Concentration camp uniform jacket and pants worn by a Catholic Polish prisoner in several camps

Concentration camp uniform jacket and pants worn by a Catholic Polish prisoner in several camps 

Mieczyslaw (Mitchell) Lewicki was born on April 30, 1923, in Kielce, Poland, to Catholic parents. His father owned a shoe factory in Radom (Grojec). Mitchell worked for his father at the factory. Poland was occupied by Germany in September 1939. The Lewicki’s employed Jews at the factory, and they were permitted to keep them as employees even after the Germans forced all Jews to live in a ghetto. In return for their work, they were paid secretly in food, which Mieczyslaw delivered to the ghetto. On September 1, 1942, Mieczyslaw was stopped by two civilians on Malczewski Street on his way to the ghetto. They demanded to see what was in his briefcase; when they found food, they took Mieczyslaw to the police station. His father managed to bribe the German officials with 100,000 złoty, so that Mieczyslaw’s arrest record did not show that he was in contact with Jews, which would have meant the death penalty. Mieczyslaw was imprisoned at Radom, then with ninety-seven other prisoners, sent to Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp. He arrived on September 15, 1942, and was photographed and tattooed with the number 63692. He next was transferred to Buchenwald concentration camp in Germany on August 15, 1944, where he was given prisoner number 80163. Eventually, he was sent to Dora-Nordhausen slave labor camp, where he was forced to work on V-2 missiles. The camp was liberated by the United States Army on April 9, 1945. While recovering at the Heilbronn displaced persons camp, Mieczyslaw met a Red Cross nurse, Victoria Pelc, from New York. They married in Germany and moved to Auburn, New York, in July 1947. Mitchell and Victoria had two children. He did not talk much about his Holocaust experiences and kept the uniform in storage until September 25, 1993, when he brought it out, along with his mug shot from Auschwitz, to protest a neo-Nazi and White Pride march in his adopted hometown of Auburn. Mitchell passed away on June 4, 2006 in Auburn, aged 83. 

Concentration camp uniform jacket and pants worn by a Catholic Polish prisoner in several camps