Joseph Stanley Wardzala
Nació: 1923, en Smigno, Poland
Describe el parche que los polacos tenían que llevar en los campos de trabajos forzados en Alemania [Entrevista: 1990]
Everyone, when we get to Germany, we have a, a, the company takes so many guys, you know, people, uh, men or women, or separate woman, men separate, and every Pole, like me, they gave us a little cloth like two, three-inch square with "name/P," and you have to put on the right, uh, side of your jacket, jacket and on the shirt and you have to sew it yourself and you have to have it all the time. If you don't have this you get beaten very hard, uh, very strong. And this was "P" for, marked for Polish, and I was one of the two million Polish citizen that was taken by force to Germany to forced-labor camp.
Everyone, when we get to Germany, we have a, a, the company takes so many guys, you know, people, uh, men or women, or separate woman, men separate, and every Pole, like me, they gave us a little cloth like two, three-inch square with "name/P," and you have to put on the right, uh, side of your jacket, jacket and on the shirt and you have to sew it yourself and you have to have it all the time. If you don't have this you get beaten very hard, uh, very strong. And this was "P" for, marked for Polish, and I was one of the two million Polish citizen that was taken by force to Germany to forced-labor camp.
Joseph y su familia eran católicos romanos. Después que Alemania invadió Polonia en 1939, empezaron las redadas de los polacos para hacer trabajos forzados en Alemania. Joseph escapó el arresto dos veces pero la tercera vez, en 1941, fue deportado a un campo de trabajos forzados en Hannover, Alemania. Por más de cuatro años fue forzado a trabajar en la construcción de refugios contra bombardeos hechos de hormigón. Con la liberación por las fuerzas estadounidenses en 1945, el campo de trabajos forzados fue transformado en un campo de refugiados. Joseph se quedó ahí hasta que recibió una visa para entrar a los Estados Unidos en 1950.
— US Holocaust Memorial Museum - Collections
