A picture with Hitler that saved lives

The German guard at the gate didn’t know what to do. A short Polish woman with a determined look urges him to let her out of the transit camp Dulag 121 along with some countrymen. He shows her a picture where she can be seen next to a Adolph Hitler smiling and telling him how great the games are. Accessing automatically: you can’t be too close to Fuehrer like that Polish girl, thought the soldier.

That little girl won a bronze medal in javelin berlin olympicsfourteen-time national champion in long jump, triathlon and pentathlon, five-time javelin champion from Poland and member of the national volleyball and basketball teams.

But the situation changed and we had to adapt. So begins the life stage of Maria Kwasniewska (Łódź8/15/1913) where he put aside sport and all the victories achieved to help the Polish Resistance save lives during second world war.

The phrase with which he disapproved of Hitler

Hitler always came out of the box when the Germans had a chance to win gold. If the athletes lose, he leaves immediately. On Sunday, August 2, 1936, the athletes faced adverse weather conditions. A strong wind is blowing and dark clouds are gathering overhead Olympic Stadium. In the javelin final, Maria Kwasniewska23, will face three German athletes, Othilie “Tilly” Fleischer, Lydia Eberhardt and Luise Krüger, in the fight for medals. Lanza and his javelin travel 41.80 meters. That gives him third place and the bronze medal. Othilie Fleischer (45.18 m) won the gold and Louise Kruger (43.29 m) silver. The performance of the Polish undermines the wishes of Fuehrer.

After the medal ceremony where the fascist salute is performed on the podium where Kwasniewska does not participate, athletes are invited to climb the box to hitler I can greet you personally. The Minister of Propaganda is also there joseph goebbels and Hermann Goring, at the time Minister of the Air Force of the Third Reich. It was at that moment when hitler saying Kwasniewska: “I congratulate the little Polish girl” to which he enthusiastically replied: “You’re not tall either. I’m not smaller.” Account Maria with laughter from some companions but the head of propaganda Joseph Goebbels he paid attention so that the incident was conveniently misrepresented. He personally presented the reproduced version to the German press hitler he said to the javelin thrower from Łódź “I congratulate little Poland”.

Dulag 121

In early August 1944, the Nazis established transit camp 121, also known as Dulag 121 (German abbreviation Durchgangslager 121) for the population expelled from Warsaw where between 340,000 and 650,000 Poles passed through. Unfortunately, about 70,000 ended up in concentration camps. The main function of the camp was to attract as many deportees as possible, capable of forced labor on the territory of the Third Reich. Between the Polish nurses and the doctors a commission was established which forwarded a list to Gestapo including the sick who had to be evacuated.

Following several methods of forgery of documents thanks to a cartoonist who imitated the signature of the commanders of Gestapo and his calligraphy, many citizens were able to leave the field of the cause of illness. Maria learned about the existence and presented himself to the commission of Dulag 121. He was tasked with finding and removing intellectuals and representatives from the world of science, culture and art.

story of a photograph

the picture with hitler was at the bottom of a suitcase as another memento of berlin olympics including the clothes he wore and the medal he won. But Maria doesn’t want to remember that moment. With the wehrmacht occupying average Europe and the resistance forces fighting him, if they found him they might think that he sympathized with the Nazis or that he was playing a double game. He remembers how German soldiers tortured his second wife in prison.

The commission appointed the writer Ewa Szelburg-Zarembina and the writer and columnist Stanislaw Dygat. He approaches the exit fence, shows the papers as they are sick with typhus and as the soldier hesitates, he shows him the picture. This divine movement will surely break the guard’s resistance. The following week, another couple crossed the fence. And next time there will be two couples. And so it continued until, at one time, he managed to bring out a whole group of 9 “sick”. But that’s not all: he also drove an ambulance from the battle zones to hospitals and treated the wounded from the bombings.

At the end of the war, Maria briefly returned to the sport. He became the Polish javelin champion again and represented his country several times in basketball. In 1946, he said goodbye to active sport and died Warsaw in 2007 at the age of 94 with the same calmness and courage with which he faced Evil on a Sunday in August 1936.