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CoUdCil Chairman Bolesław Benit outlinod plans for Poland's posewar rchabilitation ar the ńrst [denary session of the Soviet-spon$orcd Polish Nacional Council in Lublin.

UFE’S REPORTS

fUlIM IN POLANO

by RICHARD LAUTERBACH •    150

Time & LIFE Correspondent Richord Lauterbach went with the first U. S. newsmen into liberated Poland. There he saw the Majdanek crematorium and the Krempieckie Forest execution ground. In this report his impressions of shocking German barbarity are coupled with a penetrating, firsthand account of how Polish people are re-acting to the połitical storm over who is to run their futurę affairs.

Early on Sunday raoming wc strollcd along Kraków Boulcvard to the cobblcd market squarc. Walking was slow. Pcoplc grcctcd us, dusrered around us, poured out their storics. "Amcricans!" they cxclaimcd, beaming. Thcn, speaking English or Frcnch or Russian or Polish or cvcn German, they added, "Now cvcrything will bc all right."

The market was crowdcd with pcoplc and produce. Good wliitc brcad with caraway sccds. Prcczcls. Lirtlc cakcs. Evcn mcat. We li ad brcakfast and thcn drovc out along rhc road that leads castward toward Chełm. About a mile along this “road of dcath"is Majdanek, rhc conccntration camp where the Gestapo wiped out morę than a million and a half pcoplc. Most of thosc were Jews from all ovcr

•opc but therc wcrc also other nationalitics.

he hours wc spent inspccting Majdanek wcrc pretty grim. Ic wasn't rhc gas cham bers where victims wcrc snu/Fcd out standing up, or the crematorium where they wcrc chopped up and thcn bumed in spccially constructed ovcns. This part of the "dcath factory” didn't ger us, somchow. Too machinclikc. It wasn't cven the open graves or the skclctons or skuils or stacks of fcrtilizer madę from human ashcs, bones and manurc. The fuli cmotional shock came at a gianc wooden warchousc chock-full of people’s shoes—morc than 800,000 pairs—all sizes, shapes, colors and stylcs.

In one place the shoes had burst out of the building likc corn froni a crammcd crib. It was monstrous. There is something about an old shoe as personal as a snapshot or a lettcr. I lookcd at thcin and saw personalities: skinuy kids in soft, whitc, worn slippers; thin-lipped old ladics in black, high-iaccd shoes; sturdy soldicrs in brown mili-tary boots.

From Majdanek wc drovc to Krempieckie Foresr, about eighc milcs away. Herc in the shade of cali pmes and straight, slim hirchcs wcrc* rerenrly opened mass gravcs from which mcm bers of the $ovict-Polish atrocitics investigation commission had dug up 368 bodics. Sonic wcrc strewn around among the trees. I noted many tiny skcle-s from which the flesh had bcen burncd, a smali red comb, a _Ł ycr book.

Ar noon we busded back to Lublin’s łlag-decoratcd main squarc.