30 December 1944 | 5 prisoners were hanged in Auschwitz after the evening roll-call. One of them was Bernard Åšwierczyna (in the pictures), a Polish soldier, co-organiser of the resistance in the camp. 3 days before his death he wrote those words in cell 28 in the bunker of Block 11.
„I only wanted to be a human and not a heartless combination of digits. To relate by existence to the future and know the secret of future history. I have been captured treacherously by force and locked behind bars, but my honour has not been broken and will not be broken even by the executioner.”
Other prisoners hanged during this execution were: a Pole Piotr PiÄ…ty and Austrians: Ernst Burger, Rudolf Friemel (in the picture) and Ludwig Vesely. They tried to escape from the camp on 27 October 1944.
The escape was thwarted by the betrayal of a bribed SS guard Johann Roth who instead of driving the prisoners out of the camp, went straight to Block 11. The execution on 30 December 1944 was the last hanging execution at the Auschwitz I camp.
While a secondary student in Silesia, Åšwierczyna wrote and published poems and radio plays. He passed his secondary school final examinations in 1935, and went to officer cadet school in Skierniewice. He fought as a reserve second lieutenant against the 1939 invasion of Poland.
A member of the underground Union of Armed Struggle, Åšwierczyna was arrested in Krakow on June 14, 1940, and taken to Auschwitz on July 18, 1940. At the time of his arrest, Åšwierczyna had recently married his wife, Adelaida; their son Felicjan was not yet born. Åšwierczyna sent Felicjan a fairy tale from Auschwitz, together with an accompanying poem. The Fairy Tale about a Hare, a Fox, and a Cockerel was translated from the Czech and published clandestinely in the camp.
Åšwierczyna was active in the prisoner resistance, using the pseudonyms of Max and Benek. He was one of five resistance leaders who attempted to escape Auschwitz on 27 October 1944. After the escape attempt was betrayed, Åšwierczyna did not succeed in committing suicide, and was hanged on 30 December 1944, in the last execution held in the Auschwitz men's camp.
At his death Åšwierczyna left the following words inscribed on the door of his cell, Cell 28 in the bunker of Block 11:
I only wanted to be human and not a heartless collection of digits. To relate by existence to the future and know the secret of future history. I have been captured treacherously by force and locked behind bars, but my honour has not been broken and will not be broken even by the executioner. – How sweet it is to die for the fatherland
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