Document text
Poles honor survivor of Auschwitz Ashland man one of few to escape death camp By VICKI GUARINO A Polish resistance fighter and survivor of the notorious Auschwitz death camp who now lives in Ashland has won a military honor for his wartime heroism. Leonard Zawacki, 83, was awarded an Officers Cross of the Order of Merit from the Polish government. The Polish consul in Los Angeles presented the cross in a special ceremony in Portland earlier this year. "It is a great honor for me," Zawacki (pronounced za-vat-ski) said Monday. He said the deeds that earned him the honor feel as though they occurred a long time ago. Zawacki was a 24-year-old Polish army cadet in September 1939 when German soldiers overran his country. Zawacki went underground, joining the resistance. A year later, Zawacki was betrayed. The Gestapo arrested him, interrogated him and, in 1941, shipped him in a cattle car to Auschwitz. Prison camp life was one of hopeless brutality. There were executions, beatings, starvation, sickness and bone-numbing labor -- all against the backdrop of the gas chamber and crematorium. He remembers the Germans killing at such a rate that the bodies had to be stacked and burned in ditches. Fires burned day and night, and the smoke and smell traveled miles. Millions died at Auschwitz; Zawacki not only survived, he accomplished the nearly impossible -- he escaped. Of more than 600 inmates who tried to get away, Zawacki was among about 300 who succeeded. In September 1944, wearing a stolen guard's uniform and carrying a block of wood carved in the shape of a gun, Zawacki and a another inmate pretended to march four more inmates to a work site beyond camp gates. They carried a pass, which happened to be the wrong color for the day, and doses of cyanide. If caught, cyanide's quick death was preferable to guards' torture. Hours later, as the camp alarms sounded in the distance, the escapees met their Polish partisan contacts. Zawacki resumed fighting with resistance forces. After the war, he studied economics in London, and emigrated with his wife to the United States. From retirement in Ashland, Zawacki has developed new ties with his homeland after the collapse of the communist government. Those ties include joining fellow Medford Rotary members in fostering the formation of a Rotary Club in the Polish city of Torun. Zawacki grew up nearby. The Polish government has honored Zawacki before. Several years ago he received a medal for his ordeal at Auschwitz. Mail Tribune Copyright � The Mail Tribune 1999, Medford, Oregon USA