Overview
- Brief Narrative
- Wooden box with a painted lid, purchased by 14-year-old Zbigniew Piotrowski in November 1944 while waiting for his train to escape forced labor in Breslau, Germany. Zbigniew was a Roman Catholic boy living with his parents, three brothers, and sister, in the port city of Gdynia, Poland, when the German army invaded on September 1, 1939. Shortly after, one of his brothers was abducted off the street for forced labor by the German authorities, and the rest of the family was forcibly transported to the city of Lublin. Zbigniew’s brother was released, and the family relocated to Warsaw, where all but one of the brothers became involved in underground resistance activity. Zbigniew’s mother died in 1941, and his sister was arrested for underground activity in 1942. On August 1, 1944, the city’s underground resistance rose up against the German occupation forces. During the Warsaw Uprising, Zbigniew, his father, a brother, and their housekeeper were forced out of their home. Zbigniew watched as his father was executed, and afterwards he was deported with the housekeeper to a forced labor camp near Breslau, Germany (now Wrocław, Poland). In October, Zbigniew escaped to the town of Trzebinia and hid with a Red Cross volunteer he had met in Breslau. In early May 1945, the town was liberated by the Soviet Army, and Zbigniew returned home. He reunited with his brothers and sister, and moved back to Gdynia. Zbigniew joined the crew of the MS Batory, a ship that traveled between Gdynia and New York City. In October 1948, Zbigniew debarked the ship and entered the United States, settling in New York City.
- Date
-
acquired:
1944 November
- Geography
-
acquired:
Breslau (Germany : Landkreis)
- Credit Line
- United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Collection, Gift of Zbigniew A. Piotrowski
- Markings
- b. top, upper right corner, on black cross, painted, white paint : FW / 1813 [Friedrich Wilhelm / 1813]
b. top, lower left corner, painted, red and green paint : BRESLAU - Contributor
-
Subject:
Zbigniew A. Piotrowski
- Biography
-
Zbigniew Antonii Piotrowski (1929-2021) was born in Toruń, Poland, to Antonii and Antonina Piotrowski (nee Zalewska, ?-1940). He had four older siblings: Ryszard (later Richard, 1919-?), Halina (later Helen Czerwinska, 1920-?), Stanislaw (later Stanley, 1922-2011), and Jurek (later George,1927-?). Antonii was a manufacturer of high-end, custom furniture and replicated antiques. Around 1931, Antonii moved the family to Gdynia, a recently developed port city on the northern coast that allowed the business to grow. They rented an apartment in a villa, and Antonii’s success enabled them to hire a nanny to help with the children. The entire family was Roman Catholic, and attended church every Sunday and on holidays. After completing high school, all of Zbigniew’s siblings attended two-year colleges. Stanislaw and Ryszard then both began working at their father’s factory. Zbigniew attended the local public school through the fourth grade.
On September 1, 1939, Germany invaded Poland. That day, Zbigniew was playing outside when the first German warplanes flew overhead. Within days, the German military marched down their street with no Polish military resistance. Two or three weeks later, Stanislaw and a friend were abducted off the street by German soldiers. The following week, all Poles on their block were ordered to the train station and to leave their apartment keys behind. Zbigniew’s family was among the first group transported on cattle cars out of the city. After two days, the train stopped in Lublin, near the Soviet border, and the family was free to go. They made their way to Antonina’s sister in Kutno, and later joined by Stanislaw, who had been released from forced labor when he got sick. Antonii took several trips to nearby Warsaw, where he had some friends, and the whole family relocated there after Christmas.
They moved into an apartment near the opera house, and Antonii found a space to rent for his business. There was not a big market for furniture at the time, so he began producing wooden caskets. The business flourished, but they were required to live on rations. They hired a housekeeper, Malgorzata (Gosha) Luczak, and shortly after, in 1941, Antonina got very sick and passed away. Ryszard had gotten a job and moved into his own apartment, and Zbigniew became closer to him after their mother died.
Zbigniew continued attending public school, where they were required to begin German classes. Polish history and geography were banned subjects, but they continued learning them in secret. Zbigniew belonged to a scouting group, which was also officially banned by German authorities. One of his school teachers was the scout leader, and through this group, Zbigniew became involved with the underground resistance. He became a messenger, and ran back and forth across town. Stanislaw and Jurek were also involved in the resistance, but none of the brothers told their father about their activities.
In October 1940, the Germans decreed the establishment of a Jewish ghetto in Warsaw, and required all Jewish residents from the city and surrounding towns relocate there. The ghetto was enclosed by a wall that was over 10 feet high, topped with barbed wire, and closely guarded. After deportations began in March 1942, Zbigniew watched from the outside as a house in the ghetto burned, and people in flames were jumping out the windows. His father later told him that they would be targeted next.
In late 1942, the Gestapo came to the family’s house and arrested Halina, whose boyfriend was involved in the underground movement. She was imprisoned for a few weeks in Warsaw, and on January 18, 1943, she was transported as a political prisoner to Lublin/Majdanek concentration camp. The rest of the family became increasingly afraid to go out in the streets, as they risked getting abducted for forced labor or executed in retaliation for the resistance’s killing of German officers.
On August 1, 1944, the Polish Home Army (or Armia Krajowa), part of the underground resistance movement, began an attempt to liberate Warsaw from Germany. Although Zbigniew was assigned to a post, forces occupying his street prevented him from getting there. Jurek was among the fighters, but Stanislaw, their father, and their housekeeper were also at home.
On the sixth day of fighting, German authorities came into their house and ordered everyone to assemble in a local square. Zbigniew’s father had accumulated a large amount of cash, which they hid in two hollowed-out loaves of bread and put in a briefcase which Zbigniew carried. Men ages 18 to 25, including Stanislaw, were separated out, and everyone else was marched on, past piles of corpses. When the men were stopped, Zbigniew stayed with his father, and SS officers came around collecting wallets, IDs, cash, and jewelry. One of the officers made Zbigniew go with the women who had continued on around the corner. Zbigniew watched as the SS officers turned a machine gun on the group of men, including his father.
When Zbigniew joined the women, he managed to find his family’s housekeeper, Gosha. They were marched out of the city, and joined by groups from other sections of town. In order to stay together, Zbigniew pretended to be Gosha’s son, and they were deported by cattle car to Breslau, Germany (now Wrocław, Poland). They were then force-marched to a slave labor camp on the outskirts of the city. In the camp, the men and women were separated and given identification badges. Then they were sent to work, digging trenches for sewer pipes laid down by British and American prisoners of war (POWs) from a nearby camp.
In October, Zbigniew and Gosha were selected for a new work detail. They were marched through Breslau to a school, where they were photographed, housed, and forced to clean up city parks and public facilities. Later that month, the Red Cross came and supplied them with winter clothes. A volunteer, Jakubina Skombska, covertly offered Zbigniew a place to stay and gave him a slip of paper with her address. Zbigniew was initially reluctant to leave, but Gosha convinced him to escape and go stay with the volunteer. Since they were working in the train station, Gosha used the money they had hidden to purchase a train ticket. The following day, Zbigniew took a train to Trzebinia (now in Poland), and met Jakubina with the help of a priest at a nearby church. From November 27 to May 3, Zbigniew stayed at her home, spent some time with the priest at his monastery, and occasionally hiding in nearby limestone mines.
In early May, the Soviet army liberated Trzebinia. Zbigniew heard his brother, Ryszard, was in a Red Cross hospital in Krakow recovering from injuries sustained in the Warsaw Uprising. Zbigniew traveled to Krakow, and camped inside a hospital until after the war ended, but he did not find his brother. He then spent four days traveling to Warsaw, and went to find his old home, which was just a shell. On the gate of their courtyard, Zbigniew saw inscribed names of people who were looking for family members, including Ryszard and his address in the city of Lodz. Zbigniew took the train to Lodz, and reunited with Ryszard. A couple days later, Jurek arrived. After the Warsaw Uprising, Jurek had been captured and taken to a labor camp near Dresden. Halina later arrived from Germany. On April 19, 1944, she had been transferred from Lublin/Majdanek concentration camp to Ravensbrück (prisoner number 36662), and then on June 16 to Leipzig-Schönefeld, a Ravensbrück subcamp that became a Buchenwald subcamp on September 1 (prisoner number 3722). After being separated from Zbigniew and their father in 1944, Stanislaw ended up in a German prison camp in Italy, but managed to escape and joined the Italian underground. When the Polish army invaded in cooperation with Allied forces, Stanislaw joined them and eventually went to England, where he survived the war. He then spent 10 years in Australia.
After reuniting with his siblings, Jurek went to see one of their uncles, who was a dentist. As a result, Jurek began learning dentistry. Halina got married. Zbigniew returned to Gdynia with Ryszard, Ryszard’s wife, and their baby. He began attending high school, but left in his third year to work on the crew of the MS Batory, a ship that traveled between Gdynia and New York City. Occasionally, he got to see his brother Stanislaw when the ship docked in England. In August 1948, Zbigniew got a telegram from a film program he had applied to years prior, summoning him to Lodz which was in the Soviet Union, under the Stalin regime. To avoid this situation, on his next voyage to the United States in October, Zbigniew debarked the ship and entered the country without proper documentation.
Zbigniew lived in New York City and began going by the name of Tony. In December 1951, he married his wife, Rita, and together they had three daughters. Tony spent two years in the U.S. Army Signal Corps during the Korean War (1950-1953). The family moved to New Jersey, and in 1960, Tony obtained a degree in metallography from the Newark College of Engineering.
Physical Details
- Classification
-
Containers
- Category
-
Boxes
- Object Type
-
Wooden boxes (lcsh)
- Genre/Form
- Boxes.
- Extent
-
1 folder
- Physical Description
- a. Rectangular, stained, brown wooden box with a removable lid (b). The sides of the box are connected by tongue and groove joints and are attached to the top of the base panel by small, silver-colored nails. Glued to the bottom of the base are four, short, rectangular feet. There are pen marks on the inside of the base’s bottom panel, and a date and caption are handwritten in black ink on the underside of the box. The surface of the box shows overall wear.
b. Rectangular, stained, brown wooden lid with a painted decoration for a small box (a). The top of the lid has a small, rectangular block attached to the center, to use as a handle. On the top right corner of the lid is a painted coat of arms, consisting of a horizontally split heater shield, outlined in black. The top section contains a black eagle with a white crescent on its chest, on a faded gold field. The bottom section contains a black Iron Cross with interior white markings and outline, over a red field. Painted in the bottom left corner of the lid, is a long, off-white rectangle, overlaid with the name of the city painted in red capital letters with faded gold shadowing. On the underside of the lid, the edges are chiseled out, creating a lip that fits on top of the box. Along the edge of underside is an inscription, handwritten in black ink, and a wavy line drawn in blue ink. The paint on the top is chipped. - Dimensions
- overall: Height: 2.250 inches (5.715 cm) | Width: 4.750 inches (12.065 cm) | Depth: 3.250 inches (8.255 cm)
- Materials
- a : wood, adhesive, ink, metal
b : wood, paint, adhesive, ink - Inscription
- a. underside, center, handwritten, black ink : AUG. 8. / 1944 / SLAVE LABOUR CAMP / IN BRESLAU- {WROCŁAW / POLAND} / SINCE 1945 MAY
b. underside, handwritten, black ink : OBÓZ w BRESLAU – [illegible] – 1944 [CAMP in BRESLAU – [illegible] – 1944]
Rights & Restrictions
- Conditions on Access
- No restrictions on access
- Conditions on Use
- No restrictions on use
Keywords & Subjects
- Topical Term
- Child labor--Germany. Christians--Poland. Escapes. Families. Forced labor--Germany. Forced labor--Poland. Korean War, 1950-1953--Veterans--United States. Labor camps--Germany. Warsaw (Poland)--History--Uprising, 1944. World War, 1939-1945--Children--Poland. World War, 1939-1945--Deportations from Poland. World War, 1939-1945--Underground movements--Personal narratives.
- Geographic Name
- Breslau (Germany : Landkreis) Gdynia (Poland) Lublin (Poland) Toruń (Poland) Warsaw (Poland) Wrocław (Poland)
- Corporate Name
- AK-Home Army (Poland) Red Cross and Red Crescent
Administrative Notes
- Legal Status
- Permanent Collection
- Provenance
- The wooden box was donated to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in 2014 by Zbigniew Antonii Piotrowski.
- Funding Note
- The cataloging of this artifact has been supported by a grant from the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany.
- Record last modified:
- 2023-08-25 13:00:30
- This page:
- http://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/irn108277
Download & Licensing
In-Person Research
- By Appointment
- Request 21 Days in Advance of Visit
- Plan a Research Visit
- Request to See This Object
Contact Us
Also in Zbigniew Antonii Piotrowski collection
The collection consists of a forced labor badge, a wooden box, documents, and photographs relating to the experiences of Zbigniew Antonii Piotrowski and his family in Torun, Gdynia, and Warsaw, Poland, Breslau, Germany, Majdanek concentration camp, and the United States before, during, and after World War II.
Date: 1931-1983
Zbigniew Antonii Piotrowski papers
Document
The Zbigniew Antonii Piotrowski papers consist of biographical materials and photographs documenting Zbigniew Piotrowski, his family’s life in Toruń and Gdynia before World War II and in Warsaw during the war, his father’s furniture workshops, his service on the MS Batory after the war, his immigration to the United States, and his service in the US Army Signal Corps in the 1950s. Biographical materials include Zbigniew’s birth certificate and student ID card; his parents’ marriage certificate; Warsaw shelter instructions; a postcard Zbigniew wrote from his hiding place in Trzebinia to his brother; an arrest warrant for entering America without a valid visa; and photocopied pages from a retrospective publication on Majdanek including Halina Piotrowska’s name on a list of political prisoners. Photographs depict the Piotrowski family in Toruń, Gdynia, and Warsaw; Antonii Piotrowski’s furniture workshop in Gdynia and a piece of furniture produced in his Warsaw workshop; a Polish classroom in German-occupied Warsaw; a boy in a Breslau forced labor camp; and Zbigniew’s service on the MS Batory in the 1940s and in the US Army Signal Corps in the 1950s.
Forced labor badge worn by a Roman Catholic Polish youth
Object
Forced labor badge worn by 14-year-old Zbigniew Piotrowski, to identify him as a Polish forced laborer near Breslau, Germany, between August and November 1944. Zbigniew was a Roman Catholic boy living with his parents, three brothers, and sister, in the port city of Gdynia, Poland, when the German army invaded on September 1, 1939. Shortly after, one of his brothers was abducted off the street for forced labor by the German authorities, and the rest of the family was forcibly transported to the city of Lublin. Zbigniew’s brother was released, and the family relocated to Warsaw, where all but one of the brothers became involved in underground resistance activity. Zbigniew’s mother died in 1941, and his sister was arrested for underground activity in 1942. On August 1, 1944, the city’s underground resistance rose up against the German occupation forces. During the Warsaw Uprising, Zbigniew, his father, a brother, and their housekeeper were forced out of their home. Zbigniew watched as his father was executed, and afterwards he was deported with the housekeeper to a forced labor camp near Breslau, Germany (now Wrocław, Poland). In October, Zbigniew escaped to the town of Trzebinia and hid with a Red Cross volunteer he had met in Breslau. In early May 1945, the town was liberated by the Soviet Army, and Zbigniew returned home. He reunited with his brothers and sister, and moved back to Gdynia. Zbigniew joined the crew of the MS Batory, a ship that traveled between Gdynia and New York City. In October 1948, Zbigniew debarked the ship and entered the United States, settling in New York City.