Not Żemiński but Żemis

Krzysztof Czubaszek

Stanisław Żemis – Witness of the Holocaust in Łuków

The author of an impressive description of the liquidation of the Jewish community in Łuków, which happened in autumn 1942, was Stanisław Żemis, a cooperative activist and later the first post-war mayor of Siedlce, and not, as has been thought so far, Stanisław Żemiński. Because... he never existed.

At dawn on 5th October 1942 in Łuków, a pre-war poviat town, then incorporated into the Kreis Radzyń, hell broke out. The Germans, with the support of the Ukrainians, Latvians and the Polish “blue” police, began the liquidation of the local ghetto. Jews were dragged from their houses and sent to the so-called pig market in Międzyrzecka street. A few hundred people were killed on the spot – indoors and in the streets. After the concentration of approximately 5,000 people at the marketplace, they were driven to the railway station and taken to the Treblinka death camp. The drama repeated three days later. About 2,000 people were sent to gas chambers. In the following weeks, Jews from nearby villages and towns were transported in the place of the earlier murdered. They were also shot dead and sent to Treblinka. The greatest intensity of these later murders and deportations took place on 26th October and on 7th, 11th and 14th November, after the creation of a transitional ghetto in Łuków, one of six in the Lublin district.

The witness of those bloodcurdling events was someone who has been called Stanisław Żemiński until now. The description of the Holocaust in Łuków which he presented in the form of a diary written from 27th October to 16th November 1942, covering the period from 5th October, went after the war to the Jewish Historical Institute and was published in 1958 in the bulletin issued by that institution. The testimony in this edition was later quoted many times, also by me in the book Żydzi Łukowa i okolic [The Jews of Łuków and Its Vicinity] (Warsaw 2008). Many scholars and history enthusiasts tried to find out something about the author of the diary, without which we would know little about the Shoah in Łuków. Unfortunately, the sources were silent about him. It was known about him as much as it resulted from the diary itself and from the information provided in the “Biuletyn ŻIH” [bulletin of the Jewish Historical Institute], that he was a cooperative activist and teacher. In which school did he work? Where did he live? Are any of his descendants still alive? I have asked myself these and other questions many times. I was also asked about it by descendants of the Jews saved from the Holocaust, living in Israel, France and the United States, for whom the diary is not only a valuable historical document but also a testimony of the deep humanism and empathy of its author. Unfortunately, I could not do enough for my own and their curiosity. Alina Skibińska from the Polish Center for Holocaust Research, operating in the structure of the Polish Academy of Sciences in Warsaw, recently decided to solve the mystery. The opportunity was a preparation of the new version of the diary for printing, because in the one which appeared in 1958 in the “Biuletyn ŻIH” there were many misrepresentations and abbreviations. Unfortunately, Alina Skibińska also failed to find any new information about the life and activities of mysterious Stanisław Żemiński. An article in which she described her fruitless search, accompanying the publication of the diary in accordance with the original typescript (the manuscript wasn’t survived), appeared in the yearbook “Zagłada Żydów. Studia i Materiały” [Holocaust Studies and Materials] (2017, vol. 13).

A discovery in the library

The author of a credible and detailed description of the liquidation of the Jewish community in Łuków, which is still a unique and extremely valuable document for historians of the Holocaust, would remain a mysterious figure forever if it had not been for a coincidence that led me to the discovery of his identity. I came across it, browsing in the National Library in Warsaw the yellowed, almost crumbling copies of the “Regionalna Agencja Prasowa «Podlasie»” [Regional Press Agency “Podlasie”] – a conspiratorial journal issued by the environment of Bataliony Chłopskie [Peasants’ Battalions] in 1943-1944. Its editorial office was located in Siedlce, and it was printed in Wiśniew – a village located between Łuków and Siedlce. In an issue of 15th July 1944 I found this note: “Around 20th June Stanisław Żemis and his wife, cooperative employees, were arrested in Łuków. Żemis worked in the «Społem» [Jointly] cooperative branch in Siedlce, his wife in «Społem» in Łuków. The arrested left two small kids without any care. They were arrested on charges of communism. It should be noted that they had previously received a death sentence from Sęk, a member of the underground (NSZ) [Narodowe Siły Zbrojne (National Armed Forces)], but the sentence was not executed. The motives of the sentence issued by Sęk are the same as the arrest’s. The informer communicates further that the arrest took place as a result of actions by the reactionaries of Łuków who didn’t hesitate to do so despite the fact that little orphans would remain”.

I immediately associated two characteristic pieces of information included in this note – “cooperative employee” and “Stanisław Żemis”. This first and last name was very similar to “Stanisław Żemiński”. Could it be a coincidence? Could two “Społem” workers have lived in Łuków with such confusingly similar personal details? It’s unlikely. Besides, nothing is known about Żemiński, there is no trace of this person. Meanwhile, a solid evidence appeared for the existence of Żemis. This figure, in addition, turns out to be widely known and, what’s most important, Żemis biography fits perfectly with what we know about the author of the diary about the Holocaust in Łuków and his socio-psychological profile.

Having made the above discovery, I collected available information about Stanisław Żemis and also contacted his family who made available to me the unpublished documents and photographs. I described the results of my research in a scientific article that met with enthusiastic reception of the Polish Center for Holocaust Research and was published in the yearbook “Zagłada Żydów. Studia i Materiały” [Holocaust Studies and Materials] (2018, vol. 14).

From a village near Lublin to Warsaw

Stanisław Żemis was born on 27th April 1902 in the village of Kierz in the Lublin province. In his early childhood he was orphaned and therefore a hard life awaited him. He went to school in the village of Zakrzówek but he had to combine his education with hard work. This is how he remembered this period after many years: “I used to have such activities as chopping wood, collecting weeds for cattle and various farm actions. I also grazed cows. I used all the time spent in the pasture to read books and handbooks. I made an agreement with my teacher who helped me a lot that I could come to her whenever I found some time. She used to check what I had learned from handbooks”.

His education was interrupted by the outbreak of WW1. After four years he resumed his education at the junior high school in Kraśnik. To earn his living, he gave lessons to wealthy colleagues. After some time he moved to Kozienice where he finished the sixth grade of the junior high school, and then moved to Warsaw and signed up for the Wacław Nałkowski’s State Teacher Training Courses. They gave him a good preparation for the profession and shaped his worldview. He graduated in 1928 and began teaching work, initially in Pruszków, then in Łomianki and in Legionowo. Zofia Mierzwińska-Szybka, the author of his biography in Słownik biograficzny pracowników społecznych [Biographical Dictionary of Social Workers], wrote about him in this way: “At school, he didn’t limit himself to obligatory classes. He organized trip funds, geography and nature laboratories, and meteorological observations with his students. He saw the difficult conditions of teachers’ life and work, saw the injustice of the school system which especially harmed rural children. That’s why he became involved with the teachers’ left wing. He fought with this vigorously in the Teachers’ Union of Common School. As a result of this activity, after six years of work in various schools he was removed from state education as well as from the Teachers’ Union and as a thirty-year-old teacher – retired”.

During the Teacher Training Courses Stanisław Żemis met Janusz Korczak and went to the workers’ orphanage “Nasz Dom” [Our Home] in Pruszków whose co-founder and member of the management was the Old Doctor. Żemis was associated with this institution in the years 1925-1932 – even while working in various schools he went with the foster children of “Nasz Dom” at summer camps and served as a guardian. There he met his future wife Stanisława Gawrońska (1913-2007) who was a pupil of “Nasz Dom” (in the years 1927-1928), and later a guardian of the dormitory in the Bielany district in Warsaw (1928-1930). They were married in 1934. They had two sons, twins Adam and Marek, who were born in 1939.

After being expelled from work in public education, Żemis became the head of the secular school run by the Workers’ Society of Children’s Friends in the Żoliborz district in Warsaw. At that time he also joined the activities of the Housing Associations and the Housing Cooperative in the Koło settlement in Warsaw the mission of  which was to improve the housing conditions of the workers. The leftist involvement of Żemis didn’t please the Sanation regime and therefore in 1939, at the request of the authorities of the Capital City of Warsaw, he had to leave work and a flat in Koło. He moved to Radom where he took the position of the head of the town’s Department of Education. Shortly after that the war broke out. Threatened with arrest, he returned to Warsaw for some time and then, in May 1941, he moved to Łuków where he started working at the Consumer Cooperative “Społem”.

Work and conspiracy in Łuków

The Żemis family initially lived in the Karwacz settlement in Łuków, and later moved to a wooden house with a garden in 11 Listopada street which stood opposite the Congregation of the Sisters of the Holy Family of Nazareth. Years later Stanisław Żemis recalled that period of his life: “It was good for us in Łuków. I worked. I earned much better than in Radom, everything was a bit cheaper there, and most importantly we got rations from the «Społem», so: eggs, groats, flour, grease, sugar, coffee (artificial), etc., which made our lives a lot easier. I was constantly travelling, I continuously had to go to a cooperative, I ran meetings, courses, taught bookkeeping and ran a cooperative. It was a pleasant job but it was becoming more and more dangerous”.

The wife of Żemis joined the cooperative work, too. They also got involved in conspiracy activities. In 1942 they joined the then-established communistic Polska Partia Robotnicza (PPR) [Polish Workers’ Party]. Their flat was the contact point to which underground publications from Warsaw were delivered, then distributed in the field. There were also meetings of activists. For this reason the National Armed Forces (NSZ) issued a death sentence for the Żemis couple. “A member of the NSZ – recalled Stanisław Żemis – who was entrusted with the execution of the sentence, also an employee of the «Społem», went to one of the neighbours and said that he wouldn’t touch anyone from the Żemis couple and wouldn’t take a hair from their heads. This neighbour just told us about the sentence. There was no choice – it was necessary to leave Łuków immediately”.

Stanisław Żemis left Łuków on 1st May 1943 and went to Skierniewice where he continued to work in the “Społem” as an inspector. His wife stayed in Łuków where she was still employed in the “Społem” as a household instructor. She rode around villages and taught peasant women cooking and other housework. After some time Żemis moved to Siedlce and often visited his wife and children. The National Armed Forces (NSZ) didn’t leave them alone and for the second time decided to kill them. The sentences were withdrawn only after an intervention of friends from the Peasants’ Battalions who kept in touch with the national underground. However, most probably the nationalists denounced the Żemis couple because they were detained by the Germans. “On 20th June 1944 two Gestapo agents came to our house – recalled Żemis. – They dragged me and my wife out of bed and escorted us to prison in Łuków. After an hour, in a beautiful limousine, accompanied by the Gestapo agents, we went out the town. There, after several minutes, our escort arrived which was supposed to put us to prison in Radzyń Podlaski”. In this horrible jail Stanisław Żemis was interrogated but treated relatively well. His wife, on the other hand, was beaten and tortured many times, as a result of which she became seriously ill and perhaps wouldn’t survive if the end of the war hadn’t come in mid-July 1944, when they were still in prison in Radzyń. The Germans released prisoners just before soldiers of the Red Army entered the town, thanks to which the Żemis couple managed to return to Łuków.

Soon after the end of the war Stanisław Żemis described the stay in prison in Radzyń: “We were terribly stuffy and hot in our cells (20 and more people in a small cell), at first it was not allowed to lie in the day. The bugs bit, hunger teased, you slept on a bare bunk or on the floor. It was not allowed to read, write, smoke or do anything. When every German or Ukrainian came, it was necessary to stand in line and at attention. For the smallest offenses, or often and without it, they bit and set specially trained dogs on you. Lucky were those who were taken to some work: to the garden, to chop wood, sweep the yard or street. They had entertainment, time passed quickly, they had movement, air and sun, and after work they often got a cigarette or an extra portion of bread. The worst was «research». They took prisoners to a special room that we called “katyń”1). Of course, the captives didn’t admit to any crimes, whether they were guilty or not. Most of them really weren’t guilty. The Gestapo men often didn’t know what to blame one for. Usually they asked to which secret organization the prisoner belonged. The prisoners didn’t admit; when the persuasion, shouts or casual hits were not helping, the Ukrainians were introduced. They tied their hands, put them underneath the knees, put a stick under the knees and a mask on the face to suppress the shouts of the beaten one. The prisoner was overturned arbitrarily and beaten several hours a day, for several and over a dozen days in a row. You lost control over yourself, the body fell off the bones and rot on a living human, bones were broken, the fainting ones were poured with cold water and beaten again. Hardly anyone survived the so-called «third degree examination»”.

The mayor of Siedlce

Leaving Łuków on 22nd July 1944, the Żemis family split up. The wife Stanisława went with children to Otwock, and he went to Siedlce where, shortly after the liberation, on 1st August 1944, he became the first post-war mayor of that town, as well as the starosta and chairman of the Poviat National Council, dominated by members of the PPR party. As the historian Paweł Wołosz writes: “Żemis didn’t like the fact that only the PPR members joined the Poviat National Council; according to him, it was contrary to the programme declaration of the PPR from 1942. In order to expand its composition, he invited representatives of other fractions from the poviat to participate in the work of the Council, not omitting Armia Krajowa [Home Army] which for obvious reasons didn’t take part in it”. This gesture testified to the democratic views of Żemis.

The beginnings of his holding the mayor’s of Siedlce post were not easy for Stanisław Żemis. The town was in three-quarters destroyed, mined, there was no victualling, an atmosphere remained uncertain, and the independence underground fought against the new regime, even murdering its representatives. “I came almost directly from prison to the post of mayor – said Żemis after years. – My clothes were dirty and shabby, I looked miserable and wretched. It didn’t raise my authority. Many officials considered me to be an «ordered bolshevik» and called me the «commissioner». We were sabotaged not only from outside. The officials called to work did appear, but they were reluctant to work”.

Thanks to the organizational skills of mayor Żemis, Siedlce was the first town in Poland to be cleaned of debris and rebuilt in social action. A Poviat Building Cooperative, construction school, painting school and car courses were established. A cooperative house with a tavern, café, hotel, library and a cooperative school were opened. The Society of Soldier Friends and the Breeders’ Union were established and an agricultural reform was carried out.

Żemis was also invariably sensitive to the fate of the Jews. He recalled years later: “Only 50 people survived from the several dozen thousand Jewish population in Siedlce. They gathered in one large apartment. They invited me to their place. I went there. It was terrible what I saw. I decided to help these people. I summoned the head of the Department of Social Welfare and instructed him to organize the Polish Aid Committee for the Jewish Population. Local obscurants replied to him: «Stones for them, not help»”.

When Żemis was the mayor of Siedlce, an unusual meeting took place. Piotr Kosobudzki came to him under a false name. He was a brother of Stefan Kosobudzki (1912-1944), pseudonym “Sęk”, before the war an activist of the Catholic Youth Association and the Youth Section of Stronnictwo Narodowe [National Party], later a soldier of the National Armed Forces (NSZ) and a commander of that formation in the Łuków poviat, stationing in the Jata forest complex. For the release of seven NSZ officers from the prison in Siedlce, which happened on 12th March 1944, sergeant “Sęk”, acting as the commander of the Special Action division, the task of which was, among others, release prisoners from the hands of the Germans, he was awarded the Virtuti Militari Cross, and in July that year, after the action of breaking up the prison in Łuków, during which he was wounded, he was promoted to the rank of lieutenant. It was he who issued the death sentence for the Żemis couple. On 12th August 1944 he was arrested in Siedlce and handed over to Bolesław Drabik, the local police commander, known for his cruelty.

Piotr Kosobudzki, using the intermediation of his friend who was also a friend of Żemis, went to the mayor of Siedlce to find out about his brother’s fate. Although for “Sęk”, his recent persecutor, Żemis could have wished the worst, he promised to see what was going on in that case, to intervene and to do what he could. Unfortunately, it turned out that Stefan Kosobudzki was already dead. He was probably murdered by the police commander Bolesław Drabik. His body has never been found.

The blind social activist and publicist

Democratic views of Stanisław Żemis were probably one of the reasons why on 29th October 1944 he resigned from the mayor’s of Siedlce post. He moved to Warsaw and was appointed the chief director of state forests, in the rank of minister. He quickly gained respect, trust and even friendship of the “forest fellowship”. He hold many public functions later. He organized a field network of branches of the Workers’ Society of Children’s Friends and set up various care and education centers. “Thanks to his energy – Zofia Mierzwińska-Szybka writes – numerous Children’s Homes, preventive institutions, community centers, kindergartens, nurseries and care stations for mother and child were created in Poland. A large Janusz Korczak’s Educational and School Center in Bartoszyce was also established. He was a co-initiator of the Peasants’ Society of Children’s Friends”.

A combination of many circumstances, including personal problems, prompted Stanisław Żemis to make a desperate move. In 1950 he attempted to commit a suicide by shooting himself in the head. He survived but he lost his sight. After some time he got out of depression and engaged in matters of the environment of the blind. He learned to read Braille. He became the president of the Warsaw branch and a member of the main board of the Polish Association of the Blind. He took care of the organization of libraries for the blind, he was a prolific publicist. In his articles he raised problems of cooperative movement, raising children and youth, and the lives of invalids. He was a co-initiator of the Janusz Korczak Committee and for many years participated in his undertakings. For his work and social activities he received many state awards, including Officer’s Cross of the Order of Polonia Restituta, Golden Cross of Merit, Medal of Victory and Freedom, the honorary title “Meritorious Teacher of People’s Poland”. He died on 1st December 1978 and was buried in the Powązki cemetery (military section) in Warsaw.

Who has a bit of heart...

Żemis was widely respected and valued which resulted not from his social status, but from the character qualities. Aleksander Hulek, professor of special pedagogy, wrote that he was struck by his “vividness of the mind, comprehensive knowledge, (...) sobriety of the assessment of the situation and the accuracy of the judgments he issued”. In the posthumous memory published in the journal “Pochodnia” [Torch] it was emphasized that the ideas Stanisław Żemis remained faithful to, were “extraordinary honesty, uncompromising attitude in every life situation, respect for people and willingness to help them, selflessness and zeal in social work”. Danuta Tomerska, head and editor of the book enterprises of the Polish Association of the Blind, and a longtime collaborator of Żemis, characterized him briefly and emphatically: “he had one undeniable advantage – he was a good man”.

Stanisław Żemis must have undeniably been a good and sensitive man, when, seeing the tragedy of the Jewish people that took place before his eyes during his stay in Łuków, he wrote in his diary the following words expressing deep empathy and compassion for the victims and contempt for the executioners and their helpers: “Who has a bit of heart, they will not forget these people till the end of their lives. (...) The shots are still thundering, and our hyenas are chatting what to steal after the Jews. The corpses of the Jews haven’t cooled down yet, and there are flowing already applications for Jewish houses, shops, workshops or a piece of land left over. Oh, the land, sacred land, go apart and swallow all of us! (...) Oh, you bastards, bandits, criminals. Can there be anything cruel that one shouldn’t wish for you? May the nightmare of the victims you murdered never cease to torture you. Oh, how bad it is that hell isn’t a reality. (...) The day of the last transport of Jews from Łuków was for us (for me and my wife) the most tragic day of our lives. When a crowd of thousands of Jews was being driven down my street (...), I was working in the garden. When the front of the column was near our house, some mysterious force tore the spade from my hands, brought me to the fence, I took off my cap, I was looking, wanting to take all the pain, all the despair of this whole crowd, these thousands of people, these children and mothers, these old people and these youth. I was asking if there is any higher justice, if there is any God, and I was saying that if God is there, he must be a bastard no less than the germans2), he is a criminal if he allows such crimes. When the procession passed, I didn’t have the strength to move. At home, my wife got a rage attack, tearing her hair out of despair”.

This text was published in: Krzysztof Czubaszek, Stanisław Żemis – świadek zagłady Żydów w Łukowie / Stanisław Żemis – Witness of the Holocaust in Łuków, Warszawa 2019

Footnotes:

1) Wordplay. “Katyń” is a place where the Russians murdered Polish officers. In addition, in Polish there is a noun “kat” (an executioner) and a verb “katować” (to torture).

2) In the typescript of the diary the names of people of German, Ukrainian and Latvian nationality are written mostly in lowercase, as an expression of emotional attitude towards the perpetrators.

The diary of Stanisław Żemis