All reviewers emphasised the immense cognitive value of 485 days at Majdanek. The author received a well-deserved recognition for “phenomenal “memory, will and courage”. They also pointed out his fluent command of the German language, which had a direct impact on his situation in the camp, and consequently - on the shape of the memories. No less important was the significance of the moment of creation of the accounts. While writing in 1945, Kwiatkowski still had a fresh memory of his experiences, which allowed him to “carefully and meticulously” reflect the daily life of Majdanek prisoners. He confirmed it, after all, when he admitted that, looking at his text after so many years, he had the impression that he was reading the words of a stranger. It was only after a long reading that he recalled long-erased images and faces in his memory.
Kwiatkowski donated the typescript of his 1945 diary to Poland; to the PMM, while he was still living in the US. He deposited most of his archive, a gardener from field III at the Hoover Institution Library and Archives at the University of Stanford in the United States. It turned out that there are three typescripts of his memories stored there, brush prints of the first edition with proofreading, as well as letters and a rich dossier of the first edition (more on this topic at https://www.hoover.org/news/485-days-majdanek-jerzy-kwiatkowski).
Colleagues, former prisoners who were the first readers of the memoirs, informed the author who had been living outside the country since 1945, what he could not print due to censorship in the communist era. Apart from his colleagues’ censorship due to personal reasons, Kwiatkowski censored himself by removing from the message addressed to Majdanek, ten fragments of anti-Russian content. Institutional censorship questioned about a hundred subsequent fragments, and employees of the publishing house extensively corrected the brusque language of the camp.
In preparing the latest issue, staff of the State Museum at Majdanek decided that the best solution would be to publish the memories in their original form, free of censorship, editorial changes, corrections, deletions and additions, as well as free of stylistic refinement. The earliest, complete, copyrighted subheadings of the typescript stored at the University of Stanford were chosen as the basis for the publication.
The new edition, compiled by employees of the PMM (scientific supervision by Wojciech Lenarczyk, editorial work and language editing by Dorota Niedziałkowska) was preceded by an introduction.