Jerzy Radwanek

Youth - fascination with aviation     

Jerzy Radwanek was born in Cracow on 5.II.1919. His father - Alfred - was a commissioner of several districts of the city of Cracow.  The exposed position allowed the life of the family to go on peacefully and prosperously.  Unfortunately, his father died prematurely in 1930, the distraught mother - Irena, was left alone with two small children - Jerzy and his older brother Zbyszek. Jurek had been interested in painting and modeling since childhood. When he was 15, he built his first flying model airplane, for which he received high honors.  The following year he was accepted to a glider course. Aviation became the great dream of his life .

 In 1937, after passing his high school diploma and many difficult exams, he was admitted to the Air Force Officer Cadet School, the famous "Eagle School" in Deblin. He belonged to the youngest class of Polish pilots - the memorable 13th Pro-mission. It was to be held as every year in November, but due to the outbreak of war, already on September 7, 1939, by an order signed by Colonel Modest Rastawiecki, all cadet graduates belonging to the 13th promotion were promoted to the rank of second lieutenant. At the same time, the order instructed them to head for Zaleszczyki, that is, towards the Romanian border. Only that by then they no longer had anything to fly on - on September 2, 1939. Deblin was bombed twice. Evacuated, together with a column of troops, they forced their way south, but unfortunately on September 21 they were disarmed by Hitler's troops and almost the entire 4th Observers Squadron found itself in German captivity. Jurek managed to escape and return to Cracow. During World War II, out of 147 fellow pilots, 72 were killed. There was hardly any operational unit of the PSP or RAF that did not include members of the 13th Promotion.   MORE>>>>

Conspiratorial activities and arrest   

In Krakow, friends enlisted Jurek in the resistance movement. Major Stefan Radyk entrusted him with the task of smuggling abroad secret documents on the location of German airfields in the occupied territories. He was to do this with the help of a Karasia hidden in a peasant barn near Czerni- chow. The task was not easy - the plane had disassembled wings, and German posts were swarming all around, and high-octane gasoline had to be obtained. When they finally managed to get everything ready, a mishap occurred. Jerzy was arrested and subjected to a beastly investigation by the Gestapo, first in Pomorska Street and then in Montelupich Prison, from where he was transported on December 19, 1940 to Auschwitz, where he became number 7782.

KL Auschwitz 1940 -1944

The period of ordeal began, and it was only in 1940. In his post-war memories, Jerzy related his first contact with the camp as follows: What I saw then was beyond human understanding. On the left side, a pillar of fire - it was the crematorium. The day was foggy, and in the fog I saw some figures walking around in striped clothes and with strange hats on their heads. Immediately I heard the Germans screaming - schnell, schnell, schnell - and saw them beating the prisoners. It was something that shocked me. In the camp, Jerzy not only saw but also experienced unimaginable suffering inflicted by German torturers. Many of his fellow prisoners died before his eyes as a result of hunger, exhaustion, beatings, torture, excessive work, diseases, lack of medical care, pseudo-medical experiments, and executions by shooting. Jerzy stayed in block 10. He recalled; "from the window of this block you could watch the trolleys passing by, carrying those shot in block 11." In his diaries, Jerzy wrote: "I can't believe that I survived all this. When I wrote in my letters to my mother that I was healthy, I was afraid to move my legs. Due to hunger and work, they swollen so much that they resembled shapeless sloops. I groaned in pain. What I suffered when I had to work, stand at roll calls, run in the rhythm determined by the whistle of the whip - it's hard to even imagine. I survived typhus - vaccinated by the Germans and phlegmon." For stealing a piece of bread, he was sentenced to three days in the post. On another occasion, Jerzy was supposed to build a model airplane as a birthday present for the son of Rudolf Hess, the camp commandant. When Klaus accidentally discovered the previously planned surprise , capo Erich Grönke out of rage knocked out three of Jurek's teeth with an iron. Jerzy repeatedly emphasized that the help of his friends, his mother's love and his deep and unwavering faith in God helped him survive the camp hell. In the Auschwitz Bulletin No. 36, he described an event when an SS man called popularly known as "Perełka", he approached him with an order to turn on the radio on the roll call square and accidentally caught him stealing a piece of meat. The furious SS man sentenced Jerzy to the penal company (you could only get out of it through the chimney). While writing the piece of paper with the number, "Pereka" accidentally noticed a medallion with the Virgin Mary around his neck. He tore it off brutally and stomped on it. Jerzy describes the moment as follows: "when I bent down to take the medal, I saw a light so blinding, as if a thousand light bulbs had lit up, and I heard an inner... a loud voice: Don't be afraid of him, tell him you'll turn on the radio for him and he'll give you the note. Jerzy gambled for his life and, creating a makeshift installation from a copper rod and pieces of wire, turned on the radio within 8 minutes. The excited SS man heard the Führer's voice, and Jerzy cleverly took a piece of paper with his number from his hand. With the death sentence in his pocket, he thanked God for miraculously saving his life.

At the beginning, mainly Poles died in KL Auschwitz. People of authority were imprisoned in the camp - professors, intelligentsia, officers, patriots; the nation's elite was to be biologically annihilated so that Poland would never be able to rise again. There were no gas chambers yet, people were shot or hanged. The Germans also took revenge on the prisoners' families. By the time of liberation, over 60,000 people died in Auschwitz. Poles. Jerzy started working as an electrician at the tannery. She was outside the main camp and less guarded. Many Polish political prisoners worked there. Tomasz Serafiński - Witold Pilecki, cavalry captain (camp number 4859) also appeared here and it was here that the organization of the military resistance movement began. In the spring of 1943, Pilecki managed to escape from the camp and take with him extensive documentation. It was thanks to him and the documents he collected that the world learned about the dramatic situation behind the barbed wire in the camp. Jerzy joined the military resistance movement. In search of a chance to escape, he was entrusted with the task of determining the distance from the fence to the river - as an electrician, he was to observe the area behind the wires and draw up a sketch of the possibility of digging a hole in the tannery hall. Jerzy calculated that escaping this way was impossible. He recalled in his diaries: In the resistance movement, we were instructed to keep up the spirit of every prisoner, regardless of nationality, and provide help at every possible opportunity. This was our camp motto: "Help others." Many members of the camp resistance movement tracked down the camp Gestapo. Jerzy's commanders - Col. Teofil Dziama, Lt. Col. Juliusz Gilewicz and Lt. Tadeusz Paolone (Lisowski) were executed on October 11, 1943. In the spring of 1942, mass transports of Jews to the camp began. Trains came from all over Europe. One day, a group of over three hundred girls - Jewish women of various nationalities - were brought to the tannery. They were supposed to sort stolen property, such as clothes, gold and money. Everything that had utility value was packed and taken to the Reich. Jerzy, employed as an electrician, sometimes had to enter the hall where Jewish women were working. There he met one of them - Helena Hamermesh - a young, extraordinary girl who took an active part in caring for other Jewish prisoners in need. She inspired the entire campaign for their survival, in which Jurek got involved - he made a sketch of the hall on a piece of paper, marking where the fuses are located, and a detailed drawing of the fuse box, indicating which one should be unscrewed. And so the help began - at every opportunity, Helena unscrewed the fuse, causing a breakdown, and Jerzy was called to "fix the light". In a metal tool box, Jurek put medicines, vaccines, bandages, letters, food, reports and sketches of the area, and the girls put jewelry and money into the box, which he passed on to the pharmacist through his organizational network to obtain the necessary medicines, constantly endangering life. In November 1944 The Germans began to gradually liquidate the Auschwitz camp. During the farewell, Helena asked Jurek to promise her that he would tell her about the tragedy of the Holocaust - "Give me your hand! You are a Pole, a Christian, maybe you will get out of here alive. We have no chance. Swear to me, swear that if you survive this hell , you will tell the world about what they are doing to us here." November 24, 1944 Jerzy was transported to Reichenau - the Gross Rosen subcamp in Czechoslovakia, where he was also a member of a secret military organization under the command of a Belgian officer. May 9, 1945 he was freed by Czech partisans, he was extremely emaciated (weighing 29.8 kg), but still... he survived. He did not take up the offer to go to Belgium with a sick friend on July 22, 1945. returned to Poland. The number 7782 was forever tattooed on his left hand. MORE>>>>

After the war 

Jerzy's post-war life was also not easy. He was very exhausted, physically and mentally. He did not want a career in the Polish People's Army, despite the promise of quick promotion (at the price of being a politruk). Fortunately, he met a dear camp friend, a famous sculptor - prof. Xawery Dunikowski (they had adjacent bunks), who offered him studies at the Academy of Fine Arts. He graduated from the Faculty of Painting and then worked, among others, as a set designer in a puppet theater, a teacher and tutor at a high school of fine arts, and finally won the competition for the chief visual artist of the city of Krakow. He painted pictures, including beautiful icons. Jerzy recalled: "Sometimes I can't eat, I can't sleep - I defend myself against these memories, I want to enter the world of normal people, those who haven't seen it. I only paint abstractions or landscapes, mountains, green meadows, trees. That's all I dreamed about there behind high-voltage wires. This is all that a free man lives and breathes on a daily basis." In 1951 Jurek married Basia (forester engineer), who was his joy and great support; they had three children - Andrzej (economist), Ania (physicist) and Renata (doctor) and seven grandchildren - Jakub, Lilka, Ania, Gosia, Konrad, Aleksandra and Adrian.

Meeting with Helena Hamermesz   

In 1969, at the Auschwitz Museum, during an anniversary ceremony in memory of Holocaust victims, a woman unexpectedly broke out from among a delegation of former Israeli prisoners, shouting in Jerzy's direction: "Jurek! You are Jurek! After all, it is you! Don't you remember me, Helena Hamermesh? You saved our lives!" He might not have recognized at first, twenty years had changed the appearance of both him and her, but he remembered perfectly. Helena also survived the camp and the death march when the hasty liquidation of Auschwitz began in November 1944. She also survived the next camp in Bergen-Belsen, from where she was eventually released.  She tried to find Jurek after the war through the Red Cross. After meeting, their friendship revived, Helena came to Poland several times, and she treated speaking about the tragedy of the Holocaust as her mission.

Righteous Among Nations 

In 1990. Helena invited Jerzy and his wife Basia to Israel. And it was during this trip in Jerusalem, at Yad Vashem on April 17, that Jerzy was met with a special honor that, to the end of his life, he cherished the most - thanks to the efforts of Helena Hamermesh, he was honored with the title: "Righteous Among the Nations". The awarding of the Medal of the Righteous by the Institute of National Remembrance Yad Vashem in Jerusalem, was proof of recognition for Jerzy Radwank, that with courage and risking his own life, he saved Jews imprisoned and persecuted during the Nazi occupation in the German concentration camp Auschwitz -Birkenau . MORE>>>

Family and Canada

In the 1990s, Jurek and Basia visited Canada many times. Their daughter Anna Rad-wanek-Malczewska and her family live in Montreal.  When visiting her, Jerzy eagerly talked about his camp experiences in interviews for Montreal Television "Telepolonica" and during meetings with young people in Polish schools. His remarkable biography was then written down by Witold Liliental (son of a pre-war officer murdered in Katyn).             

Jerzy participated to the end in the activities of the Cracow Aero Club and the Senior Aircraft Club, as well as in meetings of the Association of Polish Artists. He described the cruelty of the times of extermination and German captivity in several short stories published in issues of the Auschwitz Bulletins.   On 21.12.2000. Jerzy submitted an account of his time in the camp to the Archives of the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum for scientific research, educational purposes and to commemorate the victims of the Nazi crimes.      His memoirs have been transcribed.   Interview on Montreal Television's "Telepolonica" by Witold Liliental with Jerzy in 1996.

Farewell 

Maj. Jerzy Radwanek died on March 30, 2001 in Cracow, and was buried at the Rakowicki Cemetery. The funeral ceremony was attended by a large number of delegations and banner posts. In an excerpt from a farewell letter from friends from the Cracow Aero Club and the Senior Aviation Club, it read: "In the book of your life you inscribed all the richness of humanity, you gave testimony to your credo - that the highest value and meaning of existence on our Earth lies in the ability to unintentionally give and share a part of yourself, regardless of the weight of the intention taken." 

BIBLIOGRAPHY

REPORT by Jerzy Radwank-written by Jadwiga Dąbrowska for the Auschwitz-Birkenau Museum Archives, 2000. Kazimierz Albin "History of my escape from Auschwitz and my activity in the underground". , 1989 r.

 Alojzy Dreja, "Could they have given more," Fellowship Circle of the 13th Promotion of the Air Force Cadet School in Deblin, Lon- dyn, 1989. 

Witold Liliental , "Jerzego Radwanka Zyciorys Niebanalny," High Park, 3/15-May/June "95 

Adam Cyra, "Volunteer to Auschwitz Witold Pilecki 1901-1948," Auschwitz 2000 Jerzy Radwanek, HOLENDERSKI ŻYD - December 1998,

 Bulletin 35 Jerzy Radwanek, PERELKA - June 1999, Bulletin 36 Jerzy Radwanek , ELECTRICIAN NUMBER 7782 - December 1999, 

Bulletin 37

Sponsors Cooperating Institutions FINAL-1, 04/08/2018. ©Copyright by Jerry Barycki, 30.07.2018.

Unpublished sources Manuscripts of Jerzy Radwank - "My Flight to Heaven". - collected and compiled by his daughter Renata Urbanek, 

Radwanek family archive

 "The Light Does Come.  A Memoire" English version of Jerzy's pmiętniki in book form written by granddaughter Liliana Malczewska 

Author of the biography Anna Malczewska 

Editorial preparation - Renata Urbanek

Downloadable PDF version>>>>  (English)

Downloadable PDF version>>>>  (French)