Polish-Jewish Relations: 1,300 Keyword-Phrase-Indexed Book Reviews (by Jan Peczkis)

Polish Hero Roman Rodziewicz: Fate of a Hubal Soldier in Auschwitz, Buchenwald, and Postwar England, by Aleksandra Ziolkowska-Boehm. 2013. Lexington Books, Lanham, Boulder, New York

The Hubal Men Were Religious, and Had Deep Ties to the People. Intense Guerrilla Combat

This book describes the life of one of the Hubalczycy. It also includes his diary.

HUBAL WAS NOT JUST A GUERRILLA LEADER: HE WAS A SOURCE OF INSPIRATION TO THE POLISH PEOPLE

Author Ziolkowska-Boehm comments, “With what affection they gazed on the soldiers! Meanwhile, the troopers groomed their horses, cleaned their uniforms and weapons, and sang songs seemingly without a care in the world, as if it meant nothing to them that the Germans were quartered just four kilometers away. If the Polish Army still existed, then perhaps all was not lost…The villagers showed the partisans where the guns and ammunition were buried.” (p. 44).

HUBAL’S MEN OVERWINTER (1939-1940)

In his diary, Rodziewicz comments, “We sing carols, soldiers’ songs. Several of us prepare for Midnight Mass…1 January 1940. Our unit marches in close order to Holy Mass. We cause a furor in the church. Outside our guards stand watch.  Armed to the teeth…Since mid-January we have been quartered in the Anielin Forest where we live a normal soldier’s life. Exercises, lectures, drill, patrols. Unusually heavy snowfall protects us from uninvited guests.” (p. 50).

A VICTORIOUS GUERILLA COMBAT ENCOUNTER WITH THE GERMANS

In his diary, Roman Rodziewicz writes, “March 30^th…We dismount, go down to the road and take up suitable positions in a clump of trees. When we open fire, it’s like Judgment Day for the Germans. We fire away as if we were at the rifle range, then start lobbing grenades. We leap down onto the road. Our guns rake the Germans, who scramble for cover. My revolver jams just as I’m training it on a German officer. ‘Buzzard’ shoots him dead at my feet. Piles of dead Germans everywhere. A fine sight: the enemy staff on the hillock mown down by our machine-gun bursts. On pulling out, we leave behind the bodies of some 70 German soldiers. We feel elated by the battle.” (p. 52).

THE END OF THE HUBAL UNIT

Hubal fell in battle on April 30, 1940. His successor, Lieutenant “Buzzard”, took command. It was not until June 24, 1940 that Henryk “Hubal” Dobrzanski Detachment ceased to exist as an organized military unit. (p. 55).

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THE HOLOCAUST AND THE CONDUCT OF THE JEWISH SONDERKOMMANDOS AT AUSCHWITZ: DESPERATION, PROFITEERING, OR BOTH?

Later in the war, Roman Rodziewicz ended up in Auschwitz and then Buchenwald. Author Ziolkowska-Boehm describes what he saw at Auschwitz, “There followed a period of huge incoming transports of Polish, Rumanian, and Hungarian Jews. Every day, three or four trainloads would roll in. The camp ovens burned twenty-four hours a day. A pall of smoke hung constantly over the camp. Everything was permeated with the smell of burning human flesh. Roman witnessed terrible scenes of children being torn from the arms of their mothers, to be transported by truck to the ovens. He saw the prostration of the Jews. Whole transports of men and women went to their places of execution without the slightest opposition or show of resistance. He talked with those who worked with the Sonderkommando. They bragged about how they would pull the wool over their fellow-prisoner’s eyes, assuring them that they were going to the bathhouse prior to being assigned to a labor camp. All this, in order to extract in advance their hidden precious belongings, which the Sonderkommando then used as articles of trade.” (p. 93). Where do choiceless choices leave off, and where does greed begin?

AT BUCHENWALD

While at Buchenwald, Roman Rodziewicz wore a cross around his neck. An SS guard tore it away. Another inmate recovered it, and Rodziewicz hid it in the lapel of his uniform. He kept the cross through the war and for the rest of his life. (pp. 97-98).

INDISCRIMINATE LAST-MINUTE NAZI KILLINGS OF JEWS AND NON-JEWS. YALTA SELLOUT CONDEMNED

There was no self-consistent singling-out of Jewish inmates, for death, in the final days of the Third Reich. In some locations, Jews were slain, while in other locations they were not. And there were plenty of locations where there were last-minute killings of non-Jewish inmates.

On May 4, 1945, the commandant of the Buchenwald evacuees rounded up the inmates for the roll call near Salzburg. Inmate Roman Rodziewicz heard the commandant say that he was under orders to kill all the inmates, but that he would not do so. He also expressed the greatest compassion to the Poles because they had the most stake in the war, and because they had been betrayed and sold out. (p. 101).  He also warned the Russians of their fate if they should return to their country. He advised the inmates to hide in a nearby cave until the American forces came, as there were SS troops in the area that might shoot the prisoners upon encountering them.

MEETING HUBAL’S SISTER

When in Italy shortly after the war, Rodziewicz mentioned that he was a Hubal soldier, and was introduced, by a chain of contacts, to Madame Papee, Hubal’s sister. His accounts of the unit’s operations moved her considerably. (p. 107).

A CENTENARIAN

In 2013, Roman Rodziewicz celebrated his 100^th birthday. (p. 131). (According to other sources, he subsequently died in 2014. He is said to be the last Hubal soldier.)

For more on the Hubalczycy, see:

https://www.jewsandpolesdatabase.org/2020/09/24/hubal-and-his-campaign-unappreciated-aspects-of-guerrilla-warfare-syryjczyk/