Awaiting The Dawn: My Life in a Nazi Concentration Camp

By Vladimir Husaruk

In addition to the atrocities committed by the gestapo against the Jews, thousands of Christians were also arrested and enslaved in German work camps. In 1944, while on a train from Cracow, Poland, to Vienna, Austria, Rev. Vladimir Husaruk was arrested for being a "religious agitator." He was carrying a suitcase with fifty-two New Testaments to distribute to Slavic Christians who had been arrested and enslaved by the German gestapo. He spent the remainder of WWII in two prisons, including Montelupich, known for its tortures and executions, and two Nazi concentration camps, Gross-Rosen and Hersbruck, before being released by American soldiers in April 1945. His story of incredible faith and resilience in the face of death, starvation, and inhumane treatment culminates in a three-hundred-mile bicycle ride through Germany to be reunited once again with his family.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Fulton Books, Inc.
• Release date: Apr 5, 2022
• ISBN: 9781638608820

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Awaiting The Dawn

My Life in a Nazi Concentration Camp

Vladimir Husaruk

Copyright © 2021 George Husaruk

All rights reserved

First Edition

Fulton Books

Meadville, PA

Published by Fulton Books 2021

ISBN 978-1-63860-881-3 (paperback)

ISBN 978-1-63985-880-4 (hardcover)

ISBN 978-1-63860-882-0 (digital)

Printed in the United States of America

Table of Contents

Foreword

Preface

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Chapter 1

My Story

Chapter 2

Poland, 1944

Chapter 3

My Arrest—June 17, 1944

Chapter 4

Hope and Death

Chapter 5

The Vision in Cell 110

Chapter 6

Cracow: Holding on to Hope

Chapter 7

Gross-Rosen Concentration Camp

Chapter 8

An Introduction to Senseless Cruelty

Chapter 9

The Quarry Kapo: Human Fertilizer

Chapter 10

The Chimney

Chapter 11

Martyrdom in Block 18

Chapter 12

Brigade Number 2

Chapter 13

Life in a Concentration Camp

Chapter 14

Picked Up and Carried Away

Chapter 15

The Lord Can Touch the Heart of Anyone

Chapter 16

A Small Bit of Kindness

Chapter 17

A Spiritual Hunger

Chapter 18

Christmas in the Camp

Chapter 19

Living Among the Dead

Chapter 20

My Three-Part Vision

Chapter 21

The Car of Doom

Chapter 22

Hersbruck Concentration Camp—Bavaria

Recollections of Daughter Irene Husaruk Leon

Chapter 23

Evacuation

Chapter 24

Freedom—April 23, 1945

Chapter 25

Reunion

Epilogue: Reflections of Daughter Irene Husaruk Leon

About the Author

Foreword

The Eastern Front, World War II (June 22, 1941–May 9, 1945)

The battles on the Eastern Front constituted the largest military confrontation in history. The two principal powers were Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, including their allies. The area—which included Ukraine, Western Russia, Poland, the Baltic countries, Eastern Austria, and Germany—experienced fierce military action, mass destruction, and deportations. There was an immense loss of life due to combat, starvation, exposure, disease, and massacres. The Eastern Front was the site of nearly all extermination camps, death marches, and ghettos and the majority of pogroms, central to the Holocaust. Of the estimated seventy million deaths attributed to World War II, over thirty million, many of them civilian, occurred on the Eastern Front.

The Eastern Front was decisive in determining the outcome of World War II, eventually serving as the main reason for Germany's defeat. It resulted in the destruction of the Third Reich, the partition of Germany for nearly half a century, and the rise of the Soviet Union as a military and industrial superpower. Hitler invaded Russia and wanted to take Ukraine, which was a major food-producing area. Both powers invaded Poland in 1939 and partitioned it. German Wehrmacht units killed thousands of Polish citizens that year alone. Over sixteen thousand Poles were victims of these atrocities. Citizens were sent to concentration camps, including tens of thousands of government officials, landowners, clergy, and members of the intelligentsia, including teachers, doctors, journalists, and professors. The Roman Catholic Church and other religious groups were suppressed, and priests and clergy were imprisoned, killed, or deported. Between 1939 and 1945, an estimated 2,801 members of the Polish clergy were murdered in Poland.

On March 30, 1941, Hitler declared that war against Soviet Russia would be a war of extermination, in which both the political and intellectual elites of Russia would be eradicated by German forces in order to ensure a long-lasting German victory. Hitler's orders made it clear: executions would not be a matter for military courts but for the organized action of the military.

The order was specified as follows: The partisans are to be ruthlessly eliminated in battle or during attempts to escape, and all attacks by the civilian population against Wehrmacht soldiers are to be suppressed by the army on the spot by using extreme measures, till [the] annihilation of the attackers. Every officer in the future German occupation in the East will be entitled to perform execution[s] without trial, without any formalities, on any person suspected of having a hostile attitude toward the Germans (the same applied to prisoners of war). "If you have not managed to identify and punish the perpetrators of anti-German acts, you are allowed to apply the principle of collective responsibility. ‘Collective measures' against residents of the area where the attack occurred can then be applied after approval by the battalion commander or higher level of command."

German soldiers who commit crimes against humanity, the USSR, and prisoners of war are to be exempted from criminal responsibility, even if they commit acts punishable according to German law.

Millions of Red Army prisoners of war were taken. Some were executed in the field, and others died under inhuman conditions in German prisoner-of-war camps and during ruthless death marches from the front lines or were shipped to Nazi concentration camps for extermination. Some 3.3 million Soviet POWs (Prisoners of War) died in Nazi custody. By September 1941, the mortality rate among Soviet POWs was in the order of 1 percent per day.

When the invasion began in the summer of 1941, Hitler took it for granted that victory would be swift and was not prepared for a prolonged battle in harsh Russian winter conditions. By early 1944, the Germans were forced to retreat. The Nazi army was severely weakened, making it ripe for attack by pursuing Soviet forces.

By September 1944, the USSR Red Army was poised to mount an offensive to retake the Baltic territories lost to Nazi Germany in 1941. By November, the Soviets had completely driven the Nazi army out of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania.

Germans had been occupying Poland for five years in 1944. But after being mired in a war of attrition deep into the Soviet Union for nearly three years, the Nazi occupation was no longer sustainable. By 1944, the Soviets were able to advance into East Poland. The Red Army conspired with Polish leaders in the capital city of Warsaw to revolt against the German occupiers, who still retained possession of West Poland. The Poles proceeded as planned, but the Soviets withheld their promised support. As a result, the Nazis carried out a massacre of a large number of the rebels. This enabled the Soviets to secure control of a weakened Poland; the Germans inevitably continued their retreat out of Poland.

During the 1944 Warsaw Uprising, German forces committed many atrocities against Polish civilians, following the order by Hitler to raze the city and turn it into a lake. The most severe of them took place in Wola district, where, at the beginning of August 1944, tens of thousands of civilians (men, women, and children) were methodically rounded up and executed.

The end of the war

At two forty-one on the morning of May 7, 1945, at Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Forces, German Chief of Staff General Alfred Jodl signed the unconditional surrender documents for all German forces to the Allies at Reims in France. It included the phrase, All forces under German control to cease active operations at 2301 hours Central European time on 8 May 1945. The next day, shortly before midnight, Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel repeated the signing in Berlin at Zhukov's headquarters. The war in Europe was over.

Vicki Krecek

Preface

This book, written after my release from a German concentration camp, is not intended to be a literary work. It is merely a simple account of my personal experiences.

In your hands, you hold the modest issue of my labors. It is my hope that all who read these words will understand that any political or economic system instituted apart from God serves only to make human life savage, brutal, and unendurable.

True culture, freedom, and happiness are possible only where the God of Love is the foundation upon which all things rest.

Reverend Vladimir Husaruk, 1946

Acknowledgments

While Awaiting the Dawn was originally written in Russian in 1946, it has benefitted greatly from the knowledge, wisdom, and generosity of many: Vera, who translated the original work from Russian into English; Tamara A., who proofread the translation; and Trish Goyer, who further revised it.

Most recently, I, the author's son, proofread and edited the book. Vicki Krecek, my wife's sister, wrote the foreword, factual information about Montelupich prison and Gross-Rosen and Hersbruck concentration camps, and the editor's note. Additionally, Vicki collaborated with Irene Husaruk-Leon, my sister, on the introduction, recollections, and reflections sections. Also, Uta T. translated documents from German into English, and Matthew Kiedrowski finished off with a final proofreading.

I want to thank my wife, Katharine Elliott, for her editing and computer skills and especially her support and encouragement in my endeavor to get my dad's book published in the English language. His story is a much-needed thread in the fabric of the Holocaust history and a poignant reminder for today's world.

My deepest gratitude goes to all those people and to the ones I may have failed to remember.

George Husaruk

Introduction

In 1926, Vladimir Husaruk, a young man from Ukraine, moved to Warsaw, Poland, to study at a university. He became a research chemist. Maria Bolsunowski, also Ukrainian, was in Warsaw to study psychology. They married while in Warsaw and together ran an orphanage under the auspices of the British Bible Society. They gave birth to two children, Eugene (in 1932) and Irene (in 1935). Their story provides a personal look at the complex and disrupted lives of families in that area of the world before and during WWII. Many of these families eventually came to North America and made amazing contributions to the fabric of the culture of Canada and the United States.

When Germany invaded Poland on September 1, 1939, Maria, their two children, and their grandmother were on a train, traveling from Warsaw southeast to Chelm Lubelski, the home of her parents. Chelm Lubelski was just 16 miles from the Ukraine border, with Poland, 149 miles from Warsaw. The train was full of mothers with children trying to escape the war. Irene, just four years old at the time, remembered the trip took three days because German planes were continually machine-gunning the train. When the planes were spotted, the train would stop so the passengers could run into nearby fields, away from the tracks. Irene didn't remember being frightened but did remember hiding in a bushy potato field. When the train was days late, their grandpa had no idea what happened to them. He looked in all the hospitals and morgues, fearing the worst.

Vladimir, who had stayed in Warsaw, was taken into the Polish military to fight Hitler. Since he was a conscientious objector and wouldn't carry a gun, his job was to analyze the air for poisonous gases. When Poland surrendered, soon after, he was able to join his family in Chelm.

They made their home with the grandparents, and the next spring, the two children helped plant a garden and tend chickens while their grandfather taught them all about nature. He was an herbalist and knew and collected medicinal herbs in the forest. He also knew about birds and animals and loved sharing his knowledge with his grandchildren. They especially loved picking the abundant mushrooms that grew in the forest.

When Hitler decided to occupy Ukraine in the summer of 1941, Vladimir and his family moved back to his former home, Rivne (known as Rovno on old maps), a small town in Western Ukraine. They rented a duplex and lived on one side. German officers lived on the other. They had plenty of room for a garden, a pig, and chickens as well as fruit trees. The garden, with its rich Ukrainian soil, produced red beets for borscht, potatoes, tomatoes, sorrels, and dill weed. Their house had electricity, running water, and real bathroom. While the two children enrolled in Ukrainian school (walking back and forth the two miles on their own), practiced classical music, and played chess, their parents were engaged with the horrible reality of Nazi occupation.

Vladimir, who was a chemist, opened a factory from which he produced kvass, an Eastern European drink; cranberry marmalade, honey, mustard, candy, soap, and shoe polish—all things that were otherwise unavailable during the war. His daughter remembers that he always employed twice as many workers as he really needed because times were hard, and as long as a person had a job at a factory, he would be safe for a while. Some of the workers were Jews. After hearing what the Nazis were doing to the Jews, my parents outsmarted the gestapo by hiding them and shipping them to safety. The factory also served as a soup kitchen to feed all the workers. Maria handled the paperwork, permits, and endless talks with German officials.

It was a time when everyone looked out for his or her neighbors and, when they traveled, stopped in at a farmer's house for a meal, as there were no restaurants. All the food came from the garden.

Goods produced by the factory were sent by train to the rest of Ukraine. Vladimir, a devout Christian, also sent Bibles, New Testaments, and sometimes missionaries and workers with the goods.

No one in the town had a car, but the family took their Sunday afternoon outings in an open coach pulled by horses. Irene remembers going through the Ukrainian countryside past houses with thatched roofs and whitewashed walls surrounded by a myriad of tall sunflowers.

Music was always on agenda at the Husaruk home. Irene took piano lessons, and Eugene studied the violin. Everyone sang. Since there were no organs or pianos in the churches, the Slavs sang a cappella, with the women singing the melody and the men harmonizing.

The war was an ever-present reality even for the children. Their family befriended a German soldier, Herr Sievers, who regularly came to their house and brought a soldier buddy, a German pianist who loved to play classical music on the Husaruk piano. But one day, the German soldier came to their house alone, looking for the pianist who had become disillusioned with the war and shot himself in the hand. He was later executed. Another time, Irene remembered looking out the window to the garden and seeing the German gestapo pulling out a family with little children who were there hiding in the bushes. She didn't know if they survived. Irene said, If the German officers were not living in our house, we all would have been executed for harboring Jews. That was the law.

She recalled, During the war, everyone was migrating. Birds and animals moved with the seasons, and humans were running away from humans. First, you ran from Hitler, then you ran from Stalin. You go east; you go west. Migrants were always welcome in our church.

Amazingly, life continued to go on despite being in the middle of the war. They celebrated holidays and maintained family traditions. Christmas Eve was the biggest celebration. It was all about Jesus's birth, Irene remembered. "The whole family would go into the forest to find the perfect pine tree. Decorations were all handmade. We hung apples, nuts, stars made out of straw, all kinds of paper chains, and many candles. I never heard of Santa Claus or presents at Christmas. That's not what it was all about.

"All the animals were fed first on Christmas Eve since they were so kind to Jesus when he was born in a manger. There was a tradition of having twelve food dishes, for the twelve apostles. The family would sing carols and hear the Christmas story before dinner.

Soon we heard the news that Hitler was retreating. It sounded like good news, but so many people who knew what Stalin was like chose to flee to the West.

In 1943, when Stalin was advancing west, the Husaruk family made the difficult decision to leave their factory behind and move to Lviv (called Lemberg), where they stayed for a short time with cousins. Lviv was the cultural center of Western Ukraine. Founded in AD 1256, the town had a mountain in the center of the city, which was beautiful in the snow. Irene remembered having a great time sledding there.

As Hitler was retreating, we were on the move again, this time, to Cracow, Poland, a beautiful old city on a river, near the Carpathian Mountains. They lived in an apartment, and their grandparents lived with them. Grandma was always wringing her hand, saying, ‘What will happen to us? Oh god, oh god.' Then she would turn to Eugene and me and say, ‘How can you laugh at a time like this?' For children, there were lots to laugh about. Life goes on.

Their cousin, Aryk, came to Cracow with them, but when he wanted to go back to Rivne for his mother, wife, and children, he couldn't. Stalin surged ahead so quickly, leaving a border behind him that would keep families stranded and separated for years to come. Stalin sent [my cousin's] family to Siberia, where his mom, my dad's sister, died. It would be years before he would be reunited with his wife and kids again.

Vladimir and his wife found a Polish Catholic church that let Ukrainian and Russian Protestants use it for their services. He was active in the church and carried on a mission of ministering to people who were displaced from their homes. He decided to visit the many Slavic people brought forcefully to Austria as slave laborers for the Nazis. They were far away from their own countries, in a foreign land, and needed comfort. My father packed his suitcase in anticipation of an upcoming short trip to Vienna, Austria. He packed another suitcase with New Testaments, and off he went. During that trip, his New Testaments were discovered, and he was accused of being a ‘religious agitator,' a minister of the Jewish Christ. He was taken off the train and sent to jail and, later, to a concentration camp.

How did my mom ever find out where my dad was? There was an underground postal service of sorts. It was actually quite reliable. Whoever would find a piece of paper along a railway track or road with someone's name and address and a note, that paper would be delivered to the rightful owner. The faithful citizen who found it considered it an honor, a duty to his country, and a service to humanity to perform such a task, Irene explained. As a result of this underground postal service, their mother moved her