[On another Goering encounter]

Jan Karski: "This must have been 1934 or 1935. At that time, Polish-German relations very good. Exchange of students. I was in the group of Polish students who went to Germany on the Parteitag-- every year there was Parteitag which means 'day of the Nazi party.' Tremendous hullabaloo. Tremendous hall, I went there with French, Belgian, German students etc. An amphitheater, like a circus, enclosed. In the back, foreign students. Speeches, 'Heil Hitler,' enthusiasm. And at a certain point, darkness. All lights out. Shock-- and nothing happens. So immediately, the boys with the girls [laughs; puts arm around imaginary girl]. Then lights, with some fantastic power, like the sun descended in one point. There stood the man, the god-- big, fat, orders on chest with gold around him. Then he delivered a beautiful speech:

‘You have to take responsibility for the human race, because you belong to the superior race! You will make sacrifices for it. We are destined to govern, to bring order to the world, to create a lasting peace! And only the honest, decent youth of Germany can make such peace. Bourgeois morality does not count anymore. To achieve this end, all means must be used!' And then tremendous interruption: 'Seig Heil! Seig Heil!' all around. I look, Jesus Christ, what happened? Superiority. In my heart, 'Oh God, why was I not born German, so I can be superior too? To govern the world is a pretty good proposition, but I am only a Polack.’”

[As a military reservist, Lt. Kozielewski was required to report for six weeks of active duty every year:]

"Then it was near Krakow-- Zaksube was the name? But when the secret mobilization was ordered, my Fifth Horse Artillery Division was switched to Auschwitz. So, on August 23, 1939, I received the message: Report in two hours. Take the train and go to Auschwitz, to Oswiecim. This is why I never saw the war."

"This I remember: It was exactly September 1, exactly a few minutes after 5:00 in the morning. The Germans dropped two bombs on our camp. Those bombs were half a ton. It was a joke, in comparison with other bombings. I know precisely, it must have been three minutes, four minutes after 5:00am, because the reveille was at 5:00. And when that noise came, we were doing pee-pee in the toilets. Shaving, washing, etc. And then: Bedlam in the camp. Not because we were afraid, no. Those damned horses, stupid, crazy, they have no souls, they don't understand. They broke out of the stables. You couldn't attach them to the cannons. You couldn't handle them. It lasted some two hours, and then the order came: Leave those horses and cannons. Withdrawing to the east, to the east. Always to new positions, new concentrations. Two days marching. On the roads, hundreds of thousands, now refugees. We couldn't even travel on the highways. People would push us into the fence. So then we lost contact with each other. Everyone for themselves. Then it was chaos. Wherever we would come, usually it was a railroad station. So again, rumors: 'The next one is in this town.' We come there: Destruction. And then on seventeenth day, late afternoon, we reached Tarnopol. This was the most eastern city in Poland, only 30 or so kilometers from Russia."

"We arrived not as a military unit. But then we see some military approaching. Through regular loudspeaker, somebody in broken Polish: 'We are the Red Army. We came here to help you to fight together against the Germans. Leave your arms. Officers to the right. Non-commissioned officers to the left.' Like sheep, we did it."

"We called our camp Kozielcina. Not Kozielsk; they murdered officers in Kozielsk. Many years after the war, I discovered there was a little camp not far away from Kozielsk, called Kozielcina. Later, this camp was liquidated and all were sent to Kozielsk, which was a penal camp. And eventually Stalin gave order to destroy them. So if I didn't get this idea to be exchanged, yes, I would be a dead duck. There would be no interview."

[Orders from the Red Army]

"'Any non-commissioned officer who is of German descent or who was born on the territories incorporated into the Reich.' It must have been four weeks, three weeks in this camp. So from the first day, every morning at the roll call, the commander would deliver the speech: 'This is democracy. This is equality. In our country, everybody has to work. You have to work.' The work was cutting the wood in the forest. An NCO in camp liked my boots. Boots were compromising the most, because officers wore boots. Jacket was already dirty. Trousers were officers', but already were dirty. So I said: 'Do you like my boots?'' He says ‘yes.’ He was more or less six feet, the same as I. So I said, 'Let's switch.' He said, 'Sure.'”

"They didn't beat anybody. Only they warned us: Anybody who wants to escape will be shot. There was woman on the train. Rumors that she was the daughter of some general. We had a spokesman who knew perfect Russian. He was a member of the military court in Poland. He became known among the Poles as Colonel Konopka. I’m not sure this was his true name. Rumors said that some Soviet soldier said these barracks had been used for pigs. Only, the pigs had died of some disease."

"The most primitive conditions. Nobody insulted us; only, 'You are exploiters, bloodsuckers. You will learn how to work in our country.' Although conditions were very harsh at that camp, I don't have any bad reminiscences as far as the attitude of the Soviet guards was concerned. The commander of the camp was a certain NKVD commander. Every day there had a roll call, and they would make little speeches to us. And our Konopka would translate. He would say that we would not be allowed the opportunity to exploit people any longer. We have to reconcile ourselves with this. Second: This is a war, we are war prisoners, and we have to earn our keep. We have to work the same way non-commissioned officers work.

I remember: Colonel Konopka interrupts him and says, 'We are officers. There is the Geneva Convention. Officers are not to be used for physical work.' The commander says, ‘Yes, he will check on it. No hard feelings. He will check it and tell us next time.’ Then two days later or something, he says he did check and received the information. ‘The Soviet Union did not sign the Geneva Convention. Consequently, you will be treated under the Soviet laws. Under Soviet laws, everybody has to work.'"

"I was never afraid of Germans as much. This was the beginning of the war. To me, Germans represented western civilization, cultured people. All my life, Russia was Asians, barbarians, inferior."

"At the beginning of October, it was already chilly. In the middle of the night, I get up, going to latrine, which was rather far away from the barracks. It was heavily raining. And a soldier, noncommissioned, sitting like a little animal [curled up in a fetal position], covered by his coat, on the ground. This is traditional Russian position. So I pass by him. To be friendly, I say, 'Strasvidye, tovarisch.' It means, 'Hi, comrade.' And said in Russian-- what I understood; I didn't speak Russian-- 'Don't you call me tovarisch! When you learn how to work, then I become your tovarisch!' This attitude-- I liked this kind of indoctrination! Life was difficult and I wanted to escape," but respected the way of life."