Czesław Mordowicz

Czesław Mordowicz (2 August 1919 – 28 October 2001) was a Polish Jew who, with Arnošt Rosin, escaped from the Auschwitz concentration camp in German-occupied Poland on 27 May 1944, at the height of the Holocaust. A seven-page report dictated by Mordowicz and Rosin joined the Vrba–Wetzler report and a report by Jerzy Tabeau to become the Auschwitz Protocols, a detailed account of the mass murder taking place inside the camp.^[1]

Early life

Mordowicz was born in Mława, Poland, to Anna Wicińska, a local actor, and her husband Herman Mordowicz, a grain merchant.^[2]

Escape from Auschwitz

Further information: The Holocaust in Hungary

On 27 May 1944 Mordowicz (prisoner no. 84216) escaped from Auschwitz in German-occupied Poland to Slovakia with Arnošt Rosin (no. 29858), originally from Snina, Slovakia.^[3] They arrived in Slovakia on 6 June,^[1] and dictated their report to Oskar Krasniansky of the Slovakian Jewish Council in the home of a local man, Boby Reich, in Liptovský Mikuláš. In April that year Rudolf Vrba and Alfréd Wetzler had dictated the Vrba–Wetzler report to Krasniansky after their escape from Auschwitz.^[3] Mordowicz and Rosin confirmed the details Vrba and Wetzler had given. They also told Krasniansky that, between 15 and 27 May, 100,000 Hungarian Jews had arrived at Auschwitz and most had been gassed on arrival.^[1]

Uprising and re-internment at Auschwitz

Further information: Slovak National Uprising

In August 1944 Slovak partisans launched an uprising against the collaborationist Slovak State, as a result of which the Germans invaded the country. Mordowicz was among those arrested. He was returned to Auschwitz, but the SS failed to recognize him, which saved his life, and he was sent to another camp, then liberated. Both Mordowicz and Rosin survived the war.^[4] Decades later Mordowicz described his efforts to warn other passengers on the train to Auschwitz that they were being taken to their deaths and should try to jump. The passengers began shouting and banging on the doors, he told an interviewer, to which the guards responded by beating him. He then chewed off the tattoo with his prisoner number, hoping the SS at Auschwitz would not be able to identify him.^[5]

References

1. Fleming, Michael (2014). Auschwitz, the Allies and Censorship of the Holocaust. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p. 230.
2. Tu Thanh Ha (4 July 2018). Auschwitz escapee told the world about Nazi genocide". The Globe and Mail.
3. Braham, Randolph L. (2016b). The Politics of Genocide: The Holocaust in Hungary. Vol. 2. New York: Columbia University Press. p. 961. ISBN 978-0880337113.
4. Świebocki, Henryk (2000) [1995]. "Escapes from the Camp". In Długoborski, Wacław; Piper, Franciszek (eds.). Auschwitz, 1940–1945. Central Issues in the History of the Camp. Volume IV: The Resistance Movement. Oświęcim: Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum. pp. 227–228 (192–235).
5. Mordowicz, Czeslaw (24 October 1995 and 30 October 1996). "Interview with Czeslaw Mordowicz". The Jeff and Toby Herr Oral History Archive, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (English transcript, p. 72ff).

Further reading

• Kulka, Erich (1968). "Five Escapes from Auschwitz". in Yuri Suhl (ed.). They Fought Back: The Story of Jewish Resistance in Nazi Europe. London: MacGibbon & Kee. OCLC 752981675