[Congressional Record Volume 156, Number 16 (Wednesday, February 3, 2010)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E146-E147]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




     COMMEMORATING 65TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE LIBERATION OF AUSCHWITZ

                                 ______
                                 

                               speech of

                           HON. MARCY KAPTUR

                                of ohio

                    in the house of representatives

                       Tuesday, February 2, 2010

  Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, this year we remember the 65th Anniversary 
of the liberation of the Auschwitz concentration camp by U.S. Armed 
Forces. After Auschwitz opened in 1940 the Nazi army wasted little time 
in rounding up Polish prisoners for imprisonment at this killing field.
  Auschwitz-Birkenau, also known as Auschwitz II, was the largest 
killing center of all. SS authorities established it in the spring of 
1942. It was not subordinated to the regional SS, but was part of the 
SS Economic-Administration Main Office.
  ``Block 10'' was where the Nazis, including Mengele, the ``Angel of 
Death,'' conducted unspeakable medical experiments on prisoners and 
``Block 11'' was where people were lined up against a wall and shot.
  Before the death camp's liberation on January 27, 1945, almost a 
million Jews from Poland and adjoining nations died there along with 
21,000 Roma (gypsies) and countless homosexuals, communists and Soviet 
and Ukrainian POWs. At least 75,000 Poles were summarily executed. When 
all acts of horror ceased, the Nazis had murdered 1.1 million people at 
this site.
  Mr. Marian Wojciechowski, a constituent and lifelong friend of mine, 
is a survivor of Auschwitz and Block 11. He served as an officer in the 
Polish cavalry and bravely fought Nazi tanks as they rolled into his 
homeland of Poland near the Czech border as World War II began on 
September 1, 1939.
  He and colleagues in his unit fought with such valor against the 
invaders they were

[[Page E147]]

awarded Poland's highest military medal, the Virtuti Militari. On 
September 17, 1939, while in battle on the eastern front against the 
Soviet Army, he received a bullet wound to the head--but Marian 
survived.
  For two years, Marian joined as a member of the Polish Underground 
Resistance (Armia Krajowa), which worked closely with British and 
Polish intelligence to defeat the Nazis. Their bravery and sacrifice 
made them a prime target for the German Gestapo. He was captured and 
taken to Auschwitz when a letter from a member of the Underground 
Resistance addressed to him was intercepted by the Germans.
  While a prisoner at Radom and then Auschwitz, Marian was brutally 
beaten, tortured, and subjected to nightmarish conditions. He became 
very ill and survived serious illness, even typhus. At times, he was 
beaten so severely that he would lose consciousness. The Nazis would 
revive him by pouring buckets of water on his head, and once he 
regained his senses, the Nazis would beat him some more to gain 
information about the Underground--but miraculously Marian survived.
  Marian, now 95 years of age and commissioned as Lieutenant in the 
Polish Cavalry this past August during WWII commemorative ceremonies at 
Mokra, Poland, has described some of the horrific acts that he 
witnessed in that horrible place.
  Amazingly Mr. Wojciechowski did what 1.1 million innocents were 
unable to do--he survived Auschwitz. He has taken it upon himself to be 
a keeper of the flame of historical remembrance as contained in the 
book, ``Seven Roads to Freedom''. His is a story of exceptional 
resilience, strength and the triumph of the human spirit, and love of 
liberty. As we reflect on the horrors of World War II, the Holocaust, 
and the Auschwitz concentration camp we honor and remember stories like 
his, mourn the stories which were never told, and reflect on the price 
of freedom.

                          ____________________