ZOFIA STĘPIEŃ-BATOR

Zofia Bator in 1999

Born June 3, 1920 in Radom, Poland; today lives in Kraków, Poland

Arrest and Deportation to Auschwitz
Stępień was arrested at her home in Radom on October 16, 1942, because she belonged to the underground organization Szare Szeregi (Gray Ranks) and served as a courier for the Military Fighting Union (Związek Walki Zbrojnej), distributing copies of their "information bulletin."  She was held four-and-one-half months at the Radom Gestapo prison, where she was beaten and tortured but never revealed any information.  March 1, 1943, she was remanded to Auschwitz, receiving prisoner number 37255.  Stępień was initially placed in Birkenau, opposite the separate barracks for a transport of more than 200 Jewish women from Berlin.

Reassignment to Budy Subcamp and Return to Birkenau
After spending two to three weeks in quarantine, she was reassigned to the subcamp at Budy for about one month.  Stępień described Budy, an agricultural work kommando, as "extremely difficult" as she was assigned to carry stones.  Following her time there, she was reassigned to a labor kommando laying train tracks, when she fell ill and was taken to the prisoner infirmary.

Art Produced at Birkenau
While spending time in the infirmary for illnesses that included typhus and pneumonia, Stępień noticed a fellow prisoner making portraits of other inmates.  This inspired her, during her recovery, to venture into art-making.  She started by drawing pencil portrait sketches of fellow prisoners in the infirmary, in exchange for which she received bread, sugar, and margarine.  She later described these works: "I drew portraits of fellow prisoners that showed them in a favorable light, since I attempted to make everything more pleasant.  I did this because everything was so ugly, gray, and dirty, and I wanted to show something pretty in my drawings.  In my portraits, the women were prettier, livelier, and all had more hair; there were no tragic expressions in their eyes.  I now regret that I had not painted differently, but this cannot be changed."  One of Stępień's works was a 1943 portrait of Mala Zimetbaum, a Jewish woman born in Poland who arrived at Birkenau in 1942 on a transport of Belgian Jews and sought to escape with Polish political prisoners in touch with the Polish resistance.

In addition to these portraits, Stępień produced artworks upon orders from the SS.  These included commissions to adorn the barracks and decorate greeting cards, the latter of which provided Stepien with paper to produce more clandestine images.

Work Assignments at Birkenau
Stępień's various assignments included working as a nurse, agricultural laborer, and on knitting detail (Strickerei), mending socks for German soldiers.

Transfer to Auschwitz I and Deportation to Ravensbrück
At the end of 1944, she was transferred from Birkenau to a work detail cleaning rooms at the Auschwitz I main camp.  With the liquidation of Auschwitz on January 15, 1945, she was evacuated and deported first to the Ravensbrück camp, then to the Ravensbrück subcamp at Neustadt Gleve.  There, she was assigned to sort valuables such as furs, paintings, and clothing until she was liberated in May 1945.

Bibliography:
Archives and art collection at the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum in Oświęcim.

Interview with Zofia Stępień-Bator in Kraków, summer 1999.

Iwaszko, Tadeusz.  "Häftlingsfluchten aus dem Lager," Hefte von Auschwitz 7 (1964), 1-70.

Kielar, Wiesław. "Edek und Mala," Hefte von Auschwitz 5 (1962), 121-32.