My Family History Research

Vernichtung durch Arbeit: Extermination through Work

My maternal grandfather Jan Skrok was born in 1895. His father Wincenty Skrok died in 1898, and his mother Marianna Kasprzyk Skrok married Andrzej Kwiatek in 1902.

In 1913, my grandfather Jan, his sister Stanisława, his mother and stepfather, and his two half-sisters Julianna and Aniela immigrated to Buffalo, New York. They all returned to Poland in 1920 and 1921. My Skrok grandparents came back to Buffalo. So did my grandfather’s sister’s Kiec family.

The Kwiatek family remained in Poland. They lived in Sosnowiec, Będzin, where my uncle Tadeusz Skrok was born in 1923. While our family was not Jewish, I knew that some of my Polish relatives suffered and died in the Holocaust. More than 1.8 million Poles were murdered by Nazis during World War II.

Germany invaded Poland on September 1, 1939. One of the aims of the invasion was to turn Poland into Lebensraum, “living space,” for German people. Nazis viewed Polish people as Untermenschen, “subhumans,” who could be enslaved, tortured, and killed.

The Polish word łapanka, meaning “roundup” or “chasing” was used for the children’s game of “tag.” Łapanka was also the Polish term for a World War II practice in German-occupied Poland. The German SS, Wehrmacht, and Gestapo would round up civilians on the Polish city streets. In most cases, they were chosen at random, selected from passers-by or inhabitants of city quarters that were surrounded by German forces before the action.

Andrzej Kwiatek was born 18 November 1879 in the village of Lechów, Bieliny, in the Kielce gubernia of the Russian Empire. He was a victim of łapanka in 1940, at the age of sixty. Andreas is the German form for the Polish name Andrzej.

This German work card shows that Andreas Kwiatek was a Zivilarbeiter [civilian worker], a forced laborer at Mauser-Werke A.G. in Oberndorf am Neckar from 21 June 1940 to 28 July 1942.

Mauser A.G. made Mauser rifles and pistols. Oberndorf am Neckar is a town in the district of Rottweil, in Baden-Württemberg, Germany. It historically was and still is a major center of the German weapons industry.

Zivilarbeiter were required to wear the “Polish P” on their clothing. They received much lower wages and smaller food rations. They had to work longer hours, often seven days a week. They were not allowed any objects of value, like a bicycle. They had a curfew, and were prohibited from public transport and many public spaces and businesses. With limited food, rampant disease, and overwork, the mortality rate for forced laborers was very high. That was the intent of the Nazi policy of Vernichtung durch Arbeit [Extermination through Work].

In late 1939 there were about 300,000 prisoners from Poland working in Germany. By autumn of 1944 their number grew to about 2.8 million. This was approximately 10% of the workforce of the Generalgouvernement, the Nazi-occupied area of central Poland.

Andrzej Kwiatek lasted a little more than two years.

28-7-42 Ausgetreten, unbekannt, wohin verzogen [Left, unknown, where moved to]

29 Aug 1942 Berlin abgemeldet [Berlin deregistered]

The Germans kept lists. Andreas Kwiatek‘s Beschäftigungsdauer [Length of employment] was from 24 June 1940 to 28 July 1942.

Sources

I cite Wikipedia sources here, because they offer background information and are readily available for readers’ reference. I recommend primary sources for further research.

• Arolsen Archives, International Center on Nazi Persecution, https://arolsen-archives.org/ (accessed July 6, 2025).
• Knab, Sophie Hodorowicz, Wearing the Letter P: Polish Women as Forced Laborers in Nazi Germany, 1939-1945, New York : Hippocrene Books, 2016.
• Wikipedia contributors, “Extermination through labour,” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Extermination_through_labour&oldid=1292924777 (accessed July 6, 2025).
• Wikipedia contributors, “Forced labour under German rule during World War II,” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Forced_labour_under_German_rule_during_World_War_II&oldid=1295723926 (accessed July 6, 2025).
• Wikipedia contributors, “Łapanka,” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=%C5%81apanka&oldid=1284767198 (accessed July 6, 2025).
• Wikipedia contributors, “Zivilarbeiter,” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Zivilarbeiter&oldid=1288839848 (accessed July 7, 2025).
• Sjam2004, CC BY 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0, via Wikimedia Commons, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Polenabzeichen.jpg  (accessed July 7, 2025).
• Wikipedia contributors, “General Government,” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=General_Government&oldid=1298526707 (accessed July 7, 2025).