Prisoners of War

Hi ! Here are the recent stamps issued by Poland which have been issued on 30 January 2009 to commemorate the lives of former prisoners in Nazi concentration camps and extermination camps of World War II. From among millions of prisoners, many of them had no chance to witness liberation. To represent those who survived, four famous individuals testify the nightmare of camps. These famous persons are Witold Pilecki, Józef Władysław Wolski, Bishop Ignacy Ludwik Jeż and Stanisława Maria Sawicka. Two of them died recently in 2007 and 2008. The stamps are with grey and black colur dominance giving a perfect match to the subject. These stamps are tributes to these great personalities from Poland. Today's Post is dedicated to all great Polish men and women of yesteryears. This is all for today !....Till Next Post ...Have a Nice Time !....

Extermination Camps Survivors

The personalities on stamps are :


Witold Pilecki (1901-1948) - soldier of the Home Army (Armia Krajowa), cavalry platoon commander, took part in the Warsaw Upraising. In September 1941 he became a "voluntary prisoner" of KL ( Konzentrationslager - concentration camp ) Auschwitz (as Tomasz Serafiński). His plan was to learn about the running of the camp; he organized inmate resistance. In April 1943 he escaped from Auschwitz together with two comrades. He wanted to organize a rescue attempt, which appeared impossible as the camp's "personnel" consisted of more than three thousand Germans. After the war commander Pilecki was imprisoned by the communist government, tortured and found - as many former underground activists - an "enemy of the People's Republic of Poland", and sentenced to death on a show trial.

Józef Władysław Wolski (1910-2008) - historian, professor at the Jagiellonian University. Arrested during the Sonderaktion Krakau and imprisoned in Sachsenhausen (XI 1939-1941).

Bishop Ignacy Ludwik Jeż (1914-2007) - priest since 1937, co-author of the letter of the Polish Bishops to the German Bishops in 1965; prisoner of KL Dachau (1942-1945).

Stanisława Maria Sawicka (1895-1982) - historian of art and museologist, supervisor of the Print Room of Warsaw University Library. Prisoner in Ravensbrück, the largest camp for women (1944-1945).

20th Century Nightmare

The first concentration camp was established in Dachau (Bavaria) already in 1933, i.e. when Hitler took power, to isolate Third Reich opponents and those who were deemed "unusable". After World War II broke out, the camps were established also in the territory of countries in occupation; some of them became death factories where masses of people, mainly Jews, were murdered. The largest such camp with gas chambers and crematories was KL Auschwitz-Birkenau (1940-1945) in Oświęcim and Brzezinka. Around 18 million people were imprisoned in all types of Nazi camps; 11 million of them died. Only around 20% of prisoners survived from among prisoners of concentration camps and extermination camps.

Courtesy- Polish Post