Grußwort Marian Hawling

Greetings from Sidney, Australia. Ladies and Gentlemen and distinguished guests, my name is Marian Hawling. I was born in Poland, in the city of Lwow, which is now part of the Ukraine. I would like to thank the organization committee for inviting me. I´m so terribly disappointed, that I could not take advantage of the invitation.  But at least I´m very grateful, that I was given the opportunity to say a few words.

My whole saga started in the Alexanderplatz in Berlin in the Gestapo-Headquarters where I was put in the solitary confinement. That was a very notorious place, very few people that ever got in there came out alive. And the ones, the few lucky ones, that did, they where sent to concentration camps. Well, I was one of those few lucky ones. I was sent to Sachsenhausen, then on a commando at the island of Aldernay , then Neuengamme, and then: Farge. When we arrived at Farge we were very surprised, that this huge bunker will be our quarters, but, apart of that, there was no difference. The beds were the same, the soup was just as watery, the bread-rations were just as small and the Kapos were just as brutal. 

But talking about brutality, I’ll have to mention Unterscharführer Reiser. He was the most brutal SS-man I’ve seen in the concentration camps. He used to walk around throwing abuse at everyone, throwing kicks and punches left, right and center. The polish prisoners gave him a nickname of Maciejewski. Maciejewski wasa state-executioner in prewar Poland.

Now, there were not many, ….otherwise there were not many SS-men in Farge.
[Hours] carrying cement-bags on my back day after day, day after day. Then I reached the stage when I was getting weaker. I was getting skinny and my legs were getting swollen pretty badly. And I was becoming a “Muselmann”. Now, once you loose your energy and become a “Muselmann”, then you are exposed to more beatings and everybody pushes you around. 

But the, I ah, I was also, at one stage I was sent up to work on top of the structure, and there were quite a few German civilians working. And they were more or less in charge. And they were neither friendly nor unfriendly. To get up there one had to walk around the staircase, attached to the external wall of the structure – pretty precarious staircase it was. 

Well one day, one day on the way back to work, ah…from…to from the way, sorry, on the way to the bunker from work, there was an execution taking place. But the things went wrong. As we were walking past, the structure, the scaffolding collapsed and the poor victim fell down. He was full of live…only just bewildered. So we were ordered to stop. There was a bit of a hassle there, there were strikes, they started to rebuild the structure, and everyone was running around rebuilding it, but, strangely enough, the victim was the busiest of them all. He kept helping everybody andhe kept yelling “schnell, schnell, schnell”! What was going through his mind? It was terrible. It was a German, about 45 years old. I don’t know why they were hanging him. So, we had to stand and watch, until the structure was rebuilt and the second attempt was successful. But the poor fellow had to suffer to go through this horrific experience twice. In Neuengamme, we had the gallows there, at which you could hang three men at the same time. But in Farge, they didn´t have one and they had to improvise one. Well, ah, that was the one thing that stayed very vivid in my mind. 

One day, one day, still I was getting weaker and weaker, but then one day, —— we were having our short break in the middle of the day so that we can eat our watery soup, and about maybe thirty meters away from the structure while we were having our meal, and then a plane arrived, all over sudden. And it was flying so low and almost then it seemed to be flying rather slow, and they flow over the structure, dropped the bombs, there was a horrific explosion, then turned around, then flow away. The damage was irreparable, and ah, we were on our way back to Neuengamme. But it was good for the moral. Because we thought when an enemy plan can come, flying so low in the middle of the day, drop the bombs and then fly away without any interference, then the war could not last much longer. So that was very, very good for the moral. 
 
Well, I must say, that after the liberation, I’ve noticed one thing: that survivors of the concentration camps, when they got together, they love to talk about their sufferings, about their horrific experiences. And it somehow did not appeale to me. I remember: on the second day —, after — coming ashore from Cap Arcona, I managed to walk to some point on my swallowed legs, — where I could see the carcass of the Cap Arcona, lying on its side in Lübeck Bay, I looked at it for a long time, and a lot of thoughts went through my head. And one thing occurred to me: I´m only 20 years old, I´ve got a long live in front of me, and if I´m going to spend the rest of my life talking about my sufferings, about these horrific things that I have ever experienced, no, that would be poisoning my brain. So I decided to take the thoughts completely out of my mind, and get away from there as far as I possibly can and forget about it, if I can. And I did so. I did get away far enough, I couldn´t have gone any further, but just to give you an example of, I was already married for quite a few years, and my wife even didn´t know that I was in a concentration camp. I never mentioned that. And now something about 15, 20 years ago, we were just in a conversation about war and my son said to me: “Dad, what were you doing during the war?” Well, I had no choice but to tell it all to my family. And I realized that it didn´t bother me anymore. And I wanted to go and visit the places. I was ready for it. So I visited Neuengamme twice, with my wife, and once with my children, and they were very, very moving experiences, particularly the trip to Lübeck – Bay to the spot where Cap Arcona sank. 

And, well, — I would love to have been here, and visit Farge, because I never visited Farge before. And ah, so that, but at least I´m very happy about it, that it is now being opened on the opening day. And that will help to keep the memories of it, of it all alive. So, all I can say: thank you very much again to the organizers, for giving me the opportunity to say a few words. And: all the best!