Shavelings in Death Camps

by Malak, Henry M.; Tucker, Bozenna J.; Tucker, Thomas R.

• ISBN13: 9780786470570
• ISBN10: 0786470577
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2012-08-24
• Publisher: McFarland Publishing

Summary

At the beginning of World War II, Catholic priests all across Poland were arrested and sent to Nazi concentration camps. This memoir by Fr. Henryk Maria Malak (1912-1987) is their story and his. Through the author's eyes we witness the German invasion, atrocities against the local population, and the roundup of priests from the region. A series of transports takes them to Stutthof and Grenzdorf in Poland, then to Sachsenhausen and Dachau in Germany. Fr. Malak spent more than four years at Dachau, and he describes camp life in detail. (His final chapters are entries from a diary he kept secretly near the end of the war.) Some priests are selected for medical experiments; others are sent on death transports. Throughout their ordeal they face brutal treatment, hard labor, hunger, disease. Although many perish along the way, all remain steadfast in their faith and in their loyalty to Poland.

Author Biography

Bozenna J. Tucker was born in Poland and knew Fr. Henryk Maria Malak from the Heilbronn DP camp. She is retired as an analyst at the U.S. Department of Defense and lives in Columbia, Maryland. Thomas R. Tucker studied Slavic languages and literatures at Harvard University. He is retired as an analyst at the U.S. Department of Defense and lives in Columbia, Maryland.

Table of Contents

Translators' Preface	p. 1
Introduction to the 1961 Edition	p. 3
The Merciless Summer of 1939	p. 5
And That Day Arrived	p. 8
"Invitation" to a Meeting	p. 19
Górna Grupa	p. 26
To Gdansk	p. 32
In the Hell of Stutthof	p. 37
The Butchers of Stutthof	p. 43
Miserere	p. 49
A Hunger for Freedom	p. 57
Holy Week 1940	p. 61
Ethnic Germans	p. 66
Grenzdorf	p. 71
Here You Have to Work	p. 76
Satan's Program	p. 82
What Will Become of Us?	p. 84
Sachsenhausen	p. 88
The First Days	p. 93
No Changes in Sachsenhausen	p. 104
One-Eyed Fritz	p. 108
In the Valley of Jehoshaphat	p. 118
A Chapel in the Death Camp	p. 122
The Stream of Time Was Flowing	p. 129
Roll Call	p. 136
The Last Days	p. 142
A Holy Shipment	p. 144
The Sanitarium in Dachau	p. 148
Snow	p. 158
The Year 1941 Approaches	p. 164
When on Candlemas Day All Was Covered with Snow	p. 169
Allow Us to Work	p. 177
The Second Freiland	p. 186
"Joyful Privileges"	p. 197
The Reverend Bishop	p. 206
September 15,1941	p. 211
The Fence Fell and with It the Privileges	p. 216
A Memorable Transport	p. 223
Zdzich's Hanka	p. 228
Now You'll Rot in Dachau!	p. 231
The Mountain Girl with Little Thórèse's Face	p. 234
The Dismal Beginning of 1942	p. 245
Holy Week 1942	p. 252
Polish Priests Build a Crematorium	p. 259
Three Hundred Polish Priests to the Gas Chambers	p. 263
Guinea Pigs	p. 269
At the Turning Point of 1942	p. 276
My Mother's Brother	p. 281
They Would Have Survived	p. 285
Autumn of 1942	p. 291
Goebbels and the Catholic Nuns	p. 296
The Year 1943	p. 299
At the Turning Point of 1943	p. 305
Autumn of 1943	p. 312
The Nazi Nero	p. 322
Spring of 1944	p. 327
The Fruitful Summer of 1944	p. 332
The Nun Barbara	p. 340
A Diary	p. 344
At the Dawn of 1945	p. 351
The Last Month	p. 357
The Last Sunday	p. 376
Epilogue	p. 389
Chapter Notes	p. 395
Sources	p. 401
Index	p. 405
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