Born in Toruń on 21 November 1928, he and his family lived in Warsaw during the German occupation. After the suppression of the Warsaw Uprising, he, his parents and sister were deported to Germany. Witold and his father were sent to Sachsenhausen concentration camp, his mother and sister to Ravensbrück camp.
Shortly afterwards, father and son were separated. The 16-year-old Witold was assigned to work in Kommando Speer, whose task was to recover raw materials from looted goods.
At the beginning of 1945, he was transferred to the Bergen Belsen camp, and was then sent to Horgau and Hall 116 in Augsburg – sub-camps of the Dachau concentration camp, where he was forced to work 12-hour day and night shifts in a Messerschmitt factory. He was liberated by the Americans during a death march.
In October 1945, through Helen Steiger of UNRRA, he was sent to the DP International Children’s Centre Kloster Indersdorf. Together with a group of Polish boys, he founded a scout troop of which he was leader, a theatre group, a choir and a football team. The children performed Polish national dances, sang Polish folk songs and staged a Christmas nativity play.
During a conversation with UNRRA staff, he expressed concern that his whole family had probably perished. On the instructions of the Polish liaison officer, he wrote a letter to an aunt living in Pomerania and three weeks later received news that his parents and sister had survived the war.
In July 1946, Witold returned to Poland, where he was reunited with his family. He completed secondary school and passed the entrance exam to the Warsaw University of Technology. After graduation, he remained at the university, where he worked for 50 years until his retirement.
1. Identity card, private archive of Witold Ścibak
2. Certificate from the Messerschmitt factory, private archive of Witold Ścibak
3. Scout troop, private archive of Jan Wojciech Topolewski
Polish scout troop, led by Witold Ścibak (third from the left in the back row). The scout uniforms were acquired thanks to the organisational talent of Greta Fischer.
4. Polish scouts near the church in Markt Indersdorf, private archive of Jan Wojciech Topolewski
5. Witold Ścibak, US Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C.
6. Witold Ścibak, private archive of Anna Andlauer
7. Witold Ścibak at school, private archive of Anna Andlauer
During his stay in Dachau in 2016, Witold Ścibak visited children at the Greta Fischer School.