The Pawiak, a series of cellars converted into dim interrogation cells, had housed thousands of captured Polish partisans, Jews masquerading as Aryans, and similar perceived threats to the balance of civilization. There was once a tall structure on top of the cellars, a more conventional prison, but it had been dynamited by the Nazis, and Polish nationalist zeal had not yet been applied to its restoration. Doomed prisoners’ near-last thoughts remained scrawled on the walls of Pawiak, and were interpreted in English in a visitors’ guide. Many who were either killed here or were sent on from here to concentration camps were, like Poldek, Poland’s most passionate children. Scrawled sentiments such as “Poland is deathless!” were common, as were defiant remarks that it would take more than bullets to defeat the Polish people. The one I remember best, however, was the one that said, “Oh God, how they beat me!” By now, Marek was back with us and drove us around the old Jewish ghetto, with its present-day dreary apartment blocks, and then across to the Praga side of the Vistula and out into the countryside to buy black-market butter—both from lack of butter in Marek’s family and also to illustrate how much better-placed farmers and their families were to withstand food shortages under the present tyranny.
What do You think about Searching For Schindler (2008)?
