Ortonville-This week, Walter Strzelecki will remember two dates from the World War II era that are etched forever in his mind.
The first, Sept. 6, 1942, is the day he thought his life was ending. The second, May 5, 1945, is the day it began anew.
The time Strzelecki spent between as an American wrongly imprisoned by the Nazis is a nightmare too vividly remembered and one he will share at 1 p.m., Dec. 8, at the Edna Burton Senior Center, 345 Ball St., Ortonville as part of the ‘Share your life history? series.
‘A lot of times, even now, I wake up,? says Strzelecki as he sits at a table in daughter Susan Nassar’s home in Brandon Township. ‘I can’t sleep all night. I still have nightmares. You never forget it. You can forget what you put your spoon in, but you never forget that.?
Strzelecki was born in Chicago 83 years ago and spent his early childhood in Detroit and Hamtramck. In 1932, with his parents struggling during the Great Depression without work, Strzelecki and his mother left the United States for Poland, her native country. He finished his childhood out in the town of Sompolno and in 1939 was planning to attend college. He was one of 90 students out of 900 applicants that were chosen for an engineering school, but his hopes were dashed when the school closed because of the war.
In 1941, when he was 16, he hid with his mother from the Germans, who wanted boys and men to work in the fields and factories.
‘I was hiding with my mother in the woods, in a chicken coop, in the attics,? said Strzelecki. ‘Next door was a carpenter and he was building coffins and we hid in them. Lucky they didn’t open one.?
Strzelecki eventually took a good job as a mailman in Poland and often was given bread by farmers. He was transferred from villages to the city and had a white stripe on his bicycle to show he was Polish, not German. But another man who wanted his job began writing to the Gestapo and falsely accused Strzelecki of being a spy.
‘On Sept. 6, 1942, I went to work and that was the end of me,? he said.
The Gestapo interrogated Strzelecki and beat him until he was nearly dead.
He pauses in his story, as tears wet his cheeks, then continues in a broken voice.
‘They couldn’t get anything out of me, because I didn’t know anything. I was laying there and I saw Jesus. I got up somehow and they took me to the bathroom and put handcuffs on me and told me to exercise, to keep my blood from clotting.?
Strzelecki passed out. When he woke, he was in a small concentration camp with other prisoners who took care of him. He had lumps all over his face and scars all over his body. He was unable to put a blanket on his back or sleep on it for months, but the pain had just begun.
He labored for the Germans in the concentration camp and as he chopped wood for heat, he watched as gallows were built to hang people. He remembers how scared he was the day the ‘big guys in SS uniforms? came, looked in everyone’s eyes and then pulled out the four Jews at the camp and hung them, pulling on their legs because the gallows weren’t made high enough.
Strzelecki was moved to Poznan, a larger prison camp in Poland, where he slept on bunks without mattresses. From there, he and other prisoners were taken by train to the Mauthausen concentration camp in Austria.
Escape, he said, never crossed his mind because he was innocent. But no one ever successfully escaped. Those who tried, some by using a fire extinguisher to blind a guard, were hung or torn apart by dogs.
During his time at Mauthausen, Strzelecki worked in the laundry every day. He and other Polish prisoners were treated more like an Army, he recalls, and had to sing German songs. They would eat whatever they could at the camp, including stray cats.
His story is agonizing to tell and Strzelecki breaks down frequently while relaying the horror of seeing the Nazis place people in hot showers and then chase them out into the cold weather; of Americans systematically shot; of waking up to the smell of people burning.
‘I would think, ‘Tomorrow it will be me.??
But even as the worst in humanity came out, some of the best did, too. He remembers the crematorium worker who risked his own life (and later lost it) when he began saving dog tags from the bodies of Americans to give to their families; and, Nassar notes, her own father was a hero, risking his life to swipe soup from a kettle for people who were starving to death and hiding Jews in the laundry and spraying pepper on clothes to deter sniffing dogs from finding them. It worked.
‘They were in such a rush (near the end of the war), they didn’t bother looking no more,? said Strzelecki, who remembers waiting for it to be his own turn to be herded into a tunnel to be gassed or killed in some other fashion. But ‘his number? as he puts it, never came up.
Another number did? 12:45 p.m., May 5, 1945? the moment in time that U.S. soldiers came into Mauthausen and freed the prisoners.
But the nightmare wasn’t quite over. With no one in charge, chaos ensued, with prisoners raping and killing each other. Strzelecki recalled it was worse than the war. He and a friend stayed in the laundry for a few weeks until American soldiers returned and he climbed down the wall to freedom. He and his friend walked 17 miles from the camp before knocking on a farmer’s door to sleep. They later found an empty cottage to stay in for a month and he began writing letters to his mother.
‘That’s when my life started,? he says, managing a smile. ‘I started living then, there was nobody to control me. But I never drank and I never womanized, either. Maybe that’s why I’m living.?
His mother sent him a letter back, warning him not to come home to Poland, as the Russians were there and they feared he would get in trouble. He stayed in Austria from 1945 until 1947, when he returned to the United States and his father. He went to Hamtramck High School and learned English and landed a job at Sanders bakery, where he would work for the next 42 years.
A friend’s girlfriend introduced him to Rose, a girl who worked two doors down from the bakery and whom he married in 1951. They had three children, Marlene, Susan and Tom, and he never talked about his experience with them until the late-90’s, when the Germans paid him restitution. Rose died the day after he put the check in his bank account. He used the money to purchase a Cadillac, which he still drives regularly on his visits to see Susan from his Warren home.
Strzelecki has returned to Mauthausen twice? once in 2000 with his son, and again this past August.
‘I know more than the tour guide,? he says.
He also has visited the Holocaust Museum in Southfield, on the 50th anniversary of gaining his freedom, and everyone there clapped for him.
‘Sometimes when I was in the prison there, I thought, ‘There can’t be a God to allow things like this to happen,?? he reflects. ‘There are things you can’t figure out. But you keep trying to live and always have hope… I have a different appreciation for life.?
He pauses again as his voice breaks and gestures toward Susan.
‘I appreciate these kids.?
She smiles at him and notes that even with all that has happened, he’s not vindictive and doesn’t have a hateful bone in his body.
At 83, he is still driving his ‘Caddy,? still chopping wood, made all of Thanksgiving dinner, decorates the outside of his house with lots of Christmas lights and never misses Mass, attending church every Saturday and Sunday.
He has found his faith again.