Walerjan Wróbel - Stiftung Denkmal für die ermordeten Juden Europas

Michal about his friend Walerjan:
»Walerek [Walerek is a nickname for Walerjan] was very young, very naïve. He didn‘t
have any experience either. He was so naïve: if you told him that something was true,
or that this is the way it was in the camp, he believed you right away. He would believe
anything. It‘s rough for people like that in the concentration camp, very difficult.
I mean, you have to be brutal there, not naïve. And Walerek was always naïve, very naïve.
He always talked about his parents, his sister, he’d talk about school.«
Walerjan’s friend Michal Piotrowski, whom he met in Neuengamme
concentration camp. The photo is of Michal in 1940 at the age of 17
when he was confined in Auschwitz concentration camp.
Source: Halina Piotrowska, Warsaw
Walerjan Wróbel
In the Neuengamme camp 3 , Walerjan was deployed
for nine months in exhausting manual labor in a
punishment platoon. He was in the so-called Elbe
platoon that was assigned to construct a canal four
to five kilometers in length from the Neuengamme
camp to the Dove Elbe river. Inmates were often
forced to stand all day long in deep mud in order to
straighten the canal banks. Others had to cart off
the soil removed in heavy wheelbarrows. Many died
of exhaustion and the poor living conditions.
Walerjan found a friend among the prisoners,
Michal Piotrowski. Michal was only two years older
than Walerjan and also came from Poland. Michal
survived the war and later told a journalist about
Walerjan and his story.
Walerjan Wróbel Page 3 www.stiftung-denkmal.de