Mauthausen-Erinnerungen 4: Stanisław Grzesiuk

Stanisław Grzesiuk was born in Małków, eastern Poland, in 1918 and grew up in Czerniaków, a working class district of Warsaw. Following Nazi Germany’s invasion of Poland in 1939, the trained electrician volunteered to serve in the Polish army. After the surrender of the Polish forces, he joined the resistance but was seized by the German occupiers and, after a short period of forced labour, was deported to the Dachau, Mauthausen and Gusen concentration camps on a charge of ‘work sabotage’. He was liberated from Gusen on 5 May 1945. Stanisław Grzesiuk, a legendary musician in postwar Poland, wrote down his memories of his time in the concentration camp some years after his return to Warsaw and titled them ‘Pięć lat kacetu‘ (‘Five Years of the Concentration Camp’). The unsparing candour of the book is striking, as is its humour.

A censored version of ‘Pięć lat kacetu’ first appeared in Polish in 1958. Now published in German for the first time, this edition is a translation of the original text and shows where cuts were made in the first Polish edition. The volume also includes excerpts from major reviews and statements by the author about the work.