As the German military pushed from the west, millions of Polish mothers and their children hit the road to drive, ride, or march east. Sobolewicz then became the man of the house as the father was off fighting with the Polish military. He and his mother headed to what soon became the Soviet Zone, i.e. in the wake of the Hitler-Stalin Pact. On their way in search of safety from the Germans, the Sobolewicz family witnessed again-and-again Guernica-type horror scenes with horses and farm animals running here and there-and with trucks and railroad yards being bombed along the way before their eye. The family also watched as unprotected cities were attacked again and again by the German blitzkrieg.
In the eastern part of Soviet occupied Poland, Mrs. Sobolewicz had relatives, but after a few months of staying with them and with others from whom she rented property, the Sobolewicz family received word from Tadeusz' father to return to the German occupied zone to the west. After making the dangerous crossing, they rejoined the father, who had become a regional leader in the resistance movement for Poland. Soon young Tadeusz was following his father's footsteps.
However, shortly thereafter, the SS and German occupiers are quickly after Tadeusz and his dad. In order to get the two to turn themselves in, the mother is arrested and sent to a prison in Germany named CampRavensbrueck for women. She stays there for the duration of the war. One year later both Tadeusz and his dad find themselves being tortured in SS-run prisons and finally sent at different times to become political prisoners in one of the Auschwitz camps prior to Christmas of 1941.
Although there were many traitors in Poland aiding (or forced to aid) the occupying forces, even during his days in SS prison and while he had been on the run from the Gestapo as a freedom fighter, Tadeusz always found one or more role models who gave him help or served to tell him how to live and survive. (Tadeusz was always particularly trusting of those who had served in or had led boy scout troops. Even during his years in death- and internment camps, he would seek out fellow former scouts and scout leaders to gain assistance.)
1941-1943 Auschwitz
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