485 Days at Majdanek, Surviving a German Concentration Camp

The Institute of World Politics

This lecture event is part of the 11th Annual Kościuszko Chair Spring Symposium in honor of Lady Blanka Rosenstiel sponsored by the Kościuszko Chair in Polish Studies and the Center for Intermarium studies. Lady Blanka Rosenstiel and the American Institute of Polish Culture (AIPC) established the Kościuszko Chair of Polish Studies at IWP in 2008. The Kościuszko Chair serves as a center for Polish Studies in the broadest sense, including learning, teaching, researching, and writing about Poland's culture, history, heritage, religion, government, economy, and successes in the arts, sciences, and letters, with special emphasis on the achievements of Polish civilization and its relation to other nations, particularly the United States. We remain grateful for Lady Blanka’s leadership in founding this Chair at IWP. About the lecture: Jerzy Kwiatkowski survived 485 days in the Majdanek concentration camp. Months after World War II ended, Jerzy began writing his reminiscence of the horrors he had witnessed. Over 50 years since the first Polish edition was released, an English translation of the gripping memoir has been published by the Hoover Institution Press. This new edition serves as the basis for a discussion of Jerzy Kwiatkowski's early life, his camp experience and his efforts to leave a written testament for his fellow prisoners who never left the gates of Majdanek. About the speaker: Nicholas Siekierski is a PhD candidate at the Tadeusz Manteuffel Institute of History at the Polish Academy of Sciences in Warsaw. He is writing his dissertation on Herbert Hoover and the American Relief Administration in Poland after the First World War. He is also a translator.