Mr. Henryk Klimek
Mr. Henryk Klimek had decided to tell us about his war history. It has 3 parts. You can read and watch live every part
|
Mr. Henryk Klimek |
|
|
|
He was born in the 22th May 1933 in former county of Toruń. He was a prisoner of German concentration camps in his childhood. He studied the philosophy, psychology and teology. He's a graduate of Faculty of Law on UAM in Poznań. He published many articles about the law. He got a honour on the literary competition called „Literary start Koszalin 2005”. He's an author of work called „Case of the humans origin”. He's also an author of the book called „To understand and believe without any dogmate”. This is about a motivation do happy and honour life. He got the honour for his memories called „The time of loose childhood (1939-1945)”. |
|
Mr. Henryk Klimek has decided to tell us his war story. Here is a summary of that:
"My name is Henryk Klimek, I come from the neighborhood of W±brzeĽno, from Pływaczewo. I come from a big family- there were six children in our home- I was the fourth. My Father, Wladyslaw Klimek, was a member of parliament in the second RP. He was appointed in 1938, a year before the war started. He helped our Mummy, Wanda, with our farm. In 1939, when the war started, I was only 6 years old. On the 2nd September 1939 my Father went to Warsaw for an extraordinary parliament meeting. When they finished, Father couldn't go back home, because all train tracks had been broken; Father came back sick after the journey, which went on for over a month. He lied sick for a long time. He was treated and when he felt quite good, he decided to help our Mummy with the farm. Our German neighbour, Karl Struwe, who had chosen our farm for his son, had already started to introduce "German rules" in our village. The Germans made an organization- in Polish translation "Self defence", just as if they wanted to protect themselves from the local Polish people, but truly it was a criminal organization which Hitler ordered to destroy local Polish intelligent during the first three months of the war. When Father felt almost ok, Struwe came for him with 9 people from the German "Self defence" to tell him that he had to go to Wabrzezno for an interrogate of Gestapo. Mummy was very surprised. The next day she went to the prison to Daddy. She wasn't allowed to come to the prison area, so she talked with our Father through the window. Father asked her to ask some familiar Germans for help. Unfortunately, everyone, with who we were in good contacts, didn't help, they turned us down. Mummy went everywhere to ask what happened to our Dad. They told her that he went to Germany to work there. One day Mummy went even to the chief of the German “Self defence” with a question, if that was true that our Father went to Germany to work. He, upset, said then: ”Ich habe das gemacht”- “I've done this... I've done that that you haven't got a husband any more”. After the war we found out that Father spent 48 hours in Wabrzezno. He was beaten up and interrogated many times. He was killed in Lopatki- there is a massive grave in the forest, where the Germans buried killed people. After "removing" our Father, Struwe wondered, how to get rid of us- Mummy and 6 children. He tried everything- he was sending us for every commission to arrive to Germany for work,. After one of these commissions he even came to us and said: "I asked them to send you back home". What was a lie, of course. Struwe and the chief of the German "Self defence" tried even to send us to Kielce to the General Governory, where Polish people could live then. They were removing people from Pomorze, because they thought, that Pomorze is a German area. |
|
A week before the Easter, at night from the 2nd to the 3rd April, 1942 Struwe came to our house with a guard to tell us that we were going to be moved to the concentration camp in 3- 4 hours. We could take only as much, as we could carry on our hands, so to take the most, Mummy dressed us in 3 layers of clothes- one on the other. We were carrying bedclothes too. In our school rucksacks we didn't have our school books and notebooks, as usual, but some bread, milk and other food taken from home. We were moved from Plywaczewo to Kowalewo Pomorskie and from there to the railway station in Wabrzezno. From Wabrzezno we moved by a train to Torun. Then we turned on the siding and moved to the camp, which later we called "Szmalcowka", because there was a factory of lard before the war. People were deprived of everything. All things were dropped on the camp square and we came to the empty factory hall and we couldn't look through the windows. The guards were standing on the square with the rifles targeted on the windows. When we came on the square again, we saw, that everything that had any value, had been taken away. It was hard to recognize anything, that belonged to us, but we all took our blankets, bedclothes etc. In empty factory hall the German prepared places to sleep for people. They looked just like coop for cattle, covered in straw. It was old, musty and smelly. There were a lot of horrible insects inside. After Easter they made groups of job in the camp. Children from the age of six had to work. I was in a group of children who were cleaning the camp square and the area around the camp. Those moments when the guard was opening the gates and we could see normal life- not that behind the camp gates, were priceless. Sometimes when the guard didn't watch beacuse he turned back, for example to smoke the cigarette, just as if he didn't want to see it, people were throwing some food to us. We hid it fast behind our shirts and when we were back in the camp, we shared it between us and other children. At the beginning, Mummy worked away from the camp- She cleaned army barracks. On Sundays we didn't work and we could have a walk on the camp square, but we couldn't walk in bigger groups. |
|
Mummy, just like before the war, dressed us in same clothes. The boys were looking the same and our sister, Rita, always had similar dress. One Sunday we saw how the guard is calling "kapo"- it was a prisoner, who had to supervise us- other prisoners- and he was talking to him, showing him us. After one moment "kapo" came to us and asked, where our Mum was. We told him that she was inside, in the hall. After a while Mummy found out that she was called by he main officer to his office. She went there scared. After some time of a conversation, Mummy went out and told us that from that moment she would work in the camp kitchen. Later letters started to come to the camp. Somebody was writing that we are bad people. The main officer called Mummy to his office again and he told Her that She let him down. She told him that those letters were just a lie and that She knew, who could write so bad things about us: "It's Karl Struwe- our German neighbour from Plywaczewo!". The officer was very suprised that she knew, w''ho the author of those letters was. That was top secret case.The things Mummy said to him made him start having some doubts about the things from those letters and he gave our Mummy an advice. He told Her to ask some familiar Germans for good notes about us. He let Her write some letters and after some time there letters started to come to the camp, which definitely refute Struwe's lies. The camp officer was satisfied with Mummy's job in the kitchen camp and after some time he offered Her a job in his house- She had to look after his two daughters, clean, press, etc. Mummy was getting passes to go away from the camp and She was helping in the main officer's house. One day the main officer decided that Mummy would go with his family on a summer holiday. She didn't want to do this. She was worried about us, children, so the main officer gave passes to us too. We went on a summer holiday- every child to a different member of our family. When we came back, it turned out that all prisoner would be moved to the new concentration camp in Potulice. This camp got free on 21st January 1945. After leaving the camp, we stayed for some time in a house of the Lipinski family- our grandfather's friends and later we went back home- to Plywaczewo..." |