Przed obliczem wadowickiej Temidy (cz. II)
Standing trial in Wadowice (part II)

A torturer from the wooden yard

Summary/Abstract: Anzelm Anton Pilarek came from a Polish Silesian family living in Laurahütte near Katowice. As a young boy, he fled to Poland in 1919, where he participated in the Polish-Bolshevik war. Released from the army, he returned to the German Silesia and engaged in various jobs on the edge of the law. In 1936, he was arrested for having insulted Reich Minister Göbbels and sentenced to 4 years of imprisonment. He was not released, as he was sent as a criminal prisoner to the Auschwitz concentration camp. Exercising the function of vorarbeiter and untercapo in the ‘wooden yard’ of the DAW kommando, he committed numerous crimes against his fellow inmates, whom he beat, tortured and killed. He inspired fear among prisoners and had the reputation of a sadist. In 1944 he was compulsorily conscripted into the Dirlewanger Brigade, but he escaped during his transport to Minsk. After the war, Anzelm Pilarek was captured by the British and deported to Poland. Witnesses’ confessions during the investigation and trials irrefutably proved his guilt and on 18 June 1949 he was sentenced to death by the Regional Court in Wadowice. His execution took place in the Wadowice prison.

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