Henryk Mania

Henryk Mania a adăugat o fotografie

ieri

R.I.P
Henryk

Henryk Mania (born 17 January 1923 in Rakoniewice, died 13 April 2020 in Szczecin) was a Polish laborer and collaborator of Nazi Germany, who served as a kapo in the Chełmno extermination camp. In 2001, he was sentenced to eight years in prison for his involvement in the operation of the camp. He was the first Pole to be convicted by a Polish court for participation in Nazi crimes, in a trial where the prosecutor was from the Institute of National Remembrance.

Henryk Mania a lăsat un gând

ieri

Pre-war period Henryk Mania was born on 17 January 1923 in Rakoniewice, in a peasant family. He was the son of Władysław and Agnieszka (née Przymuszała). He had three siblings: two brothers and a sister. Mania had a primary education and worked as a roofer's assistant. When Nazi Germany invaded Poland, he was training as a machinist. Imprisonment and work in the Sonderkommando Lange Shortly after the German occupation began, Mania was accused of attempting to poison a German soldier and was arrested. Initially, he was imprisoned in a camp in Wolsztyn, where he was forced to work for several weeks repairing roads and railway tracks. Later, along with a group of prisoners from Wolsztyn, he was transferred to Fort VII in Poznań. Most of his companions soon died or were murdered. Mania, along with several other Polish prisoners, was assigned to the Sonderkommando Lange, a special SS unit led by SS-Untersturmführer Herbert Lange, tasked with exterminating the mentally ill and disabled in the Reichsgau Wartheland. When transports of patients arrived at Fort VII, Mania and his fellow prisoners were responsible for leading the victims to the bunker-gas chamber, sealing its doors, and eventually carrying the bodies to vehicles. The…Citește mai mult

Henryk Mania a lăsat un gând

ieri

Kulmhof The Chełmno extermination camp (Kulmhof) began operations on 7 December 1941, with the arrival of the first transport from Koło. Mania, along with seven companions – Lech Jaskólski, Marian Libelt, Henryk Maliczak, Franciszek Piekarski, Stanisław Polubiński, Kajetan Skrzypczyński, and Stanisław Szymański – was accommodated on the ground floor of a ruined palace. Their first task was to erect a fence around the building and to build a wooden ramp. Maliczak and Szymański primarily handled this work, while Mania and the other five worked on digging mass graves in the Rzuchów Forest. The SS gave Mania the nickname "Heinrich the Younger" (to distinguish him from "Heinrich the Elder" – Henryk Maliczak). When mass extermination of Jews began at the camp, Mania's main task became collecting money and valuables that the victims had to surrender as a supposed "deposit", and then issuing them "receipts". He also facilitated taking victims to the palace cellars, and if they resisted, he would, along with three companions, push them into gas vans. He often used a whip during this process. He was also responsible for supervising the burying of bodies. After the war, he claimed to have witnessed the arrival of a transport of Czech…Citește mai mult

Henryk Mania a lăsat un gând

ieri

Final period of the war In November 1943, along with three companions from Kulmhof – Lech Jaskólski, Henryk Maliczak, and Kajetan Skrzypczyński – Mania was assigned to Sonderkommando Legath (also known as Wetterkommando). This was a special SS unit tasked with erasing evidence of the crimes committed by the Germans in the Reichsgau Wartheland. Mania and the other Poles were responsible for overseeing around 50 Jewish prisoners, who performed work related to exhuming and burning corpses. Additionally, they helped locate mass graves, most of which they had dug themselves between 1940 and 1941. Wetterkommando completed its work in the spring of 1944. The Jewish prisoners were then shot, while Mania and the other three Poles were returned to Fort VII, from where they were later transferred to the penal and investigative camp in Żabikowo. Later, on 23 June 1944, Mania was transported to the Auschwitz concentration camp. Piotr Litka and Grzegorz Pawlikowski report that he did not receive a camp number and was likely not even treated as a prisoner. Patrick Montague provides a different account, stating that Mania was assigned the camp number 189 229 at Auschwitz. On 4 July 1944, Mania was transferred to the Mauthausen concentration camp…Citește mai mult

Henryk Mania a lăsat un gând

ieri

Post-war life After liberation, Mania returned to his hometown of Wolsztyn. However, former prisoners of Fort VII soon began spreading rumors that he had survived imprisonment due to collaboration with the Germans. In response, he moved to Poznań and later to Szczecin. In Szczecin, he started a family (having a son and a daughter). He found employment first at the Municipal, and later at the Regional Water Supply and Sewerage Company. In 1957, he was transferred to the military reserve force with the rank of private. He was a valued and frequently rewarded employee. On 22 July 1959, he was awarded the Bronze Cross of Merit. On 1 January 1982, he retired. Despite being imprisoned in various camps and prisons during the occupation, he never applied for benefits granted to victims of Nazi repression. Meanwhile, in 1949, a resident of Kalisz who had worked as a driver in Koło during the war met a new business partner in Poznań with the surname Mania. When questioned by the man from Kalisz, Mania denied having been in Koło during the war. However, the man grew suspicious and reported the matter to Milicja Obywatelska. An investigation revealed that it was a coincidence of…Citește mai mult

Henryk Mania a lăsat un gând

ieri

Trial and conviction On 28 August 1991, the Chief Commission for the Prosecution of Crimes against the Polish Nation initiated an investigation into the activities of Polish functionary prisoners at the Kulmhof extermination camp. In 1995, Mania accompanied investigators during a site inspection of the former extermination camp. The investigation was suspended again on 26 January 1999, reportedly for procedural reasons. It was resumed on 1 September 2000. It was not until 2 November 2000 that Henryk Mania was arrested by police at one of Szczecin’s cemeteries. The next day, the District Court in Poznań imposed preventive detention, and Mania was placed in custody in Poznań. On 16 March 2001, Zygmunt Kacprzak, a prosecutor from the Branch Commission for the Prosecution of Crimes against the Polish Nation in Poznań, filed an indictment against Mania, accusing him, under the August Decree, of complicity in genocide. The charges included beating prisoners, confiscating their valuables, clothing, and personal belongings, and leading them to the gas chambers. Mania pleaded not guilty, claiming he was a prisoner and followed German orders out of fear for his own life and that of his family. He also denied using physical violence against prisoners, stating that his tasks…Citește mai mult

Henryk Mania a lăsat un gând

ieri

In culture In 2003, artist Rafał Jakubowicz painted Henryk M. from the Zugzwang series, a monochromatic portrait of Mania. The series refers to the history of the Chełmno extermination camp, and the portrait of Mania alludes to the Poznań court's verdict issued in February 2002.

Henryk Mania a lăsat un gând

ieri

Bibliography Szczesiak-Ślusarek, M. (2012). "Zagłada kolskich Żydów" [The Extermination of the Jews of Koło]. In Witkowski, K. (ed.). Z dziejów Żydów kolskich – w 70. rocznicę Zagłady w obozie zagłady Kulmhof [From the History of the Jews of Koło – On the 70th Anniversary of the Extermination at the Kulmhof Death Camp] (in Polish). Koło: Urząd Miejski w Kole. ISBN 978-83-62485-66-6. Litka, P.; Pawlikowski, G. (2016). "Henryk Mania – ostatni Polak skazany za współudział w zbrodni Holocaustu" [Henryk Mania – The Last Pole Convicted for Complicity in the Crime of the Holocaust]. In Malczyńska-Biały, M.; Pawlikowski, G.; Żarna, K. (eds.). Zjawisko ludobójstwa w XX i XXI wieku [The Phenomenon of Genocide in the 20th and 21st Centuries] (in Polish). Rzeszów: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Rzeszowskiego. ISBN 978-83-7996-321-8. Montague, P. (2014). Chełmno. Pierwszy nazistowski obóz zagłady [Chełmno: The First Nazi Death Camp] (in Polish). Wołowiec: Wydawnictwo Czarne. ISBN 978-83-7536-726-3.