From Auschwitz With Love

A poignant item to be included in our June auction.

As we peruse mixed groups of material consigned for the next sale we always keep our eyes wide open for the valuable or unusual items that might emerge. Selections of covers can be particularly fruitful as any aspect can be rewarding – the source, the franking, the routing, markings or destination. Just occasionally one recognizes with a start of recognition that one truly has history in one's hands.

Concentration camp mail is not in itself particularly rare and the messages that they contain are usually rather anodyne as camp censors would remove any indication of the true state of affairs. Sometimes the stamps have been removed, whether by zealous censors searching for messages beneath, or by the receiving family who would tear away the hated 'Hitler head'.

The Auschwitz camp has a special place in the pantheon of horror, claiming more lives than any other. The envelope above, encountered in a box of covers, first caught the eye for that reason alone. Closer examination revealed that this item with its enclosed letter had a further tale to tell.

The sender, Kasimisir Andrysik, a Polish political prisoner, was among the very first batch of internees taken to the camp by train from Tarnów gaol on June 14 1940. This envelope was sent by Andrysik to his wife in Cracow in May 1941, with a message of love and reassurance. It displays his prison number 89, which is one of the lowest recorded on an item of mail, the first 30 numbers having been allocated to German trustees (mainly criminals) brought from Sachsenhausen to set up the camp.

Fellow prisoner Kasimierz Albin later recalled the arrival of the first transport, "the Kapos drove us... to the roll-call ground, where we had to line up in 5 rows... Hauptsturmführer Frizsch announced: "This is Auschwitz Concentration Camp... Any resistance or disobedience will be ruthlessly punished. Anyone disobeying superiors, or trying to escape, will be sentenced to death. Young and healthy people don't live longer than three months here. Priests one month, Jews two weeks. There is only one way out — through the crematorium chimneys". With this revelation of our prospects, began our first day in the Auschwitz Concentration Camp."

The envelope displays seven orders regarding camp correspondence, issued by the Camp Commandant but essentially the same for all camps, bureaucratic and especially disingenuous and chilling when read today. Order no. 5, for example, states: Pakete dürfen nicht geschickt werden, da die Gefangenen im Lager alles kaufen können. (Parcels will not be allowed, as the prisoners can buy everything in the camp).

Extraordinarily Andrysik was to beat the odds, surviving the war after escaping from the camp in 1944 by hiding in a hole and fleeing disguised in a German uniform. This was no small feat. Of the 802 prisoners who attempted to escape from Auschwitz only 144 were successful, failure or recapture resulting in, at best, deliberate starvation to death by the guards. Further retribution could also be expected from the S.S. who would target other members of the same prison block and sometimes extend the punishment to members of the escaper's family outside.

Postal items provide a direct connection to the life of the sender and his times. Rarely does that connection feel as visceral as this. 

JG