大象传媒

I am writing this story on behalf of my wonderful granddad, who bless him does not know how to use the Internet.

This story is set in Poland, where my granddad was brought up and at 19 years old decided to join the army and fight for his country. One morning they were ordered to march into Warsaw to fight the Germans, my granddad was so terrified that on the way up through the woods he fled. He was captured by the Germans and dumped in a truck full of terrified men, most of whom he did not know, all fearing for their lives.

He and the other men were taken to Auschwitz where they were ordered to line up for inspection. My granddad was considered healthy and lined up in the next queue. A German officer asked him what he did for a living, he lied and said he was a silversmith - he is a very clever man and knew he had to say that to live. They branded his arm with a number and let him through.

He moved into a barracks with 12 other strangers. He was completely alone, no family or friends there, and he was only 19. He did manual labour for the few weeks he was there. He saw everything, things that give him nightmares to this day. Jewish people were being marched into the gas chambers and he had to go in there after them to check if they had all died.

Himmler visited the camp every weekend to make sure that targets were met. I cannot mention all of my grandfather's thoughts and memories because it is very painful for him to talk about them. He was made to do awful things, taking out the dead bodies, digging the mass graves for them and sorting out the Jewish people's belongings.

After a few weeks he was moved by train to Mauthausen, another camp in Poland. The Germans obviously found him useful and had no intention as yet to kill him. My granddad is a very strong man who survived there for five years until the camp was liberated. He has told me stories of the best Christmas ever, when him and 12 men were given a small tin of cat food to eat. Also of nights in the field where Spanish, Polish and Italian men would gather and catch mice and cut grass to make into soup, because they were starving on their rations of watery soup and mouldy bread.

My granddad kept his sense of humour through it all, he is a fighter. At night, when he needed the toilet, it was too risky to cross the field in case you were shot, so he used to take the other men's clothes from the bottom of the bed and wee in them. Knowing that they would do the same to him, he hid his under his pillow. I know it sounds disgusting but it is how they lived.

Only a few other men survived the liberation. My granddad has no recollection of the day or time when he was liberated. They asked him his birthday but he did not know, so they made one up for him. He was extremely lucky because the Americans picked up on his skills. He had mixed with so many foreigners in the camp that he had learnt many new languages, about five. He worked for the Americans as a translator, and after a few years went to work in the coal mines in the West Midlands, where he met my gran.

He is still alive to this day and I am so incredibly proud of him, he is the nicest most caring man alive. He was lucky enough to meet the Pope about 15 years ago and receive a blessing for his braveness. I am still learning what he has gone through, it is going to take time for him to finish his story to me - this story has not even touched on what he saw and lived through because that would take me hours and many pages. I guess I am just acknowledging what he went through and what people are capable of.

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