1942 – Organisation of the German Nazi mass extermination centres in Belzec, Chelmno, Sobibor, Treblinka, Auschwitz-Birkenau and Majdanek. Stefania Wilczyñska is deported to Treblinka together with Janusz Korczak and the children from the orphanage. Tomasz Blatt is deported to Sobibor.
1943 – May – dramatic attempts are made to draw the world’s attention to the genocide committed by the German Nazis. Szmul Zygielboim commits suicide in London as a result of the world’s powerlessness and silence to the news of the Holocaust.
1943 – Traces of the existence of the extermination centres at Treblinka, Bełżec and Sobibór are obliterated. Tomasz Blatt takes part in the revolt in Sobibor in October 1943.
1944 – capture and murder of hiding Jews and Jewish women, mass deportation of the last European Jewish communities to the gas chambers of KL Auschwitz-Birkenau. Katarzyna Filipek dies in a criminal execution for hiding the Jewish family Sterlicht. Henryk Sławik intensifies his efforts to save Polish Jews and Jewish women in Hungary from deportation to Auschwitz.
Extermination
Mass murder, or genocide, occurs at this stage. The perpetrators avoid using this and similar terms because they do not consider their victims to be human beings. If the state is behind the genocide, the armed forces are complicit in the killing. Sometimes, as a consequence of genocide, retaliatory killing occurs and the cycle repeats itself. The victims are once again dehumanized – the corpses are often desecrated, buried in mass graves. Genocide is accompanied by the destruction of the cultural and religious heritage of the victims.
When genocide occurs, only rapid and effective military intervention can stop the crimes. The establishment of security zones or humanitarian corridors under the effective protection of international forces can save many lives. Under the concept of the international responsibility to protect, since 2005, the international community can and should respond by defending people’s lives.
“Blatt was a witness for the prosecution [in post-war trials of perpetrators] in several other cases. Among others, the trial of the head of Gestapo in Izbica, Kurt Engels. The one who had put the crown of thorns on his father’s head. Tojwełe [Tomasz] cleaned his motorcycle. It was a magnificent machine, with a trailer and two shiny metal plates on both sides. On these plates, skulls were engraved. Engels wanted the skulls to be shining. So Tojwełe cleaned them for hours. It was a great job because while he was cleaning the motorcycle, no German would harass him, not even during a round-up. Engels had another Jewish boy to do work around the house, Mojszełe. He came from Vienna. He took care of the garden. Engels often talked to him about growing flowers. He liked him. ‘You are a nice boy,’ he used to say. 'You'll die last and I'll shoot you personally so you don’t have to suffer.’ Blatt admitted in the investigation that the Gestapo officer had kept his word.” Hanna Krall, “Portret z kulą w szczęce” (“Portrait with a Bullet in the Jaw”)
Jan Jantoń was born on 11th April 1911. He lived in the village of Wola Brzostecka with his wife Bronisława and their four children and worked as a farmer...