Narratave

Born into Hell

In Stutthof, all anyone could remember was darkness. The hope, the laughter, the light had long since died.  An unnamed French soldier had been shot for his part in the Warsaw Uprising—when had it ended? Andrzej Kazmierczak cannot remember. He remembers nothing of the seven months he spent in his birthplace: the Stutthof concentration camp. Despite bearing no mental torment from that scar on history, he joined our group to share his inherited memories of the most horrific tragedy of mankind. He came to us to present his past. He came to explain the reason his story must be heard: to be remembered for those who cannot. He came to commemorate and to teach about his life. His story.

Before Andrzej Kazmierczak was born, his father was a major in the French army and took part in the Warsaw Uprising. Unfortunately he was caught, taken to Stutthof concentration camp which was near Gdańsk, and was shot there. After the war, his father was awarded with the Jewish High Award.

Andrzej Kazmierczak was born in 1944 in Stutthof. When he was about 7 months old, he was diagnosed with typhus and the bubonic plague. Nazi officers used him as an experiment for vaccinations. The vaccines, although crude, cured his disease. Soon after, German nuns smuggled him out of the camp in a laundry basket. A German officer was about to adopt him, but the war ended a moment too soon. Instead, a childless Polish family in Łódz adopted him, telling him that he was their own son.

At the age of 16, he was sent to a Krakow monastery for his studies. This monastery was where the future Pope John Paul II baptised him for the third time. At his stay at the monastery, he discovered a newspaper article which claimed to be his obituary, proclaiming that Andrzej had committed suicide. Andrzej realized that his father was using the article to discourage family members and German officers from claiming him as their own. The teenager was furious. (Years later, Pan Kazmierczak is more forgiving of his father’s actions. He says of his adopted family, “They loved me, but they weren’t above hiding me away.”) Suspecting that he was adopted and never informed, he made the rage-blinded decision to join the military. He was rejected.

Soon after his rejection, Andrzej began his studies at the University of Warsaw. During his stay there, he involved himself in the underground anti-communist movement. After the Warsaw protests of 1968, he was expelled from the university due to his ethnicity. Without studies to worry about, he increased his involvement in the movement, and soon he found himself being chased by Soviet operatives. Although at first he evaded the communist spies, eventually they caught up with him and he was captured. Had not the Vatican interfered, he might have been executed for treason. Instead, Pope John Paul II negotiated for his release, and he was instead sentenced to community service. During that time, all his phone calls were monitored and his bills and other personal business were watched. Facing such terrifying challenges, Andrzej told us, “I wasn’t scared, and I somehow was able to manage to get through it all.” He says, with his characteristic optimism, that the “community service gave [him] many important skills.”

Later in the interview, he described his life in more recent years. He explained that he has been through three marriages in his life. The first two marriages were very unsuccessful. “Don’t follow my example,” he chuckled. His third marriage is with a woman who is 24 years younger than him but they love each other dearly and have a strong connection. His marriages resulted in two children: a son in the Polish Commando Force and a daughter. Today, Kazmierczak has acquired multiple professions. He is a photographer, a film technician, and a filmographer, and has many other talents. Occasionally he acts in an unofficial capacity as a divorce lawyer in his retirement. Recently, he went to Israel where he received multiple awards for his efforts in preserving the memories of the Holocaust. For example, he has added to a book about the French Holocaust survivors.

69 years after the end of the Holocaust, tragedy still blemishes the imperfect world into which Andrzej Kazmierczak was born. It is imperative, then, that the past be remembered in order to protect the future. Pan Kazmierczak is an example to us all for his commitment to this goal.