prison in Pawiak. She recalled that moment later on in her diary - We were sure that we were going to Skaryszewska. However, the holes in the tarpaulin revealed something else to us; we saw through them that we were going past the Theatre Square and entering Bielańska Street. Are we perhaps going to Pawiak?
On 17 January, she was transported from Pawiak, along with others, to the concentration camp at Majdanek in Lublin. She arrived there a day after. On her way from the Pawiak prison, Jadwiga threw away the card she had prepared earlier, hoping that it would somehow reach her family. Today, we know it did. For many weeks, family and friends made efforts to determine Jadwiga’s whereabouts. After some time, the teenager contacted her sister Halina and told her where she was. The Diary does not mention much about Jadwiga’s correspondence with her family. It may have been because of the girl’s fear for the safety of her loved ones, should the smuggled notes get into German hands.
In the first weeks of her imprisonment in KL Lublin, Jadwiga, like her colleagues, occasionally performed various cleaning jobs in their barrack and its surroundings. The group of female prisoners from the round-up, which included Ankiewicz, was not entered into the camp records until 24 February 1943. It was then that they were given camp clothing and Jadwiga was assigned the prisoner number - 5322.
Jadwiga became friends with four young girls: Krystyna Gontarska, Maria Turkowska, Janina Nowacka and Mieczysława Strawińska. They were jokingly referred to as ‘majdan’s quintuplets. On 8 March, Jadwiga and her friends commenced work in the camp laundry room, which was located in the so-called I międzypole (inter-field) - an area fenced with barbed wires between prisoner fields I and II. The laundry room was adjacent to the building where the victims’ corpses were stored, and the so-called old crematorium. It was, therefore, a unique point of observation. At that time, the Germans were exterminating Jews from the Warsaw Ghetto in the gas chambers - Today, we know how the Jews were led to the crematorium. They are mostly little children, the elderly and the sick. No! One can go crazy looking at these pale corpses and faces paralysed by fear. Is it not horrible? They bring a tiny, innocent, unaware child with black eyes and curly hair and in a few hours; they throw a cold, corpse out through the window. What did it do to suffer such a dreadful punishment?
Jadwiga worked there until her release from the camp, i.e. 17 May 1943. The teenager, along with others who regained their freedom that day, received money for a ticket and provisions for the road at the headquarters of the Polish Red Cross in Lublin at Niecała Street. She returned home to Warsaw on the morning train. However, the Majdanek experience has etched into her memory forever - ... and looking at these dozens of barracks, at the thousands of people hanging around them, who are not humans, but numbered striped uniforms, I have the feeling that I am not entirely liberated, after all, part of my heart is down there, at Majdanek.
On her return to the capital city, Jadwiga worked as a waitress. Jadwiga and her father, who was in hiding, began underground activity in the Grey Ranks as a liaison officer. Regrettably, on 30 January 1944, she was shot dead in unknown circumstances by the Germans in one of Warsaw’s streets. She was just over 17 years old. She was buried on 31 January 1944 at the Bródno Cemetery.
We know what Jadwiga was like thanks to her uncle’s sister Teresa Tobera, née Ankiewicz. The family collection enriched the latest publication with valuable and previously unpublished iconographic material.
The excerpt from the diary is read by Joanna Kozieł, a student of Hetman Jan Zamoyski Secondary School in Lublin:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Whf5U6kHObY&list=PLCtzbbCAYc502EX4X2wJ5BLmKOjh3SXqx
Her uncle's sister Teresa Tobera tells about Jadwiga Ankiewicz:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W_AkT-PBkCk&list=PLCtzbbCAYc51MN3MVpnBLL_je7GtJEYas