Stanislaw Wadolowski was born on November 16, 1909, in the village of Rzędziany, Poland, he was the son of Jakub and Maria, who worked as farmers. He spent his early childhood in the countryside, attending a local elementary school before passing the entrance exam to the State Gymnasium in Białystok, which he completed in 1928.
In 1930–1931, he fulfilled his compulsory military service at the Reserve Aviation Cadet School in Dęblin, later serving at the 5th Aviation Regiment in Lida. In 1932, he began studying surveying at the Warsaw University of Technology while also becoming involved in political and youth movements, including the Polish Socialist Party (PPS) by 1936.
His studies were cut short by the outbreak of World War II. In March 1939, he was called back to service in the 5th Aviation Regiment and served as a second lieutenant, conducting reconnaissance flights until he was shot down by German forces on September 13, 1939. Captured and held in a prisoner-of-war camp in Radom, he managed to escape and return to civilian life in Piotrków Trybunalski.
In November 1939, he joined the Union of Armed Struggle (later the Home Army), participating in the early underground resistance in the Piotrków area. Arrested by the Gestapo on June 12, 1940, he was tortured and imprisoned before being deported to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp. There, he was registered as a political prisoner (No. 28111). Soon after, he was transferred to the Gross-Rosen subcamp, where he endured forced labor in the stone quarries for 64 days—an experience he later documented in his memoir My 64 Days in Gross-Rosen.
In late 1940, physically devastated, he was returned to Sachsenhausen, where he spent the remainder of the war. Despite extreme hardship and brutal labor assignments, including work in the “Klinkerwerk” and “Kanalkommando,” he eventually secured a position in the camp’s technical office (Baubüro) as a surveyor. This role provided limited opportunities for resistance activity. He became a member of the camp’s underground movement, gathering and transmitting intelligence, smuggling food and medicine, and aiding Soviet prisoners of war through the Red Aid (Rote Hilfe) network.
In 1944, the Gestapo discovered traces of the Polish underground group within the Baubüro. As its leader, he was arrested, tortured, and sentenced to 25 lashes and hanging by the arms—a punishment that left him permanently disabled.
He was evacuated with other prisoners on April 22, 1945, and liberated by American forces on May 2 near Schwerin, Germany. He later joined the 1st Polish Armored Division under General Maczek, serving as a lecturer in technical courses before returning to Poland in 1949.
After the war, he worked as a surveyor at the Voivodeship Office in Łódź and became actively involved in postwar justice. He served for many years on the Commission for the Investigation of Nazi Crimes (later part of the Institute of National Remembrance) and traveled to Germany three times in the 1960s as a prosecution witness in Nazi war crime trials.
In his later years, though living with war-related disabilities, he remained committed to educating the younger generation about the horrors of war, the sacrifices of the Polish resistance, and the value of peace.
He died on Febuary 14 1996 in Łódź.
Descendants Stuff podcast is produced by Jakob Feisthauer, Kelsey Snook and Nicole Wines – three descendants of Sachsenhausen prisoners and co-creators of the Sachsenhausen Stuff project.
The Descendants Stuff team would like to extend a special thank you to the team at Sachsenhausen Memorial and Museum especially Dr. Astrid Ley, and the members of the educational department’s project “What Voice Do We Have?”, as well as the descendant’s collective Voices of the Next Generation.
Our theme music, “Heil, Sachsenhausen!” was written and performed by former Sachsenhausen prisoner Aleksander Kulisiewicz. Thanks to the United States Holocaust Memorial and Museum and the Aleksander Kulisiewicz collection for granting permission for its use.
If you are a Sachsenhausen descendant who would like to share your story, please contact us.