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Back to Gates of Hell: Survivor Prepares for Return to Auschwitz

Henry Ridgwell

   WARSAW - Hundreds of former prisoners will return Monday to the Nazi
   concentration and extermination camp at Auschwitz, Poland, alongside
   several world leaders, to mark the 75th anniversary of its liberation
   by Soviet troops.

   At least 1.1 million people -- mostly Jews -- were murdered at
   Auschwitz-Birkenau, the largest of the Nazi death camps, between 1940
   and 1945.

   Stanislaw Zalewski, 94, is among the former prisoners who will return
   for the anniversary. He says he keeps his memories locked away --
   "occasionally letting them out to share the horrors of the past."

   Zalewski was 18 when he was arrested for painting Polish resistance
   symbols on walls in Nazi-occupied Warsaw. After a brutal interrogation,
   he was imprisoned inWaraw'sPawiak prison.

   "About 37,000 of these prisoners were killed and about 60,000 were
   taken from Pawiak prison to concentration camps," Zalewski told VOA in
   a recent interview. "I was among these 60,000. I was taken to
   Auschwitz-Birkenau on October 6, 1943."

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