Clandestine photograph of the disfigured leg of Maria Kusmierczuk, a Polish political prisoner in the Ravensbrueck concentration camp.
Overview
- Caption
- Clandestine photograph of the disfigured leg of Maria Kusmierczuk, a Polish political prisoner in the Ravensbrueck concentration camp.
- Date
-
October 1944
- Locale
- Ravensbrueck, [Brandenburg] Germany
- Photo Credit
- United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of Anna Hassa Jarosky and Peter Hassa
- Event History
- Prisoners in the Ravensbrueck concentration camp succeeded in taking several clandestine photographs in October 1944. The Germans sent a large transport from Warsaw to Ravensbrueck concentration camp following the suppression of the Warsaw uprising in the fall of 1944. While waiting to be processed as a new prisoner, one woman wanted to get rid of her camera and traded it to one of the victims of medical experimentation, a so-called "rabbit" in exchange for a piece of bread. The "rabbits" wanted to take photographs to document their mutilated legs. Joanna Szydlowska secretly took pictures of Maria Kusmierczuk and Barbara Pietrzyk from behind a barracks. If she had been caught she would have been subject to a death sentence. The women then discarded the camera but kept the film hidden in their barrack. All of the "rabbits" stayed in Barrack #32. On April 23, 1945, the Swedish Red Cross rescued a French prisoner named Germaine Tillion. She brought the film with her and developed it for the first time in Paris after the war. The French prisoners stayed in touch with their Polish comrades, and after the war, Germaine Tillion sent the negatives back to the victims of the operations. Two pictures were first published in the book titled "Ravensbruck " by Wanda Kiedrzynska. Helena Rafalska (Hegier) kept the film in her possession until she gave it to Anna Jarosky, the daughter of Jadwiga Dzido, another one of the "rabbits".
[Source: Anna Jarosky, email dated 02/09/05]
See https://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005188.
See Also https://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005199.
See Also "Ravensbruck Main Camp" in Encyclopedia of Camps and Ghettos Volume 1 Part B.
Rights & Restrictions
- Photo Source
-
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
Copyright: United States Holocaust Memorial MuseumProvenance: Anna Hassa Jarosky and Peter Hassa
Keywords & Subjects
Administrative Notes
- Biography
- Maria Kusmierczuk is the daughter of Leon and Natalia Kusmierczuk. She was born in Zamosc in 1920 to a Polish Catholic family. When World War II broke out in September 1939, she was supposed to start her second year studying mathematics and science at the Stefan Batory University in Vilna. Instead she joined ZWZ the underground resistance movement associated with Home Army and for the next year distributed illegal publications. She moved from her parents' house to another location after the arrest of the young man she worked with. On November 9, 1940 the Gestapo found her and arrested her. That day Gestapo told her parents that Maria's older brother had died in Auschwitz. They also arrested her father and sister. Maria was taken to the prison in Zamosc for interrogation and ten days later to Lublin Castle prison (Nov 20, 1940). In January 1941 the Gestapo moved her to another building in Lublin called "Under the clock" known for its torture chambers. For three months, Maria lived in a windowless dungeon. Though she was repeatedly interrogated and beaten, she never revealed the names of other resistance members. On September 23, 1941 transported Maria along with other women held in various Lublin prisons to the Ravensbrueck concentration camp. There she was forced to work in very harsh conditions at a construction site lifting and carrying heavy objects, bricks and sand. Later she worked in workshops sewing together pieces of rabbit fur for Germans on the Russian front and making straw inserts for soldiers' shoes. The following year, Maria became the subject of brutal medical sulfanilamide experiments. On October 7th, 1942 she and other young Polish women were given morphine and put to sleep. Maria woke up in a terrible pain and her leg in a cast. She had a very high fever and severe infection resulting from her leg having been infected with tetanus bacteria. The cast was supposed to keep oxygen away from the wound. Maria remained in the hospital until April 1943. However, the wound did not heal, the bone of her leg remained exposed and she unable to walk. Experiencing horrible pain from the deep-seated infection, she was readmitted to the hospital. The wound never healed. At the end of the war Maria hid by using the number of a deceased prisoner. The camp was evacuated 28 April 1945, and Maria walked home to Poland with a group of other women. Though she herself was crippled, she helped push other disabled women in a carriage. In 1946 Maria began her studies at The Medical School in Gdansk. After receiving her MD in 1952, she worked with cancer patients for the Department of Radiology in Gdansk Medical School.
[Source: Anna Jarosky, documents submitted to USHMM 7/19/2004]
- Record last modified:
- 2017-02-23 00:00:00
- This page:
- https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/pa1156936
