated us like scum. They could hit us, kick us and kill us as they pleased. There was no one to come to our rescue, says Halina Krzymowska.
She experienced all this as soon as she entered the camp. I got my number and my badge assigned and I immediately passed out. As soon as my mum saw a high-ranking SS officer, she ran up to him and started to beg for help. Other Germans pounced on her and injected her with a poisonous drug. My mum only survived by a miracle, she says.
Halina Krzymowska was born in 1927 in Warsaw. She was the daughter of Jan Kamienobrodzki, a high-ranking civil servant at the Bank Polski. As a child, she attended the same school as the daughters of Marshal Józef Piłsudski. In September 1939, twelve-year-old Halinka was just about to start high school, when the outbreak of war suddenly stood in her way.
The teenager left Poland with her mother and brother in a convoy that was evacuating the Bank Polski reserves. The family crossed Ukraine, Romania and Yugoslavia, and eventually, with a group of other Polish people, ended up in the Isle of Krk in today’s Croatia. They spent several years on the island, far from the ravages of war. But this all came to an end in 1944 when Krk was invaded by the Germans, who arrested the Polish citizens. The Kamienobrodzki family were separated: Halina and her mother were transferred to KZ Ravensbrück; her younger brother ended up in an orphanage in Kraków. He was sent to a Germanisation centre for children. They would undergo special training to become German, says Halina.
In the camp, Halina worked in the sewing room and as a builder on the SS officers’ houses. After the World War II she and her mother moved to Sweden for a while, and then later returned to Poland where they finally settled in Kraków. The atrocities of war she witnessed as a teenager would never put a damper on her happiness and vitality. She has been extremely active for many years: she enjoyed mountaineering and skiing, and toured Poland on a motorbike with her husband.
Halina Krzymowska is happy to share her memories. She is adamant about one thing: the truth must always be told. The death camps were only built in Poland. But they were established and operated by the Germans. We must keep remembering this.
Halina Krzymowska died in Kraków, on January 16, 2017.