Kewaunee County and the Liberation of Concentration Camps

Auschwitz-Birkenau, Dachau, Bergen-Belsen and more are German internment camps that Algoma residents began hearing about right afterJanuary 27, 1945, the day that marjed the Soviet troops' liberation of Auschwitz concentration camp. It was after that when residents began hearing about Nazi atrocities, however the news did not make the fronht pages of Algoma Record Herald. It seems curious that during the war and after, Algoma library's newspaper new books' column highlighted any number of novels revolving around the plight of Jewsih people and the death camps while the paper carried so little, Why?   

Eighty years later, Auschwitz might be familiar to one who has toured Germany, but for others? Maybe not so much. The World War ll generation has nearly passed away, taking vivid memories with them. Algoma servicemen who witnessed the death camps might have screamed in terror in their dreams, but they couldn't tale about what they saw by day. Years later, military service was not mentioned in the obits of many who served as part of the Greatest Generation. 

Today, January 27, 2025, is remembered as Holocaust Memorial Day, a day marking the liberation of Auschwitz. It is a day to remember over six million Jews murdered and the the millions of others killed by the Nazis. The evening news pointed to events in the UK and in Poland where King Charles and Prince William, Price of Wales, and other leaders paid a visit to the Jewish Community Center in Krakow. CBS News reported on the gas chamber survivors at today's event, saying it is likely that today would be the last :major observance that any notable number of survivorswill be able to attend." 

While the world saw genocide before the gas chambers and has seen it since, Holocaust Memorial Day is a day to remember the victims and to encourage action "For a Better Furutre,: 2025's theme.

Although the largest number of people were killed in the gas chambers, the Nazis murdered Poles, Soviet POWs, Roma, gays and others who did not meet the restrictive requirements of a "pure race," In all, two-thirds of of Europe's Jews were exterminated. That was one-thrid of the Jewish people in the world. 

In her report, CBS's Anna Noryskiewucz said those who survived the original selection for death went on to suffer the unimaginable, forced labor, suzero temperatures, horrendous medical experiments and then finally murdered. Auschwitz was hell on earth.

There were rumors, and there was skepticism. Algoma residents really began learning about that hell when letters began flowing, or years later when European travel came back 

Robert G Neumann, formerly of Vienna and teaching at Oshkosh State Teachers’ College, was an Algoma Men’s Club speaker in September 1942 when he talked about the 8 months he spent in a German concentration camp. He showed the scar inflicted by a Gestapo’s bayonet.

Neumann avoided the worst of the details although said, “Death is not the worst thing that can happen to you under the Nazi regime.” He also said that if one is beaten, one can be beaten again, but if one is shot, that ends the torture.

Neumann felt the conquered people would never overthrow Hitler, and the breakup of the regime was only hopeful thinking. He felt an invasion of the continent would require a revolt, also saying the war didn’t start in 1939 but right after World War l. He told attendees that war was a failure of the past.

Neuman told about conflict between Hitler and churches saying totalitarianism could not permit allegiance to a church. The Nazis did not close churches, however it was very unwise to be seen in one. He told about gaining absolute control of the youth by organizing youth movements under Nazi-trained leaders and control of teachers. Home influence was more subtly controlled.

Gestapo could imprison anyone for even a potential crime against Nazism. The concentrations camps were threats of punishment and the camps were not a secret in Germany. Papers even published pictures of such punishment to impress the population with what could happen to one who was contrary to Nazism.

In February 1946, Pfc. Lorenz Hoffman was back in Algoma after 17 months overseas. He was with the 116^th Evacuation Hospital which supported the Sixth Army in its campaigns in France and Germany. Hoffman was being transferred to the Central Pacific when Japan surrendered and was sent back to Germany. There he spent time in the Dachau area where the Nazis committed some of the most horrific crimes. Hoffman brought back pictures as proof that the Allied reports were not just propaganda. And propaganda there was.

Professor Laura Leff of Northeastern University has written extensively on the “final solution.” Professor Leff’s outstanding work can be found online or at libraries. She wrote how newspapers and 24-hour news programs decide to broadcast, prominently display stories, or even the follow-up. As an example, Leff used the New York Times coverage of Hitler’s “final solution,” saying, “No American newspaper was better positioned to highlight the Holocaust than the Times, and no American newspaper so influenced public discourse by its failure to do so.”

The Times did not ignore the plight of the Jewish people but, as Leff said, total coverage mattered less than placement and frequency. Although the Times published 1,200 stories on the Holocaust, only 26 of 24,000 front page stories centered on the Holocaust and many failed to mention the Jews.

The Catholic Church actively worked to rescue Jews with false passports, hiding them in monasteries and convents, but there was criticism about the extent of the rescue work and that Pope Pius Xll, fearing reprisals against the church, did not forcefully denounce publicly what the Nazis were doing to the Jews.

It was January 1944 before Franklin Roosevelt established the War Refugee Board, although some historians feel he could have done more earlier. By 1944, the magnitude of the Holocaust was becoming evident. Some feel Roosevelt’s lack of forceful action was public opposition and potential opposition to large numbers of Jewish immigrants.

As early as August 1942, one Gerhart Riegner, who represented the World Jewish Congress in Switzerland, attempted to report to Rabbi Stephen Wise by sending a message through the State Department, which tried to block Riegner’s report. State asserted that such planned murders were war rumors. The department finally verified the news and Wise said he was authorized to release it to the American public.

As American military advanced deeper into Germany In the spring of 1945, they liberated Buchenwald, Dachau and Mauthasen, although liberation was not their primary purpose. They liberated captives on forced marches and found others in camps. It was in August 1945 when Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower toured Ohrdurf and sent first-hand evidence of the atrocities to Washington saying that there was truth for the future should “there be a tendency to change the allegations merely to propaganda.”

Ike encouraged the soldiers to tour the camp take pictures and write home about what they had seen. He arranged for Congressmen and journalists to witness the horrific scenes themselves.

On June 22, 1945, Algoma Record Herald  published the letter St. Sgt. Leander Paul wrote to his parents saying he saw the hospital at Dachau, about 5 miles from Munich. Since  censorship was lifted, Paul was able to write more freely about where he was. He said he saw 30 cars of refugees who had starved to death. Guards told the men that inmates died at a rate of 50 per day from starvation although there was also black typhus, which was why Paul and the others could not get closer.

Paul said the place covered about one square mile and had walls around it. He talked about the crematory and said there “was a stink around the place.” Although he took pictures, he feared they’d be poor quality since it was getting dark. He also said if he had not seen the place for himself, he would not have believed the rumors about the Germans.

Sgt. Paul told about his fellow soldiers who had gone to Hitler’s retreat at Berchtesgraden, Austria. While Paul didn’t get there, he said he had “a couple shots of champagne in one of Hitler’s fancy glasses” that the men got from there.

After leaving Dachau, Paul’s group moved to a location on the Rhine and were living in a house that belonged to a doctor. He felt the Germans were friendly and were not giving them trouble as Paul’s men were acting as police for the surrounding towns. Paul was busy getting clothing and equipment “for the boys,” as they had moved so much that there was no time.

Before arriving in Germany, Paul landed in Southwest Wales and crossed the channel.

Landing at LaHarve, it was necessary to unload everything on the beach because the docks were knocked out. The city was flattened and the worst he had seen. The French people gave them “the cold shoulder” as they “were sore at Americans for wrecking their town” although it was the only way to get the Germans out.

Sgt. Paul was near Roen, France, and the German cities of Aachen, Vetweiss, Bad Godesburg, Frankfurt, Augsbach, Wurzburg, and Remagen where they guarded the Ludendorf bridge.  Paul crossed the Danube at Ingolstadt. Before the crossing, Paul and five others took a town by themselves, taking 30 prisoners. Paul said he took two pistols, one being a Luger, from the dead, and said the guns were his prize possessions.

St. Sgt. J. Wright Ihlenfeld was another who wrote after visiting Dachau and was at a trial of Nazi war criminals. He wrote to his parents about seeing gruesome sights while saying he knew some things were in the newspapers though some people thought the propganda was true. It was not.

 Algoma Record Herald published his letter on June 7, 1946.

Wright said there were two crematories, the first built as early as 1933. His guide was one who was liberated at the same time as Father Kaminski (who Wright did not know at the time), just before prisoners were to be set afire.

One crematory had four ovens which took six bodies each, so 200 a day. Adjoining the crematories were the gas chambers packed full each time they were used. In all rooms there were signs reminding workers to “wash your hands after handling the corpses.”

Torture included lashes with a thong for hiding a cigarette or taking a carrot. Men’s hands were chained together as they hanged from a hooks in the ceiling while bodies swung from side to side.

Until the Nazis started “mass production,” the ashes of the victims were put in jars with “Prisoner” on the containers before being sent to the nearest relative for 75 marks. That got so rushed in the “maniacal frenzy of extermination” that a huge grave was dug for the daily dumping of ashes. When Ihlenfeld was there, a sign and cross marked the site: “Here lies ashes of those who were cremated, number unknown.”

Ihlenfeld told about the execution stand where six or eight were shot at a time, falling into a wooden grating where blood  ran into a concrete ditch. The guide said the ditch filled many times during the day.

The Crimes Commission at Dachau was that of the Third Army headquarters and attending a War Crimes Court, Wright described 80 prisoners in the dock while the “big shot” being tried was Dr. Walter of Mulhausen Camp where 29 died daily from in population of 10,000.

It was estimated that over 2,000 people were used as guinea pigs and frozen in degrees up to 30 to learn about the effects of low temperatures in high altitude flying. When Walter was questioned, he said he could not remember or said he followed orders.

 

In 1948, after 25 years, Kewaunee’s Mrs. Anna Kotyza returned to her native Czechoslovakia to visit her siblings. She said the country was beautiful where war had not touched it, however the war changed the country and its people.

Mrs. Kotyza traveled with Mrs. Rose Shrovnal who visited relatives in Moravia. An October 1948 Kewaunee Enterprise reported on Mrs. Kotyzka’s trip.

On arrival at an airport near Prague, Mrs. Kotyzka was greeted by her two brothers and four sisters. Correspondence was always kept up and, during the war, Kotyza’s son was in the U.S. Army and able to establish contact with his Czechoslovakian relatives.

Mrs. Kotyzka said those known to be Communist were vociferous while others didn’t say much other than that they didn’t want another war. She felt that there was so much discouragement over the futility of war that people would accept almost any kind of government to avoid it.

She told about the little Czech village of Lidice that the Nazis erased from the map for alleged assistance to “assinators” of a known Nazi official. She said it would be like going to Casco one day to find nothing but level ground. After the Nazis destroyed Lidice, they bulldozed it and re-routed the highway to eliminate it from maps. She told the story of a woman who lost 7 family members in one night of terror.

That story appeared as early as June 26, 1942, when Algoma Record Herald reprinted Edmund Duffy’s article about the annihilation of Lidice in the Baltimore Sun. Duffy’s story further explains what Mrs. Kotyzka learned several years later.

Duffy said to imagine men all being shot, the women and children sent to concentration camps or to appropriate centers of education, all the buildings leveled, and the name of the place abolished. That was the village of Lidice and “abolishment” was in a Nazi statement a few days before the article. Lidice was a village for at least 600 years and St. Margaret’s church had been there since 1736. There were shops and a street named Wilson for the American president during World War 1.

As it was, two men fatally wounded Nazi Reinhard Heydrich, the “protector of Czecho-Slovakia,” called the Hangman. It happened on a highway that didn’t even go through Lidice. The people told the Gestapo that they knew nothing about it but the Gestapo knew the people of Lidice dreamed of freedom and said they found a forbidden radio, arms and munitions. Some young men managed escaping to join forces to fight against the Germans, and the Nazis went forward with bloody vengeance in the deaths of more than 700 innocent men and women.

Duffy told readership that when they read of Lidice to think of a small town near them that was crushed into the earth, its name purged from all records, the bodies of its men dumped into a common grave, its widows imprisoned, and doubly orphaned children in the hands of vengeful, merciless foreigners.

Upon arrival Mrs. Kotyska was whisked to Prezietice, 7 miles from Prague and the place where her family lived. The entire neighborhood turned out to honor her with a celebration while catching up on the 25 years.

One Prezietice woman was visiting overnight  in a neighboring village and returned the next day to find the Nazis killed all the men while sending the women and children to concentration camps. She never heard from family members again.

Mrs. Kotyza found a reminder of World War ll when she learned her niece’s leg was amputated as a result as an American bomb on one of the last days of the war.

Long rows of white crosses were reminders of the concentration camp at Teresin and brought tears to the most hardened person. It was there that she saw some of the Nazi torture equipment. She met a man with unmistakable signs of plastic surgery on his face and palms of his hands. He had been at Teresin and told Mrs. Kotyza that he was in his cell brooding about his family when a guard ordered him to tell what he was thinking about. Guards did not believe he was thinking about his family and thought he had information he would not divulge. When he said it was true that he was thinking of his family, a Nazi doctor came and cut the skin from his cheeks and the palms of his hands. Then the guards bound his hands to his face to force him to permanently assume his “thinking position.”

He was left bound for a year and was fed by guards who enjoyed his discomfort, beating him when he refused to talk. His palms grew to the side of his face and when the Americans freed the camp, an American surgeon performed plastic surgery to restore the man to almost normal. 

At Teresin she met a man weeping bitterly outside the camp. He told Mrs. Kotyza he had been a prisoner and came back because he couldn’t help himself. He said if all Americans could see the ravages of war and what the people had to deal with, Americans might better understand.

Mrs. Kotyza said she realized the country was licking its wounds from World War l and the next war piled up new scars that probably would never heal. So many lost everything and the scarcity of rebuilding materials couldn’t be realized in the U.S. Everything was rationed and because rations were so meagre, people were forced to the black market even for necessities. She saw at least 500 people standing in front of a store that advertised 50 pair of shoes that were poor grade.

Mrs. Kotyza spoke to one of the men in the rear of the line and asked him if he didn’t know the shoes would be gone long before he got to the door. He replied that he knew they would be gone but hoped he just might get lucky. She talked about food in big cities when after long working hours people had to stand in food lines if they found a shop that actually had something.

She said people were grateful for every bit American sent them and even saved the cans although she didn’t know why.

Polish widow Mrs. Mary Kulesza was the wife of a man who died at Dachau. She was also in a camp at Oswiecim for a year and a half. She was sick and thought she’d never see her children again. When County School Superintendent Mrs. May Smithwick sent a package to Poland, it was received by a grateful Mrs. Kulesza.

On May 20, 1948, the Record Herald reported on the letter translated for Mrs. Smithwick by Rev. Thaddeus Koszarek of West Kewaunee. It told of the joy the packages brought to her, her 16-year-old son and 11-year-old daughter.

The Polish woman said she would send a letter with pictures and asked Mrs. Smithwick to write to tell what prompted her to send the packages. She asked “Mrs.” if she could write in Polish. Although Mrs. Kulesza studied English, she remembered very little and said she did know German quite well, but she “did not like that language.” Kulesza said she was grateful to ”Mrs.” for her generosity and interest.

Father Koszarek assisted again in 1949 when the May 26 edition of Kewaunee Enterprise ran the story of Mr. and Mrs. Joseph Burzynski, their daughter Hedwig and son Wencil who arrived in the county under the Displaced Families’ program to make a new home on and operate the 78-acre Veeser farm north of Rostok in the Town of Pierce. The Burzynskis owned a farm in Poland before Germany overran it in 1939. When Germany attacked Russia in 1941, the Russians robbed the family of everything they could not pile on a wagon. Since then, the Burzynskis were in a German concentration camp and in a displaced persons’ camp. It was Father Koszarek, pastor of St. Hedwig’s, whose efforts brought the Bursynskis to Kewaunee County.

Casco’s Father Hodik and Stangelville’s Father Rudolph Kerch spent three months in 1950 visiting twenty European countries. When they later shared experiences, they said the trip to Dachau was gruesome. The clergymen talked about the approximate one-quarter million executed there and said there remained chalk-like human bones could be picked up on the ground.

During November 1951, Vignes Homemakers received letters of appreciation for the box of clothing and foods sent to Poland in spring. Letters told of the need for medicine and  a letter writer told about her 80-year-old father still held in a concentration camp. It did not all end with the liberation of Auschwitz.

 

It was October 25, 1956, when Latvian concert pianist Herman Godes appeared in the 1956-57 Door County concert season, a concert that almost did not happen. Godes was a brilliant pianist when he was taken prisoner during German invasion the Baltic countries. He spent 4 years at Buchenwald where he was liberated by Allied forces in 1945. He came to the U.S. in 1950 and quickly became a favorite of American music public. His appearance brought memories.

As late as American Legion’s Veterans’ Day dinner at the Dug-Out in 1966, Algoma residents heard speaker Father Hubert Kaminski as he talked about his life as a prisoner of Nazi death camps. He also showed slides. Kaminski was a chaplain and captain in the Polish army when captured. As a chaplain at St. Mary’s Kewaunee Hospital at the time, he spoke to groups frequently over the year. He said what was read in news or seen on tv was nothing compared to actual goings on.

Born in Kajewo, Poland, on July 18, 1908, Kaminski studied law at the University of Warsaw and attended Duchowne Seminary in Plock, Poland.

He talked about the Katyn Forest just northwest of Smolensk in Soviet Russia where 14,000 polish officers were massacred. He told about the 238,000 who died at Dachau and said April 29, 1945, was the happiest day of life because the  Americans saved him and others at Dachau from extermination.

But more happened in the years before.

Kaminski was captured by Russians early in the war from his home near the Russian border. Escaping from the Russian POW camp by putting on civilian clothes, he asked a woman if there was another entrance besides the main gate. The guard was half asleep and Father got past him to get to Poland using his Warsaw college student ID.

He eventually reached the German occupied sector of Poland where the bishop assigned him to a small parish. On his way to say mass one day, Nazi soldiers ordered him to come with them, saying he would not need to take anything and would be back the next day – which turned into years. In his earliest Nazi imprisonment, Kaminski had to take care of latrines. Then he was taken to a transitory camp for two weeks before being sent to Dachau. He got his last glimpse of his mother as he passed her apartment in a truck, however she didn’t see him.

The five years of terror and horrors at two concentration camps were unforgettable.

At Dachau, one bathroom served 400. Most slept on the floor and if there were beds, it was seven to a bed. Dachau and the transitory camp had 100 crowded in a room without beds nor changes of clothing. Kaminski was one of 33,000 crammed into a two-block area at Dachau. Escape was impossible as there were two sets of electric wires which were patrolled by soldiers. People lived like swine, and Kaminski told about the death of an archbishop who was put in boiling water.

Kaminski’s doctor brother survived a concentration camp while another brother was a member of the Polish underground who died in 1965.

Dachau had about 2,000 Polish priests, and priests were used as guinea pigs in medical experiments. Survivors were crippled or mentally broken while 864 Polish priests died at Dachau. Kaminski was fortunate to be strong as Nazis needed the strong in the quarries. Those in the quarries called vile names. They could not walk and had to run. The slow were whipped.

Working with other priests in quarries, Kaminski split rocks and loaded trucks which they had to pull with 15 priests to a truck. The rocks built the crematoriums and ashes of the murdered were used for walks.

At one point, Kaminski scheduled to hang because of sabotage which was placing his wet shoes too close to a heater. He never knew why he was not hanged though felt the order was lost. Not all were exterminated. There was starvation and disease. Breakfast was black coffee and then it was working in the quarry till noon without food. He told about finding a frozen rutabaga that he hid in his clothes to share it with others. To the day of the presentation “the mere thought of a rutabaga” made him ill.

As liberation forces pressed forward, executions ramped up. In Spring 1945, word spread that remaining prisoners were to be burned alive at 9AM the next day. The plan was to spray gasoline on prisoners and set them on fire. Nazis were forced to flee when American troops heard about the plan and sent a tank corps ahead thus sparing 30,000 prisoners. Aware of the stepped-up executions, they reached Dachau less than 4 hours before the slaughter was to take place. Kaminski is one of the relative few who survived Dachau

Pope Pius Xll sent Kaminski to recuperate in the US where he became a citizen. He had been under the rule of four governments - Polish, Russian, German and American. Kaminski told audiences that he felt so blessed and thankful including for the freedom of movement and the joy he found in fishing.

At the time, Kaminski’s brother was director of a clinic earning about the price of 5 pair of shoes monthly while working eight hours a day, 6 days a week. After hours he handled private care for which he was seldom compensated. Most whom he served came for a document giving permission to stay home from work. Medication was free and the clinics were overcrowded as there was no well-organized system. If one had a headache, it meant going to the hospital.

Om May 5, 1966,  Cardinal Joseph Beran, exiled archbishop of Prague, spent a day in Kewaunee and Manitowoc counties visiting Bohemian parishes, four in Kewaunee County and three in Manitowoc. The Cardinal had a reunion with Father Kaminski. The men spent four years together at Dachau. Beran did not speak English and the two conversed in Polish. When Beran spoke at the Bohemian parishes, Rev. Jaroslav Polc of the Green Bay Diocese translated for him. Polc worked as a researcher in Rome and assisted the Cardinal for about a year after the Prague government permitted his departure. The Cardinal remained head of the Czechoslovakian church even though a communist order prevented him from returning to his homeland.

After liberation, Cardinal Beran returned to Czechoslovakia where he was again arrested but at that time by the Communists. At liberation, Kaminski worked as a chaplain with Polish and American troops at Dachau.

Kaminski came to the U.S. in 1951 and was assigned to Kewaunee in the summer of 1965. Before that, county residents got bits and pieces of stories from the military who could speak of the horrors, travelers after the war and sometimes by letter.

Louis Sell was Luxemburg ”Man of the Year” in 1957. The speaker at the December recognition dinner was Henry Cornell who told of his experiences Auschwitz, a camp, he said, no American ever saw. Cornell said he was one of five who survived Auschwitz.

Cornell said a U.S. weakness was “taking blessings for granted.” He went on to encourage attendees to, “Exercise your responsibility to your country and vote. You are the government,” while pointing out that at one time Germany had 23 parties, but in 1933, one party – the Nazis – took over and the hatred for Jews and Catholics resulted in persecutions, most which the world had never heard of.

As late as October 1981, Rev. Roy McDaniel, former vicar of St.-Agnes-By-the-Lake, was a delegate from Kansas to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Council in Washington, D.C. The conference had representatives of former prisoners and the governments of the prisoners as guests of the State Department. Fr. Mac wrote to Algoma friends saying, “My Division, the 104^th Infantry (Timberwolf) freed the prisoners at Nordhausen Concentration Camp. We processed the dead and cared for the sick and dying.” Fr. Mc Daniel was presented with a commendation.

Holocaust Memorial Day has much to teach. There are countless online sites, digitized newspapers and magazines, and U.S. museums for those who want to know the stories.

Although Kewaunee County is small, there are connections to the Holocaust. There is no doubt the late members of the military or the families of immigrants to Kewaunee County took stories of atrocities to the graves.

SourcesL Algoma Record Herald, Kewaunee Enterprise; CBS Anna Noryskiewicz;Professor Laura Leff of Northeastern University (online.)