©Andreas Domma
Władysław Kożdoń, the son of a miner and an active boy scout, celebrated his seventeenth birthday on the day the Germans invaded Poland. Three weeks later, he and his father were arrested on the street. He was accused of owning forbidden boy scout books. in October 1939 the two were deported to the Buchenwald concentration camp on one of the first transports from Poland. There they were crowded into tents. Fellow inmates saw to it that young people like Władysław were assigned to lighter labour. He was in Buchenwald for more than five years. His parents were murdered by the SS. Back in Poland, he worked as an electrical engineer and had a family. It was not until late in life that he talked about his youth in the concentration camp.
