Jonathan Glazer’s ‘The Zone of Interest’ Was the Only Film Unanimously Approved by Cannes in 2023

The Zone of Interest cast is celebrated at Cannes

One cannot help but wonder what Rudolf Vrba would have said about the critical and even commercial success of the movie The Zone of Interest, a 2023 historical drama that gained its gravitas as an adaptation of a 2014 novel by Martin Amis—and then went on to be deemed worthy of both the Grand Prix and FIRPRESCI Prizes at Cannes in 2023.

Would Vrba be pleased to watch scenes of Rudolf and Hedwig Höss with their children delighting in luxury and comfort in such obvious contrast to the horrors of the Auschwitz death camp nearby? Would he have appreciated how deftly the filmmakers have integrated the slight sounds of mass murder wafting into the bucolic realm of bourgeois comfort?

Höss with noose prior to his death by hanging in Auschwitz I. He was 45 years old. 

The movie succeeds in being educational. That is, it shows how unusually cruel people can abide mass murder on an unprecedented scale if their own garden is coming along nicely. But one wonders what percentage of the audience that goes away congratulating themselves on being entertained by a film about Auschwitz, when faced with the reality of the evening news on CNN, thereafter dared to speak up in defense of Israel when the world decided that Jews were being too harsh on the Palestinians, overlooking the fate of those Jewish hostages stuck in the Gaza tunnels or those vicious, murderous attacks undertaken by Hamas rapists on unarmed civilians on October 7, 2023.

The actual house that was once occupied by Rudolf and Hedwig Höss and their children still stands—but it is rented—so the producers of the film had to build a replica of the house nearby. This same structure could have been built anywhere, but the filmmakers required the gravitas of setting their fake house within calling card distance of the Auschwitz grounds and the real house that Frau Höss so fiendishly favoured.

Would Rudolf Vrba have fallen into line with the mainstream response and agree it must constitute artistic bravery to go to so much trouble to successfully depict the banality of evil? Or might he have agreed with the New Yorker reviewer Richard Brody who opined, beyond the conventional wisdom of Rotten Tomatoes, that The Zone of Interest ought to be derided as “an extreme form of Holo-kitsch?”

The percentage of people who see The Zone of Interest and seek out this website devoted to the greatest hero of Auschwitz is surely less than 1% of 1%.  Regardless, here follows a selection of reviews of Auschwitz—the real one. At least we can be certain these are critics who knew exactly what they were talking about and there is no personal profit motive.

First, a memoir by Rudolf Höss’ gardener… [the surname Höss or Hosse appears as Höß.]

STANISŁAW DUBIEL

Lovely garden next to Auschwitz, tended to by Stanisław Dubiel

Oświęcim, 7 August 1946. Regional Investigative Judge Jan Sehn, acting in accordance with the Decree of 10 November 1945 (Journal of Laws of the Republic of Poland No. 51, item 293) on the Main Commission and Regional Commissions for the Investigation of German Crimes in Poland, as a member of the Main Commission, pursuant to Article 255, in connection with Articles 107 and 115 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, interviewed the person specified below, who testified as follows:
________________________________________
Name and surname Stanisław Dubiel
Date and place of birth 13 November 1910, Chorzów
Parents’ names Klemens and Anna Pietrzak
Religious affiliation Roman Catholic
Citizenship and nationality Polish
Place of residence Chorzów I, Powstańców Street 49
________________________________________
I was in the Auschwitz concentration camp from 6 November 1940 to 18 January 1945. My number was 6059. Almost from the beginning, I worked as a gardener – first for Lagerführer Fritzsch, who held that position until the end of 1941, and later on for his successor Lagerführer Aumeier, who took over that post in January 1942, when Fritzsch was transferred to Flossenbürg.
On 6 April 1942, I was sent as a gardener to the house of the camp commandant, Rudolf Höß. I worked there until the end of his stay in the camp, or even longer – until his family left Auschwitz. Höß was transferred from Auschwitz to the headquarters in autumn 1943, and his family left Auschwitz in the summer of 1944.

When I worked in the garden and in Höß’s household, I had a chance to closely observe both him and his family. Höß came home during the day very often. He frequently rode around the camp on horse or by other means of transport. He looked about everywhere and was interested in all camp matters. He spent the least amount of time in his office. Files requiring his signature were brought to his house, where he took care of such matters.

In his house, he often received visits from SS dignitaries. For example, Himmler visited him twice.

During his first visit, Himmler spoke very warmly to Höß and his wife, took Höß’s children upon his lap, and the children called him “Onkel Heini.” Such scenes were captured in photographs – enlargements hung on the walls in Höß’s house. During Himmler’s second visit to Auschwitz, shortly before Höß left the position of commandant, Himmler told Höß in the garden that the latter must leave the camp because there was too much talk on English radio about the extermination of prisoners in Auschwitz. Discussing that subject, Höß stated that he was convinced that his work in Auschwitz greatly benefited his homeland. He said this directly after Himmler had touched on the issue of the gassing of people. I personally heard a part of that discussion, and we heard the rest from the Bible Students, female prisoners employed in Höß’s household.

Sophie Stippel

They were both German, fierce opponents of the Nazi system. One of them – Sophie Stippel – came from Höß’s hometown, that is from Mannheim-Ludwigshafen. She had known him since childhood because they used to live on the same street. She told me that during the second conversation with Himmler, Höß literally said: „Ich dachte ich werde meinem Vaterlande damit einen Dienst erweisen” [I thought I was doing my country a favor]. I believe Sophie Stipel currently lives with her daughter in Heidelberg. Both Stippel and her friend always told us about conversations concerning the camp which they had overheard. They warned us when we had to be especially careful to avoid being given away. Thanks to their help, in many cases we managed to prevent great evil.

Obergruppenführer Schmauser was also a frequent visitor to Höß’s home, and the head of Wirtschafts und Verwaltungshauptamt [SS Main Economic and Administrative Office], SS-Obergruppenführer Pohl, visited him several times – I believe five. Pohl’s visits took place in a very cordial atmosphere. It was obvious that Höß and Pohl were friends. It seemed to us that Höß gave Pohl gifts.

During all those visits, the Höß family hosted wonderful parties for their guests. Höß’s wife instructed me to organize the necessary food supplies. Before each such party, she listed the foods she would need or she told me to speak about it with the cook, Sophie. She did not give me any of the money or ration cards necessary for doing the groceries. I arranged it in the following way: thanks to my friend Adolf Maciejowski, who was a Kapo in one of the prisoners’ food storehouses, I contacted the head of that storehouse, SS-Unterscharführer Schebeck. I went to him every week for the food rations allocated to the female prisoners employed in Höß’s household.

While talking to Schebeck, I mentioned that I had overheard a conversation during which Höß said something about Schebeck’s promotion. Schebeck really wanted to get promoted, so he asked me if I needed anything for the Höß family – in this way I came to an understanding with him. When I collected food rations for the prisoners, I always took food items needed in Höß’s household. Thanks to Schebeck’s help, I was able to transport these goods to Höß’s house. In this way, I provided them with three bags of sugar, 85 kg each, in just one year. Höß’s wife made it clear to me that no SS man could know about the errands I was running. I assured her that I had an arrangement with a friend. I also agreed with Schebeck that he would behave as if he did not know anything about the matter, and I assured him that Höß did not know about those transactions. Finally, I told him the truth – that I acted with Höß’s consent – but if Schebeck or I said anything, it would certainly end very badly for us, because Höß would surely deny everything. I told him so because I wanted him to know that if we were discreet, Höß would do us no harm.

I also used this situation to benefit my colleagues, namely I convinced Schebeck to give me more food, part of which I could later smuggle into the camp and feed prisoners who needed it, especially sick inmates. Initially, I carried those items in a basket, and later on I used a trolley for that purpose. At that time, the food warehouse was well stocked, because it contained products taken away from Jews who arrived at Auschwitz in mass transports, the majority of whom went straight to the gas chambers. From that warehouse, I took the following items to Höß’s private household: sugar, flour, margarine, various types of baking powders, soup seasonings, pasta, oatmeal, cocoa, cinnamon, semolina, peas, and other products.
Höß’s wife was never satisfied. She constantly talked to me about what was still missing in her household, implying what I should try to get her. Not only did she supply her own kitchen with these products, but she also sent some of them to her relatives in Germany. In the same way, I provided Höß’s kitchen with meat from the slaughterhouse and constant milk supplies. I would like to point out that Höß and his family were entitled to a liter and a quarter of milk per day based on his milk ration cards. Every day, I took five liters of milk from the prison dairy to Höß’s kitchen, and often some cream at Höß’s wife’s request. The dairy was paid for a liter and a quarter of milk. The Höß family did not pay for any other products, namely for anything that I brought to their kitchen and household from the prison food warehouse and the camp slaughterhouse.

Höß’s household also had another supplier – the head of the canteen and the head of the camp slaughterhouse, Engelbrecht, who during his stay in Auschwitz was promoted from an Oberscharführer to an Obersturmführer. He provided them with meat, sausages and cigarettes from the canteen. I saw in Höß’s house boxes of Yugoslavian “Ibar” cigarettes, containing 10,000 cigarettes each. Those were cigarettes that could be purchased only in the canteen for prisoners. Höß’s wife offered me those cigarettes and also used them as payment for prisoners who had to perform secretive tasks (Schwarzarbeiten) for her, putting themselves at risk for the toughest punishments. It is worth mentioning that Höß issued an order prohibiting such jobs. As far as his household was concerned, he did not observe that order. I believe he knew that I supplied his household with food. It happened many times that he found me in the kitchen while I was unpacking goods I had just brought in. He also saw the supplies piled up in the chamber and pantry of his house, and he himself used them and hosted receptions. He knew how to take care of his household, which was also evidenced by the fact that when he traveled to Hungary, after he left the position of commandant, he sent his family whole crates of wine. He traveled to Hungary as a special representative in charge of the extermination of Jews in Europe (Sonderbeauftragter für die Judenvernichtung in Europa) – this is how his wife officially called him. She told me that Höß’s enemies had not managed to destroy him, but on the contrary – he was promoted and got an even more important mission to fulfill.

I would like to emphasize once again that I had to organize for Höß even the smallest things needed at home, like shoe polish or shoe brushes. It is worth mentioning that Höß’s wife swapped underwear that was intended for female prisoners employed in her house. The underwear, from the Canada warehouses, had been robbed from gassed Jewish women, and was given to those servants from time to time. Höß’s house was furnished in the same way. Also in this way everything was done through prisoners who smuggled things from the camp. The house was furnished with the most exquisite furniture: leather-padded desk drawers from the warehouses of the leather factory (Lederfabrik), where leather items looted from mass Jewish transports were stored.
Leather and leather items were delivered to Höß’s house by a former prisoner and a professional criminal, Erich Gronke. Thanks to Höß’s efforts, he was released and employed as director of the leather factory. Every day, Gronke came to Höß’s house and brought accessories and shoes of all kinds: for women, men, and children. All clothes for the commandant and his sons were made at Gronke’s leather factory. For this purpose, the best tailors were assigned to work for him: first Poles, and then world-famous specialists – Jews from France, Belgium and other countries. For about a year and a half, two Jewish seamstresses worked in Höß’s house. They made clothes for Höß’s wife and daughters from fabrics provided by Gronke, that is from supplies robbed from Jews.

I would like to point out that in the tannery warehouses (Lederfabrik), clothes and other items, previously belonging to Jews who had been gassed, were searched for hidden valuables, especially gold, valuable currencies and diamonds. Gronke himself told me that there were lots of those items. A colleague of mine, Stanisław Jarosz, who worked in the tannery, also confirmed this. They worked in a special closed room. The valuables found were given to Gronke without any receipt. I suppose that both Gronke and Höß – through Gronke – made use of those valuables.
It is worth mentioning that I cultivated the most exquisite flowers in the garden and greenhouse for Höß’s wife, but she was not satisfied with what I was able to grow using the resources available in the camp. She would send SS men to the house of an inmate who worked with me in the garden, Roman Kwiatkowski from Będzin (Łąki Street 1), from where they would bring seeds and seedlings she had ordered them to fetch. Kwiatkowski’s son would also bring us those plants. They were ordered to do so by Höß’s wife’s helpers.

I also have to mention the following observation that I made. Höß instructed a prisoner from the slaughterhouse to prepare canned pig meat for him. Those canned foods were not prepared properly and they went bad. When Höß found out about it, he gave an order to transfer the spoiled canned food to the prison kitchen, in exchange for which he took fresh products from Engelbrecht’s slaughterhouse. By using prisoners’ labor and camp resources for his own purposes, Höß made his household so magnificent and so well equipped that his wife declared: „Hier will ich leben und sterben” [here I want to live and die]. They had everything in their household and there was no way they would lack anything with the enormous supplies of all kinds of goods accumulated in the camp.

In addition to the already mentioned suppliers, I should also mention Rottenführer Hartung, who was employed in the gardening unit in Rajsko. From that camp, he smuggled for Höß thousands of flowerpots, seeds, seedlings and vegetables in autumn for winter storage, which he kept secret from the head of the camp agricultural sector, Dr. Caesar. For every winter, I had to organize 70 tons of coke for heating the house and, above all, the greenhouses – of course cooperating with my colleagues. Höß saw all the things accumulated in his household, he knew I supplied them, but he never asked me where I got those things from and how I paid for them. It is no wonder then that the Höß family had accumulated so many goods in their so-called [illegible] that they needed four train cars to transport them after Höß was transferred. Based on what Höß’s wife said, I realized that Höß really wanted to stay in Auschwitz. Despite having been promoted in the Wirtschafts- und Verwaltungshauptamt hierarchy, he was not satisfied with the transfer to the headquarters. He believed it was caused by intrigues on the part of the head of the camp farms, Dr. Joachim Caesar, with whom he did not get on well. Höß got on well with the head of the camp construction department, Bischoff.

As the camp commandant, Höß had power over the Political Department, and particularly over its head, Grabner, which was evidenced by the fact that I was released from the bunker and crossed off the list of people chosen for execution by that department. Since I was arrested on the suspicion of belonging to a Polish underground organization, which must have been stated in my personal files kept by the Political Department, I was placed on the list of people chosen for execution by shooting three times. The first time was on 12 June 1942, when I was chosen from the block, along with 172 other inmates, and from the Schreibstube I was to be sent, just like the others from that group, to the yard of block 11. Höß then demanded that I be released and return to work, which of course took place. On the same day in the afternoon, Grabner, accompanied by Höß’s aide and Hössler, came to Höß’s garden, where I worked at that time, and demanded that I be shot dead.

Höß, and especially his wife, were categorically opposed to it and put their foot down. I was placed again on the list of people to be executed in July or August 1942, and for the last time on 28 October 1942. That third time I was to be executed by firing squad with a group of 280 prisoners from the Lublin area. This time Höß also objected to my execution. Höß’s wife repeatedly reminded me about this, forcing me in this way to zealously perform the tasks that I have briefly described above. I would like to point out that neither Höß nor his wife supported me on moral grounds, as they were both fierce enemies of Poles and Jews. They hated everything that was Polish. Höß’s wife very often told me: „Die Polen müssen alle zusammen für die [illegible] in Bromberg bezahlen. Sie sind nur dazu da um zu arbeiten bis zum verrecken” [Polish people have to pay for what happened in Bydgoszcz. They’re here to work until they die]. As for Jews, she believed that they all must disappear from the surface of the earth, and that some day the time would come even for English Jews.

The report was read out. At this point, the interview and the present report were concluded.

HÉLÈNE LANGEVIN

Hélène Langevin

The seventeenth day of trial, 11 December 1947
Presiding Judge: Please, call witness Langevin.
(Witness Hélène Langevin stands up.)

Presiding Judge: Will the witness please state her personal data?

Witness: Hélène Langevin, 38 years old, of French nationality, former member of the National Assembly, non-religious, no relationship [to the defendants], resident in Paris.

Presiding Judge: Is the witness a daughter of the well-known physicist?

Witness: Yes, I am the daughter of the famous French physicist.

Presiding Judge: I advise the witness to speak the truth in accordance with Article 107 of the Code of Criminal Procedure. Making false declarations is punishable with a prison term of up to five years. Do the parties submit any requests regarding the mode of hearing of the witness?

Prosecution: No.

Defense: No.

Presiding Judge: The witness will testify without taking the oath. Will the witness please say what she knows about the case itself, and especially with respect to the defendants whom she recognizes? Can the witness provide any specific facts?

Witness: I would like to present the Auschwitz camp as a part of the German repressions that affected the French nation. It was not until the spring of 1942 that they started taking people to the Auschwitz camp, but German repressions in France began much earlier, especially when it came to the French intelligentsia. In order to give an accurate overview, I must start with the arresting of my father by the Gestapo in his flat on 31 October 1940. The arrests that followed came one after another, and in 1941 the executions by shooting began. The victims of the first execution were three lawyers. Then, there was the famous execution in Châteaubriant, Brittany, where 50 people were killed, including many intellectuals, doctors, and engineers. In 1942, my husband Jacques Solomon, together with several of his friends and people of science, was shot dead.

The first time people were taken to Auschwitz was in March 1942. That first transport may be considered as a trial transport for the Germans to see what reactions it would cause in France. The next transport was sent in June. The number of transports grew faster and faster, and in the summer of 1942 there were several transports organized every week. The first transport consisted of Jews. Then on 6 July, the first transport of political prisoners was sent. It was the time when the systematic extermination of political prisoners began. In 1942, the number of transports sent from France amounted to 50. In 1943, only 18 transports were sent from France. In the previous year, Germans emptied all concentration camps in France and only the solidarity of the French nation, or all those who were struggling with German repressions, namely the Jews and the members of the resistance movement, could impede the mass arrests.

In January 1943, I myself came to Auschwitz with a transport of political prisoners, composed only of women. In 1944, 18 transports were again sent from France, including one transport of political prisoners consisting of 1,650 people; however, they were not kept in the camp. In addition to political prisoners who were deported individually, entire French families were also taken away. In 1942, the first deportees left their children in France, but in August of the same year the Germans organized two transports that consisted exclusively of children. It was announced that the children would soon join their parents. They really joined their parents – after being driven into crematorium furnaces, which none of them left.

It is said that the total number deportees was 120,000, but in reality there were probably much more of them. We cannot forget that at that time the Germans considered a significant part of France as incorporated to Germany or Belgium. Therefore, we can say that from the 120,000 French people, or more precisely 150,000, only 21,600 stayed alive.
The situation of the French in the Auschwitz camp was particularly difficult. The climate was very hard to endure. They did not speak German or Polish, so it was difficult for them to find employment in kommandos. Among those 150,000 victims, there were many young people. In my transport, there were many young girls – almost all of them died.

I would like to mention my friend Denielle Casanova, secretary general of the Union of Young French Girls. She was a dentist by profession, which contributed to the fact that she had a relatively privileged position in the camp, but instead of thinking about herself, she used all the possibilities to help the whole French group who arrived with her. Under those circumstances, she came down with typhus fever. It was the cause of death of the majority of people, because no one avoided that epidemic. Marie Politzer, the wife of great philosopher Georges Politzer, who had been executed in Paris on the same day that my husband was shot dead, died with her.

I would also like to recall some of the great intellectuals who were massacred in Auschwitz. First, Abraham – physicist, professor at the Sorbonne University, laboratory director, [professor] at the École normale supérieure, was taken away in December 1943 at the age of 75. Another French physicist – Eugène Bloch, also a professor at the Sorbonne University, who replaced Professor Abraham as the laboratory director when the latter retired; he was also deported and killed in Auschwitz. The great microbiologist at the Pasteur Institute, Volent, a student of the great Mechnikov, who was taken away with his wife in December 1943, Professor Axoli, Pierre-Bloch, a former university of technology student, a waterway engineer – and many others, because we can say that the Germans tried to exterminate the greatest French intellectuals.

Presiding Judge: Can the witness say anything about the defendants?

Witness: From among the defendants, I recognize defendant Mandl.

Presiding Judge: What can the witness say about her?

Witness: I would not like to talk much about the facts that the Tribunal is already well aware of. I will describe an event that concerned myself.

At the beginning of 1943, after our arrival at the Birkenau camp, a great selection took place. We did not know what it meant. We were ordered to leave through the camp gate and go to a large meadow in front of the camp. We stood there without food until the night came. In the morning, we were told to return to the camp and run in a single file. Most of us were numb with cold and not able to run. Singer Alice Viterbo, who had a wooden prosthesis, stood by my side. I knew she would not be able to run. At that time, I thought that we just had to avoid whip strikes. I did not know that our lives were at stake then. I told Alice to hold on to the back of my sweatshirt, and that we would go as fast as we could. As soon as we crossed the gate, someone started hitting us with a stick, so we went even faster, but then Oberaufseherin [senior overseer] Mandl, who saw that Alice was holding on to me, knocked us over. Alice Viterbo, who of course found it difficult to get up, was taken to block 15.

I do not want to repeat other facts. My friends, who will testify later, will probably have a lot to say, because they stayed in the Auschwitz camp even longer than I did. I think it is unnecessary to repeat the same things.

Presiding Judge: Thank you. Are there any questions?

Prosecutor Kurowski: I would like to ask the witness if she stayed in any French camps before the deportation to Auschwitz.

Witness: First, I was in the Santé prison in Paris, then in the Romainville camp near Paris.

Prosecutor Kurowski: I would like to ask if the regime in that French camp was in any way similar to Auschwitz. Was the way the prisoners were treated similar?

Witness: The regime in Romainville was naturally much less strict than at Auschwitz, because it was not a labor camp, but rather a camp where people waited for deportation. Also the proximity to Paris and the fact that the Romainville fort was inhabited by French people, impeded any greater repressions. That is why we were able to violently protest because of insufficient amount of food, and we were sure that the French would hear our screams. However, apart from the fact that women were transported out of the Romainville camp, men also left that camp and were executed by firing squad. One morning, 50 husbands of our female colleagues were taken away in this way.

Prosecutor Kurowski: The Witness has mentioned here that entire French families were deported. Was it a mass phenomenon?

Witness: I have already testified that in 1942, 70,000 people were deported from the French camp, and the transports consisted of 1,000–1,500 people [each].

Prosecutor Kurowski: My question goes in that direction: I would like to know what – according to the witness – was the purpose for deporting entire families? Was it about repressions and fear or rather the extermination of those families, creating for them such living conditions in exile that they would not survive?

Witness: Both of those objectives were set simultaneously. On the one hand, they hoped to terrorize the French nation; on the other, they wanted to exterminate those who resisted.

Prosecutor Kurowski: If we take into account what the witness is saying now, as well as the fact which the witness provided earlier – that from the 150,000 deported people only 2,600 stayed alive – we should not consider it a coincidence, but a result of a thoroughly thought- out German policy.

Witness: The first transport was exterminated by natural means, that is lack of food, lack of clothes, excessive work, but also by the fact that people coming from France, who were absolutely not able to resist such treatment, were often forced to sleep outside in March in Upper Silesia. However, the destruction apparently did not seem swift enough, because in the summer of 1942, gas chambers and crematoria were built.

BERTHE FALK

Berthe Falk

The seventeenth day of trial, 12 December 1947
(After the break.)

Presiding Judge: The next witness, Berthe Falk.
(Witness Berthe Falk stands up.)

Presiding Judge: Will the witness please state her personal data?

Witness Berthe Falk 36 years old, head of the medical analysis laboratory, Master of Science, non-religious, of Jewish descent, no relationship to the defendants, French citizenship and nationality.

Presiding Judge: I advise the witness to speak the truth in accordance with Article 107 of the Code of Criminal Procedure. Making false declarations is punishable with a prison term of up to five years. Do the parties submit any requests regarding the mode of hearing of the witness?

Prosecution: No.

Defense: No.

Presiding Judge: The witness will testify without taking the oath. Will the witness please say what she knows about the case itself, and particularly about the defendants? Which of them does the witness recognize and what facts can the witness provide?

Witness: Together with a friend and 500 other women, I was taken away from Paris on 27 July 1942. I will limit myself to presenting a few of my experiences during the 27 months of torture I went through in Auschwitz-Birkenau. We arrived at Auschwitz simultaneously with two transports of Dutch women. 1,500 people were gathered in a dark and wet basement under the supervision of Aufseherin [overseer] Brandl. She was particularly tough and strict towards us. At roll calls in the camp, we saw her very often with a whip in her hand, which she used to carry around. She would often walk between the rows and beat our naked legs without a reason, probably in order to teach us that in the camp we would be treated badly right away from the start.

On 15 August, we were transferred to Birkenau. That camp had already been furnished, but there was still no light and water. In August and September, during extreme heat waves, hundreds of French and Dutch prisoners died of thirst. In that period, there was a typhus fever outbreak caused by the filthy conditions in the camp. The number of female prisoners was growing, so we had to make room for the newcomers. It was not enough that people were dying of typhus and other diseases, and that selections were performed right after people had got off the train.

At the beginning of October, one of the first selections in the camp was carried out. That was when I met defendant Aumeier. At that time, I worked as an orderly in the camp hospital. There were about 600 female prisoners – sick, healthy, often dying. The camp hospital did not have to participate in roll calls, but one Sunday at the beginning of October, the orderlies were ordered to select 50 (women) from among the most sick patients, and escort them onto a field. The nurses refused to do it, and an hour later we received an order to attend the roll call. We became suspicious, because it was unusual for the hospital. We gathered all the sick women in rows of ten in front of our block. However, we tried to hide a few prisoners who had already been cured. It was all for nothing, because Aumeier, accompanied by the head camp doctor and a retinue of SS men and SS women, performed an inspection in our block to reach the actual number.

He forced the nurses to make sure that the prisoners’ were in chains and that they did not escape. Other nurses were supposed to help the sick get in the trucks that drove up to the block gate. Since it was taking us a lot of time and dinnertime was approaching, they started to beat us with gunstocks and sticks. Dead prisoners were thrown into the trucks together with the sick and healthy. It lasted three hours. When the last truck passed through the camp gate, Aumeier – accompanied by all the SS men – left, quite pleased. Only about ten [people] – from the personnel – were left in the block. Two days later, there was a big selection in work kommandos, and within three days, 3,000 female prisoners were selected. From that day on, selections took place every week. It is hard to forget the famous gesture by Aumeier who sent prisoners to gas chambers with his thumb… I believe that every prisoner who has survived still remembers that gesture.

In February 1942, the whole camp was subjected to selection in a very sophisticated manner. An order was issued to evacuate the camp into a nearby meadow. It happened between 3.00 a.m. and 6.00 p.m. All female prisoners were forced to stand still, without food, poorly clothed, in freezing cold. In the evening, the SS officers, including Mandl, forced all prisoners to run. Those who did not run fast enough or fell down were caught and escorted to block 25, the vestibule of crematorium furnaces. Maria Mandl, equipped with a bent stick, caught the prisoners, knocking them over, and escorted them to block 25.

When it comes to Maria Mandl, I met her in really extraordinary circumstances. Do you remember prisoner no. 14 184 whom you sent to die, because she described how she imagined the liberation of Paris by the Allies? I was then transferred from Rajsko, where I worked as a chemist, to the Birkenau camp, and I appeared before Mandl, who herself alone constituted the highest justice. She made me wait eight days before she agreed to see me. I would like to roughly present our conversation. When I entered the office, she told me in great anger, “How dare you write such things?! I know that you’re dreaming of your homeland, but even though you have already stayed two years in the camp, you still don’t understand that no prisoner will leave this place alive. We’re letting you work for us”. Then she asked me, “What would you do if you were me?” I said that I would probably understand that feeling and forgive.

That made her furious and she told me, “We, the Germans, are too kind to you, you would hang us, but we’re giving you a chance, we’re letting you work for us”. She sent me away, saying, “I hope you’ll be hanged”. Five days later, I came there again to hear my sentence. I was not hanged, probably because I worked in the laboratory, but instead I was assigned to a penal company. There, I had the pleasure to meet Bogusch, because he was in charge of penal companies. I had to work outside for 12–14 hours per day, and they were kind enough to let me work inside the camp once a week. There, we were guarded by Bogusch, and I assure you the work we did inside the camp, although it lasted fewer hours, was equally hard in terms of physical effort. We were really scared of Bogusch, and we tried to hide from him, but he would always find us in the toilets or bathrooms.

Presiding Judge: Does the witness recognize defendant Bogusch? Please, take a look at the defendants.

Witness: He recognizes me.

Defendant Bogusch: I never served in Birkenau. This is probably some kind of mistake.

Witness: He would come to Birkenau only from time to time, because the SK [penal company] consisted of two kommandos: external and internal. He guarded the internal kommando. He probably knows well his colleague Mokrus who guarded the external unit.

Presiding Judge: Is that everything the witness wanted to say?

Witness: Yes.

Presiding Judge: Does the witness remember if defendant Brandl participated in selections? Please, take a good look at her.

Witness: I saw defendant Brandl only for 15 days, when I stayed in Auschwitz. She guarded the newcomers who were squeezed in the basements, because there was no room for them.

Presiding Judge: The witness has mentioned that she worked in Rajsko. Does the witness remember defendant Münch?

Witness: Yes, I know Dr. Münch. I saw him several times in the Hygiene Institute. We would sometimes go to work to the Hygiene Institute.

Presiding Judge: Did the witness have any closer contact with Dr. Münch?

Witness: No, I had no contact with Dr. Münch.

Presiding Judge: Maybe the witness knows what Dr. Münch did?

Witness: I think he was the doctor who monitored the analyses that were carried out there, but I do not know exactly.

Presiding Judge: Are there any questions for the witness?

Prosecutor Kurowski: I have a question. The witness has mentioned the Hygiene Institute: was it the Hygiene Institute outside Auschwitz, in Rajsko?

Witness: Yes.

Presiding Judge: Does the defense have any questions?

Defense Attorney Minasowicz: In what year did the witness work in the SK?

Witness: From 14 July to 5 October 1944.

Presiding Judge: The witness is excused.

ROMAN SZUSZKIEWICZ

Szuszkiewicz, Roman. Dentistry in Auschwitz. Kapera, Marta, trans. Medical Review – Auschwitz. October 19, 2022. Originally published in Przegląd Lekarski – Oświęcim. 1964: 77–80.

Tarnów, 6 October 1947
Witness: Dr. Roman Szuszkiewicz, Tarnów, Katedralna Street 5

From the former members of the former concentration camp in Auschwitz mentioned, I personally know the following well: Hans Aumeier, Max Grabner and Karol Tauber. I don’t recall the names of the others.

1) Hans Aumeier was the Lagerführer [camp leader]. I met him directly in 1942 when, after a heavy bout of typhus, already convalescing, I was summoned to report to him about some intrigues involving some German kapos, how I was supposed to have treated them inappropriately and not treated them better than the other prisoners, that I favored the Poles, which was then considered to be a crime. As soon as I reported to the Arbeitsdienstführer [work service leader] whose name I don’t remember but whom the prisoners referred to as “Gorilla” – right away, without any explanation, he hit me over six times in the face so that I could barely stand on my feet. After this introduction, he told me to face the wall and wait for the Lagerführer. After two hours of heavy waiting, because I predicted the outcome of the investigation in advance, I was summoned by Aumeier into his office.

There, from the very outset, he began to pummel me with his fists on the face and chest. He is very short, and has a voice like (according to the prisoners) a screeching frog. When he got tired, and I could barely stand, he began to interrogate me, in-between questions calling me a Polish pig or other insults that I will not repeat here. He threatened me that for not obeying his order, he would order me to be shot and hanged at the same time. What I got between the questions I will never forget. Because I didn’t understand German well and I was afraid that I wouldn’t grasp some obscure word, I asked for an interpreter. The interpreter was a Silesian, with whom I was on friendly terms (he defended many Poles), but I don’t remember his last name. (He was later drafted into the army.) This translator managed the case in such a way that I ended up with a beating, with my dignity in ruins.

Aumeier terrorized the camp, he was a sadist with no limits. He not only signed off on the death sentences, but he conducted them himself, so they said in the camp – along with Palitzsch. Even during work, he would beat and torment the prisoners whenever he could. He was one of the main people who contributed to the mass murders, not only by issuing the relevant orders and “special” commands to his subordinates, but he himself was often the executioner of these crimes. He claimed that any prisoner living in the conditions created by him couldn’t live longer than three months. If I had the opportunity to punish this individual, I would use the same methods that he invented to destroy as many people as possible.

2) Max Grabner was similar to Aumeier. They cooperated, after all. Every day he selected (on whose orders I don’t know) prisoners to be shot. He terrorized everyone. Whomsoever he summoned to the Political Department, that person didn’t come back. He had his own methods of conducting interrogations that were not seen (dead men tell no tales) but which could be heard from afar. These were the voices of women, men and even children. I don’t remember whether I met him personally; all the prisoners, if they could, avoided him. He is one of the main deviants who are guilty of murdering hundreds of thousands of prisoners in Auschwitz.

3) Karl Teuber, a dentist, was my direct superior, because I worked as a doctor in the medical and dental clinic for prisoners. Personally, I was not harassed by him. However, as a doctor, at least guided by the international ethics of this profession, he could have helped to make life a little better for the prisoners. Unfortunately, he didn’t do so and should be punished for that. He was responsible for the Sonderraum at the SS dental station.

I worked several months as a scrub nurse and cleaner in the SS dental clinic, where I was in contact with prisoners who worked in this Sonderraum. The method of obtaining gold for the Herrenvolk [master race] looked more or less like this: those who had been murdered, tortured by work or who had died of fatigue or because of various diseases (there were 200 or even 300 corpses per day in 1942) were put in the mortuary. There, the Leichenträgers [corpse carriers] made a review of the teeth. They were to mark an X with a chemical red pencil only on the chests of those corpses that had artificial dentistry (gold bridges, platinum crowns and plates). At the same time, they compiled a list with the numbers of these marked corpses. Then they were transported to the crematorium, where in a special room some SS men pulled the teeth out of these new deliveries.

Most often these were several German dentists. What a sight it must have been to behold when these butchers were overcome by an onslaught to the senses at the sight of a pile of corpses, very often already in the last stage of decay. This operation always took place with every precaution so that no one would know about it in the camp. These deliveries of pulled-out teeth were specially escorted in suitcases by SS-men to the Sonderraum, where, under the supervision of a special SS man, the gold and platinum were melted into bars weighing from 500 to 1,000 grams. From what

I heard from Jewish prisoners (only Jews were employed in the Sonderraum, who were then gassed to get rid of any witnesses), I know that a courier sent about 20 kg of gold to Berlin every month. How much was additionally stolen by the SS men who had some dealings with this Sonderraum, I don’t know. However, I do know that this did actually happen, because a special committee even arrived to detect these abuses to the detriment of the Third Reich. I am even convinced that all the heads of the SS dental station, who were very often changed, contributed to the depletion of what they called the gold mine.

The gold was sent either directly by courier or by the Standortverwaltung der Waffen SS [SS garrison administration]. As I stated above, the workers in the Sonderraum were only Jews, whose fate was unenviable. There were two Sonderraums, one in KL Auschwitz SS Zahnstation, the other in the Birkenau crematorium. The Jewish prisoners in the latter Sonderraum were completely separated from the rest of the prisoners and I can’t provide any details from there.

As a further witness, who was in the Birkenau camp, and later in the gypsy camp, I can recommend my friend Dr. Tadeusz Śnieszka, residing in Tarnów, Starowolskiego Street 2. He will also be able to say something about a few SS men he came across.

HENRI GORGUE

Henri Gorgue, 1980

Day 13 of the trial, 25 March 1947.

The witness has provided information about himself as follows: Henri Gorgue, 40 years old, toolmaker, married, nonbeliever, no relationship to the parties.

Chairperson: What are the motions of the parties as to the mode of the questioning of the witness?

Prosecutor Cyprian: We discharge the witness from the oath.

Defender Ostaszewski: We discharge the witness from the oath.

Chairperson: By mutual agreement of the parties, the Tribunal has decided to question the witness without an oath.

Chairperson: Would you describe what you know about the matter?

Witness: I was in the Auschwitz camp from 6 July 1942 to September 1944, when I was transferred to the camp in Groß-Rosen. In the camp, I was assigned the number 45,617. I still have that number tattooed on my left hand, like all Auschwitz prisoners.

Our transport was the first transport of non-Jewish political criminals from France. There were 1200 of us men, mostly communists. We had been arrested in France by the police, who were in the service of the German authorities. We were turned over to the German authorities to be deported for our party activity. This happened as a result of an attack that had taken place, officially, in Paris. From the 1200 companions who came to Auschwitz, only a hundred are still alive today in France.

Our transport suffered especially during the first years in the Auschwitz camp, when the accused Höß was camp commandant. I never had a chance to see Höß in any other situation than during an assembly, or when I was coming back from work with the kommandos or when he visited the kommandos.

Not wanting to explain the crimes committed by other commandants who were his successors, I will say that it was when Höß was commandant, and under his responsibility, that a great many of the most terrible and horrendous crimes were committed.

The day after our arrival at Auschwitz, our transport was sent to Birkenau. After eight days at the camp, I went back to the camp in Auschwitz with 600 companions. Our transport was divided into two parts: 600 stayed in Birkenau, 600 got into Auschwitz.

In March 1943, as a result of a decision issued by the camp authorities, all Frenchmen from our transport were finally joined together in the Auschwitz camp. Only seventeen of those who were still alive went back to Birkenau. At this point, there were only around a hundred of us in the Auschwitz camp. From July 1942 to March 1943, in eight months, from 1200 companions who made up our transport when it first arrived, only 117 of us were still alive.

Between March 1943 and the end of the war, going through various camps, up until the moment of our liberation, we lost only 18 companions. Höß, therefore, bears the greatest responsibility for our sufferings, and for the death of the biggest part of our transport.

The organized destruction of our French companions was part of a general plan of destruction to which all prisoners were subjected, regardless of their race or nationality, and even for racists these conditions were most cruel.

What I could see – Höß could see it better than me and he knew about it.

The first of our companions to die in Auschwitz was a young man of 17, Batheron, who was killed with a stick by our szef blokowy [prisoner acting as a barrack warden]. This szef gave us a speech on discipline and chose him to kill, making us watch this example, to prove to us that human life has no significance in Auschwitz.

Two hours later, one of our companions, Voisin, went mad and threw himself onto the wire surrounding the camp – he was shot.

A few days later, when I was returning in a transport kommando, I saw a kapo hit an exhausted man. My prison companion from France, Jean Cazorla, wanted to protest: he was seized and immediately killed with sticks.

Every day, coming back from work, we carried the dead. Every night, our companions died, exhausted, or were killed under totally trivial pretexts.

At the end of August 1942, the men’s camp in Auschwitz was to be temporarily moved to the rooms of the women’s camp, and the women were moved to Birkenau. The order was issued with the aim of carrying out a disinfection of the camp. Because there wasn’t enough space in these buildings where we were supposed to settle, after the evening assembly Höß and the camp authorities carried out a selection that was applied to all the kommandos. All men who, physically, looked unfavorable, or had slightly swollen legs, were withdrawn from the ranks and sent to the gas chambers to be destroyed. Among these unfortunate ones was my companion Neel Louis, who lived in the same city as I back in France. In October 1942, he went to the sick room because of his leg wounds. I got typhus. On the day I left the sick room, a selection for the gas chamber was carried out. I managed to steer clear of this selection because the doctor had marked that I was leaving the sick room and that I was cured. One of my companions, Gamichon Réné, was sent to the gas chambers along with this section.

In December, after another 14-day stay in the sick room, I saw three selections for the gas chambers, and on the occasion of these selections another one of my companions went to the gas: André Sallenave, who had been my work companion in the same kommando.

One time, our kommando, 200-strong, left the camp in the morning to transport potatoes to storage; in the evening we came back with 30 dead. They were killed during the day by the kapos who were supervising our work, and by the SS guards who were watching over us.

During most of my confinement in Auschwitz, I worked in a locksmith kommando. It was a relatively good kommando, compared to other kommandos that were much harder. 65 Frenchmen from my transport were assigned to that kommando. When we were leaving Auschwitz in September 1944, there were only eight of us, even though in March 1943 there had still been 12 people. This was during the time when Höß was commandant.

After commandant Höß left the camp, we were still suffering, but the general camp conditions got better, and our small group of surviving Frenchmen had fewer difficulties, it was possible still to adapt to the camp regime relatively easily. The darkest of our years in the camp was the year that we spent during the time when Höß was commandant.
Chairperson: Are there no further questions? (No). The witness is free to go.

KAZIMIERZ SMOLEŃ

Kazimierz Smoleń

On 14 April 1945 in Kraków, I, Prosecutor Dr Wincenty Jarosiński, member of the Commission for the Investigation of German-Nazi Crimes in Oświęcim, with the participation of Helena Boguszewska-Kornacka, member of both the Commission and the State National Council, in accordance with Article 20 of the provisions for the implementation of the Code of Criminal Procedure, pursuant to Articles 107 and 115 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, interviewed Kazimierz Smoleń as a witness, former prisoner no. 96238 of the Auschwitz concentration camp, who testified as follows:
________________________________________
Name and surname Kazimierz Smoleń
Date and place of birth 15 November 1917 in Łysa Góra, Brzesko District
Parents’ names Michał and Aniela, née Mytnik
Place of residence Kraków, Basztowa Street 4, flat 14
Citizenship and nationality Polish
Religious affiliation Roman Catholic
Occupation clerk at the Społem Cooperative, first-year student at the Cooperative Institute at the Jagiellonian University in Kraków
Marital status single
Criminal record none
________________________________________
On 14 January 1943 at 5.00 a.m., I arrived in Nowy Sącz to visit one of my friends. When I was approaching his house, I noticed vehicles in front of the building. However, I paid no special attention to them. When I was about to cross the gateway, two men – Gestapo officers, as I found out later – got out of one of the cars and instructed me to get in, without asking a single question. Apart from those two Gestapo officers, there was also a driver in the car. They took me to the building which was the headquarters of the local Gestapo. I was taken to a room where I recognised one of the Gestapo officers who had brought me there. His surname was Górka (I do not know his first name): he was a resident of Nowy Sącz and I knew him by sight.

After they had brought me into the room, Górka took a document out of his pocket, read it and quietly said that the case had to be resolved by Hamann himself, the chief of the Gestapo. I realized then that the denunciation had to involve a serious accusation, because only such cases were handled by Hamann. After half an hour, I was brought into the chief’s office (I had been searched before that, but they had not found anything). Hamann asked me several questions, for example, if I belonged to any organization. I would like to point out that he did not ask me, but rather tried to convince me that the Gestapo had been informed that I belonged to an organization, had distributed leaflets and carried some orders from Kraków. He wanted me to confess, but when I denied all the accusations, Hamann said with irony, “Let’s see if you are telling us the truth,” and ordered one of the officers to put me in a cell.

In the afternoon, I was taken to Hamann for another interrogation. It lasted from 2 p.m. to 5 p.m. At the beginning, he asked me the same question that I had heard in the morning, and when I denied everything, two men in uniforms approached me and started hitting me in the face. Those men were torturers. After a while, they put me on a bench similar to those used for chopping wood in the countryside. They put me astride the bench in such a way that I had to lift the knees, and then they placed iron bars between my arms at the elbow joints and the knees. They tied my arms with a strap, so I could not move at all. I would like to point out that I was hanging above that bench, I did not sit on it – it resembled a swing. This is where the name of such an instrument (“swing”) comes from in prison jargon.

One of the officers was pushing me, while the other was beating me with thick electric cables plaited together and soaked in water. The beating lasted for about 15 minutes. I felt terrible pain and I was already slightly stunned. When they stopped beating me, but while I was still in a hanging position, they asked me if I was going to tell them the truth. When I answered that I had been telling the truth from the beginning, they took me off the “swing,” and tried to convince me – a bit more kindly – that there was no use in resisting and that I had to confess to the deeds I had been accused of. Hamann himself did this. I had heard stories about him. If people confessed to a crime, he never spared their lives, so I realized that my situation was very serious. I stated once again that I was telling the truth and I addressed Hamann directly, saying that I would not confess to anything, because I was sure that even if I admitted that I had committed the acts I was being accused of, I would not survive anyway. Then, Hamann gave an order to take me to the dark cell for the night and said ironically, “Think it over by tomorrow.”

The dark cell was a small basement without a window, with a concrete floor, covered with a 5 cm layer of water. The walls were completely damp and the airflow was seriously restricted. From the moment I was detained until 9.00 a.m., I was given nothing to eat or drink. Finally, at 9 a.m., a turnkey whom I did not know came to the dark cell and brought me a cup of dark and bitter coffee and about forty grams of dark bread. I would like to add that the dark cell was located in the prison in Nowy Sącz, about 500 meters away from the Gestapo building. I was brought there after Hamann had interrogated me. About an hour after the breakfast – it was already on 15 January – prison guard Johan, a provost and Gestapo officer, came to the dark cell, put me in American handcuffs, and took me to the Gestapo building.

He brought me into a room where I saw various tools. I immediately realized they were torture instruments used for extorting confessions. In the room, there was also a “clerk” I had not seen before and the two officers that had beaten me on the “swing” in Hamann’s office. The “clerk” asked me a few unrelated questions concerning my personal life, and started repeating the questions, or rather accusations, that I had heard from Hamann the previous day. Once again, I categorically denied I was guilty. Then, the two “torturers” approached me, and the “clerk” gave them a signal to brutally tie me up with a chain and pull me up to a post that had been specially prepared for that purpose.

I was hung in a position in which I could touch the ground only with the tips of my toes, and my whole body was hanging by the arms, which were bent backwards (forming the so-called post). I hung like that for about 45 minutes, while they were trying to force me to confess. When I told them that I would not tell them anything different even if they tried to kill me, because I had been telling the truth the whole time, they took me off the post and let me sit on a chair. They even offered me a cigarette. I was afraid that it might contain some narcotic substances, so I did not take it. For the same reason, I did not drink the vodka that they offered me later on. I was starving, so I ate two slices of bread with butter that the Gestapo officers gave me.

In the meantime, they were trying to force me to confess, promising that they would let me go. This lasted almost until noon, and then they locked me in an unused toilet, where I stayed until 3 p.m. Then, they took me again to that room and the same men tried to make me believe again that I had committed the acts I was being accused of, while constantly hitting, kicking, and pushing me. At 5 p.m., I was put in handcuffs and taken back to the prison basement. The following day at 9 a.m., I was interrogated in the Gestapo building, in the same room as the previous day. The interrogation was performed by the same “clerk”. Then, he dictated my testimony to a typist.

Both the interrogation and the report were in German. I do not speak German, but I understand that language quite well. When the typist finished the report, she told me what it was about. According to the report, I had confessed – contrary to my testimony – that I belonged to a secret organization, distributed leaflets, and acted as a messenger between Nowy Sącz and Kraków. When I categorically refused to sign the report, the two “torturers” in uniforms burst into the room and started beating me with whips on the head, back, and other parts of my body. I fainted, so they poured cold water on me and continued the beating until I fainted again. I do not know if they asked me to do anything, or who it was that was beating me later on and how long it took. I only remember that when I regained consciousness for a moment, they were hitting me on the thighs with a small hammer. I woke up in the evening and I realized I was in the same unused toilet as the previous day. That very evening I was taken in handcuffs to a prison cell. There was no interrogation for the following two days.

In the meantime, the prison in Nowy Sącz was being filled with people detained during roundups on the streets of Nowy Sącz and nearby territories. These people were then transferred to the prison in Tarnów. On 19 January 1943, I was taken back to Hamann. He asked me how I felt and why I had not signed the report. When I told him that the report was not consistent with my testimony, and that I preferred to be killed than tortured, Hamann dictated another report, which contained specific charges and according to which I did not consider myself guilty. The last interrogation was so quick and involved no beating due to the fact that the Gestapo in Nowy Sącz were at that time busy with interrogating large numbers of arrested people and sending them to Tarnów. I guess this saved my life.

After three days, I was transported in handcuffs – like the most dangerous criminal – together with about 80 people to the prison in Tarnów, where I stayed until 28 January 1943. Then, I was sent to the Auschwitz camp with a group of 1200 men and 800 women.

The torture room was located on the first floor. There were two windows, which were always covered with thick curtains, and two doors. In the corner in front of the entrance, there was a desk next to the typist’s desk and a wardrobe. On the other side of the room, there was a table with chairs. By the wall with the entrance door, there were the “post,” the “swing,” a chair resembling a dentist’s chair, and buckets with riding whips.

On 28 January 1943 in the Tarnów prison, we were informed that we would be transferred. They gathered us all in the prison yard. We knew they would take us to the Auschwitz camp, because Polish guards from the prison had told us so. However at the station, the commander of the transport announced that we would go to Germany to work, and warned us that if we tried to escape, the transport would be decimated. We were escorted to the station in groups of 200 people. Guarded by police and SS officers, we were loaded in groups of a hundred people into cattle cars, which were closed afterwards. When we arrived at the station in Kraków, as we found out later on, 500 prisoners from the Montelupich prison were loaded into the train. We arrived at the railway station in Auschwitz at 8 p.m.

The station was illuminated by floodlights. As soon as the train cars were opened, I heard loud screams, “Los, aussteigen, schnell!” and I saw a huge number of SS officers with revolvers in one hand and riding whips in the other – they used them to ruthlessly beat the prisoners getting off the train. Initially we thought that we would be taken to the camp by vehicles that were parked nearby and were empty, but we soon noticed that the vehicles were leaving, and then we were divided into groups of five and rushed – between two rows of SS officers – to the Birkenau camp, which was three kilometres away.

I would like to point out that the road was covered in ice, so it was easy for us to slip. Those who fell were ruthlessly beaten and kicked to death. As I found out later, the vehicles that had left the station empty were supposed to transport Jewish prisoners straight to the gas chamber. When I arrived at the Auschwitz station, apart from the SS officers, I also saw groups of prisoners wearing striped clothes who searched the emptied cars on the SS officers’ command. They were the so- called Canada detail. 20 people from our transport had been killed already on the way, and many of us were beaten. After we walked through the so-called red gate in Birkenau, we were overwhelmed by the thousands of lights on the multiple barbed wires that surrounded the camp. Another thing I noticed right off were the wooden and brick barracks. There were about 400 of them. When we arrived at the camp proper, we saw groups of about 200 people standing outside each of the barracks. It was roll call time. The men were then separated from the women: the men were taken to the men’s camp, the women – to the women’s camp. I was taken, along with a group of 500 people, to the so-called Zugangsblock [block for the newly arrived], no. 22.

The block was completely empty and it was where prisoners’ personal data was registered. It was a stable-like barrack, divided in two by a furnace duct in the form of a long chest. We were left on one side of the barrack, while the other side was still occupied by Jews who had arrived before us from Vawkavysk. The registration was performed by prisoners. They spoke Polish. I would like to add that we were registered two days later because on that very day about 5000 people in four transports – from Tarnów, Kraków, Teresin, Vawkavysk, and Łódź – had arrived at the camp.

While the Jews were being registered, right after we had been shoved into the barracks, some prisoners who dressed differently than others, in dark blue jackets with green badges, came in and asked the newly arrived prisoners to give them all the valuable items they had, because they would be deprived of everything anyway. Each of those prisoners carried a cane and had a yellow badge with the word “kapo” on their arm. They were German because they spoke only that language. Some of the newly arrived prisoners gave them their valuables.

From the morning of 27 January 1943, when we were given a cup of black coffee and a piece of dry bread, we did not receive anything until 29 January at 10 a.m. We were all extremely thirsty and were dreaming of having some water, but Polish prisoners, who had already been in the camp for a while, approached us and warned us that we should not drink the water, because it was unhealthy and caused diarrhea. Instead, they brought us a barrel of coffee, but only those who were weakest could get some, and only a bit. The coffee was not officially intended for us, but rather it was stolen or – as we used to say in the camp – “organized” by those prisoners.

On 29 January at 4 a.m., while the night was still dark, we were rushed out of the barrack to the square situated in front of it. I realized then that from my group, consisting of 500 people, two men were already dead. Their bodies had been placed in the square so that the number of prisoners was correct. At 7 a.m., an SS officer arrived and received a report from the block senior. The block senior was a Jew, he had a star on his side and a red badge with the number 22 on his arm. Before the SS officer arrived, the block senior had lined us up in ten rows and had trained us. He instructed us that we should take off our hats to every SS officer, and that we had to quickly take them off and put them on at the “Mutzen auf, mutzen ab” command.

Right after the roll call, I saw something that struck me most and which will stay in my memory for the rest of my life. I saw prisoners taking between several and several dozen dead naked bodies out of every barrack. They were placing them on trolleys or sledges, and taking them to a special shed, a morgue, the so-called Leichenhalle. It happened every day. On the first day, I counted about 200 dead bodies, and many more later on, because the mortality increased to 500 people per day. The majority of the corpses were brought to the evening roll call by work details. Then, they were taken to blocks and, after the morning roll call, to the morgue. Those were usually people killed by work supervisors, the so-called Kapos.

Another thing that attracted my attention was a building with a high chimney situated next to it, about 80 meters away from block 22, outside the wires surrounding the camp, the so-called Effektenkammer [storehouse for prisoners’ belongings]. When I asked one of the prisoners who had been in the camp longer than I what kind of building it was, he said, “It’s a factory and you’ll burn in there in a couple of weeks.” At first I did not know what he meant, but later on I learned that the facility was indeed a newly built crematorium. There were still no gas chambers at that time, so people were poisoned with gas in a house situated by the forest. The house was white, had a tile roof, and had been confiscated from some farmer. Next to the house there was also a sealed barn or shed which was also used for gas poisoning. Gassed prisoners were burnt on wood pyres drenched with kerosene or oil. In the crematorium that I have mentioned, they only burnt corpses that had been taken outside the camp. I am sure that at that time the gas chambers at crematorium I and the other three crematoria with gas chambers were already being built. I saw it with my own eyes, because later on during my stay I was employed at the construction of those buildings.

On 29 January at 10 a.m., each of us was given a piece of bread (about 350 grams), and at about noon we got some nettle soup. We stood at the square outside the block until the evening roll call, that is, until 9.00 p.m., in mud because the snow was melting. Then, we were taken to block 20, the so-called quarantine block. We did not get any supper. The block was divided into four rooms. By the walls there were pieces of furniture resembling wardrobes, the so-called buksas, whose inside was 1.8 m high, about 2 m long, and about 80 cm wide.
They looked like chests, were open at one side, had no front wall, and were situated one upon another, just like rabbit cages. Those chests were our beds. Each of them could fit from nine to twelve prisoners. It was impossible to turn around and we did not undress.

There were no mattresses or pillows, but only four or five blankets that prisoners had to share. The floor was concrete, so those who slept in the lowest bunk slept on the stone. There was no ceiling in the block, but only a wood wool roof. The windows were constructed in such a way that they could not be opened. There was no water, no toilets. There was no water at all in the whole camp, except for the kitchen and the bathhouse where it was taken from a well.

There were 960 people in that block. The following day at 4 a.m., we were rushed again to the square outside the block. At the entrance, every prisoner was given a bit of bread and about 20 grams of marmalade, and then once we were in the square some cold coffee in bowls. One bowl was used by several or a dozen people, and each person had a few sips. We all stood there in horrible conditions from the morning roll call until evening. The square was very small and steep, and its lowest situated part was covered with melted snow, so all 960 prisoners had to crowd into the remaining area.

For dinner, we were given rutabaga soup, about half a liter per person. Throughout the whole day, the prisoners were being registered alphabetically. Since the formalities took a lot of time, the registration lasted for three days. Those who were registered were then taken to the bathhouse in groups of 100. The showers were cold and we were given no soap or towels, so we put our clothes on our wet bodies. Before we took the shower, we had all been shaved, deprived of personal belongings, and treated with some delousing liquid. Then we received socks, long underpants, a shirt, trousers, a striped drill blouse, a striped coat and a hat. From the bathhouse we were taken back to block 20, but those who had been registered went to a different part of the block. I was registered on the second day and I received the number 96238.

When we were giving up our personal belongings in the bathhouse to be stored in a warehouse, only jewelry and valuable items were listed – underwear, clothes, and other things we had were not. Each of us had to put our number, which we had received at the registration, into a pocket.

Before we took the shower, while we were waiting in the square for our turn, we had been approached by about 15 SS men who, screaming loudly and hitting us with riding whips, sticks, and canes, rushed us outside the gate, to the forest in the direction of the white house. We all had to run in that direction and when we reached the forest, and that white house, we had to take each other’s hands in groups of five. At that time, nobody knew what was in that house and why we had been rushed there. When we got there, one of the SS men started giving us orders in German, but we did not understand him. Then, one of the prisoners who spoke German, Stanisław Kucharski, the head teacher of a secondary school in Chorzów, prisoner no. 95712, offered to interpret the orders into Polish, because the rest did not understand anything.

Then the SS man he had addressed said, “How is it that Jews don’t understand German?” Kucharski explained to him that we were not Jews and that we had been transferred to the camp from prisons in Tarnów and Kraków. Then they asked Kucharski whether we had seen a group of Jews near the bathhouse. One of the inmates said that he had seen a group of prisoners kneeling near the guardhouse. An SS man, who was passing by on a motorcycle was then sent there to check it. When he returned, we were escorted to an empty barrack, which was still under construction, and we stayed there until late at night. For that reason we became even more uneasy. A few days later, we learned that the white house was a gas chamber, the group of kneeling prisoners were Jews, and that they were taken there instead of us and gassed on that very day.

About 1 a.m., we were taken to the bathhouse. We took a shower and returned to the barracks in block 20. we felt relief and received some bread. We stayed in the quarantine block for about two weeks. It was there that I witnessed for the first time a lynching at the hands of prisoners. The block senior was a Silesian named Leon Siwy, and he was one of the “better” people. Although he sometimes beat us, he never killed or injured prisoners, unlike his deputy, Józek from Częstochowa. Józek was a common prisoner: short, scrawny, with the face of a sadist. He had a burn mark under his left eye. He was a brutal and violent person, “the worst brute.” He never missed an opportunity to remind us that he would beat us for the smallest violations, that there was no God, and that if we were believers, we should just pray and see if he would help us. “In a few weeks, you’ll all be dead, because you’ve come here to die,” he used to say. Józek often abused prisoners without any serious reason, punishing us with 20 strong blows with a cane on the buttocks.

He did not care where he hit us and with what tool, or whether the prisoner would survive, die as a result of the beating, or become a cripple. I saw with my own eyes that one evening he killed a prisoner by hitting him with a cane in the neck between the chin and the base. He pushed the ends of the cane down with his legs in order to choke the prisoner, who was already lying on the ground. Afterwards, while being transported to another camp, Józek was killed by prisoners who decided to lynch him. I also had a similar experience with him. When we were going to take a shower, he told us he would safeguard our belongings, because we could lose them in the bathhouse.

I gave him a diamond ring, but when I asked him to give it back after the shower, he punched me in the face and said, “I’ll give you your ring.” After he behaved like that, I never asked him for the ring again. Józek had a helper – Stubendienst [room orderly] Oleszczuk, a man displaced from Zamość Voivodeship, who later died in the camp. Both Oleszczuk and other Stubendiensts, whose names I do not remember, treated prisoners in a similar manner, maybe less calculating, but ruthlessly brutal. Józek rewarded them with bigger portions of bread, soup, and additional food items.

Throughout my stay in the camp, the most difficult things to bear were hunger, thirst, and cold. As a result of such conditions and the fact that we were constantly being forced to stand in the fields, while it was wet and cold outside, those who were less immune started to fall sick and die. A week after we arrived at the quarantine block, our group was divided among different work units. I was assigned to the KGL (Kanalisation Kriegsgefangenenlager) detail.

The work was hard, because we had to dig sewage ditches that were several meters deep, install concrete pipes, and remove the dirt, which was then taken elsewhere on wheelbarrows by other prisoners. We usually had to take the dirt out in our coats, because it was impossible to drive a wheelbarrow through the deep mud. Our supervisor was Kapo Lucjan, a very decent man. I never saw him hit anyone – he was more likely to give somebody a piece of bread. In general, the supervisors of that detail were good people.

I worked in that detail for a week only. Then, I was transferred to the Planierung detail. The Kapo was Paweł Gulba from Silesia. He was also a good man. Our task was to carry dirt from the pits to the barracks. The detail consisted of 1200 people, divided in groups of 100 that each had their own Kapo.

I know that apart from the above-mentioned details, there was also the Kommando Daumbau whose tasks were similar to ours (I believe that its name comes from the name of a company), and Kommando Kompostierung, which was responsible for the maintenance of guard booths, the so-called small and big Postenkette. The small Postenkette was the inner cordon of guard posts, the big Postenkette – the outer, bigger cordon, which included the Abladenkommando (building materials unit); the work units of crematoria I, II, III and IV; the Sonderkommando, consisting of about 180 people (later on about 800) whose task was to burn piles of corpses; a construction company called Wagner; and work units that employed only professionals, for example Zimmererkommando and Instalateurerkommando. I would like to add that, in addition to prisoners, private companies also employed civilians – Poles (with green badges) and Germans (with yellow badges) – who lived outside the camp and received appropriate remuneration. Work was the hardest in non-professional details because their Kapos were usually not professionals but common criminals – I remember some of their names. As a matter of fact, those people were infamous in the camp for their cruelty and brutality towards prisoners. The Kapos are responsible for the deaths of thousands of innocent prisoners whom they murdered themselves or through their helpers.

I know the following men: “Bloody Alojz,” Arnold Bem, Huna Koch, Aleks Wieland no. 14, Herman, and many other “bullies,” including “the Ruffian from Düsseldorf” and others whose names I do not remember. One of the worst of them was the Kapo of the Dachdeckers detail, Heppol, who later left the camp and joined the SS. I cannot provide the address of those people or say anything more about them.

I only heard that Koch was related to Koch the Gauleiter of East Prussia. All the people whom I have mentioned spread terror throughout the whole camp.

Their work consisted only in beating and killing. I would like to add that professional details were supervised by Kapos who were professionals, usually Poles, and who – as intelligent people – were friendly towards other inmates. The Kapos that I have mentioned earlier treated prisoners with bestiality, for example, they pushed prisoners from the highest level of a Kiesgrube [gravel pit], which had several levels, for no reason. The prisoners fell into the water at the lowest level and drowned. The Kapos would also trap prisoners under an empty barrel, sit on it and have a meal, while the prisoner suffocated.

They also made bets on which one of them could kill a prisoner with a single blow. The Kapos beat prisoners with sticks until they lost consciousness, and when the prisoner fell on the ground, they would finish him off by kicking him. The intelligentsia was subject to particular persecution, while real criminals were considered respectable people. I saw with my own eyes that a Kapo who was segregating and selecting people for work, asked them what they were by profession. If somebody said that he was a criminal or that he knew the work he was supposed to perform, the Kapo put him aside, but when he found a man who had graduated from a university, for example a lawyer, professor, or judge, he would beat him and immediately assign him to do the worst possible jobs. Court employees, judges and prosecutors were treated the worst, so nobody would admit that this was their profession. However, policemen received even worse treatment. I know that if someone said he was a policeman, he was killed on spot.

We left for work at about 7 a.m., right after the roll call, or at dawn, depending on the season. The camp orchestra played while we marched off to work. A group of SS men stood at the gate and counted the details. Each detail had its own number. We had to step to the rhythm of the march, without hats, to our place of work. At about 5 p.m. (in winter) we went back to the camp, accompanied again by the orchestra, and gathered for a roll call. It took quite a lot of time, because the strongest prisoners were selected for the first rows. Then, there were the so-called “musulmanns,” who straggled after them.

At the back, we carried the corpses of prisoners who had died or been killed at work. If a Kapo reported any transgression committed at work by his detail, the whole camp had to stand at attention during the evening roll call, kneel or remain in a half-squat position, called Kniebeugen. It lasted several hours. The same happened if the camp authorities were not able to count the prisoners. It took place regardless of whether it rained, snowed, or was windy. On such days, we were given dinner late at night, when we were often completely soaked. The corpses were brought into our blocks. If a Kapo reported a missing prisoner at the roll call, the siren sounded immediately, and the SS men with Kapos and dogs searched for the alleged escapee within the big Postenkette. I have said “alleged escapee” because prisoners often lost consciousness and were not able to show up in the appropriate detail.

If the search did not yield any results, the SS men and the Kapos, and Blockführers with the Rapportführer, would select 20–30 prisoners at random from the block of the missing prisoners. Those prisoners were executed by firing squad on the same day.

After two days of work in the Planierung detail, I was assigned to the work unit at crematorium II where I worked for two days. The building was already finished, but there were no furnaces or gas chamber – they were still under construction at that time. The crematorium was located right next to crematorium I, which I have already mentioned, and was built in exactly the same manner. Each of the crematoria could fit 2000 people at once. The gas chambers were situated underground and could be accessed by stairs, like basements. At that time, the chambers were still empty, so at first sight they looked like shower rooms.

The crematorium itself was a huge hall with small rooms located next to it. Above the rooms there were flats, later on intended for the prisoners employed in the Sonderkommando who operated the crematorium. The crematorium was still under construction at that time. The Kapo of the Krematoriumkommando was the so-called “Ruffian from Düsseldorf.” He gained his nickname for allegedly having murdered a dozen or so people in that city. He also had the look of a criminal.

He was a medium-height man with protruding cheekbones, bulging dark eyes, black joined eyebrows, a grim look, frowned forehead, disproportionately long, monkey-like arms, bandy legs, and an athletic body. Everyone was scared to death of him. All prisoners avoided any contact with him, because if you did not step out of his way, you could be killed. That Kapo was later transferred to another camp.

My job in the crematorium was to carry bricks. One evening, after three weeks of quarantine, we were all instructed after the roll call to form groups of five and we were taken to block 14. I remember very well that from the 960 people who began the quarantine with me, only 580 were alive after three weeks. The rest were killed at work by Stubendiensts, Kapos. A small number of them died of exhaustion.

Immediately after I moved to block 14, I fell sick and I could feel I had a high fever, but I still went to work because I knew that the prisoners who were sick and did not work were taken by the SS men to the gas chambers and poisoned.

I worked in various details. However, each day I was more ill and after a few days I could not even stand on my feet. The doctors informed me later that I had suffered from bilateral pneumonia. The situation I found myself in was disastrous because I was not able to work, but I knew I would get poisoned if I stopped working. My friends carried me for the morning roll call. Throughout the whole evening roll call I lay in the mud, because I was not able to stand. Therefore, I decided to go to the hospital.

When I arrived at the infirmary, which was located in block 12, I saw a queue of about 150 prisoners waiting at the entrance. It was impossible for the doctor to see all those prisoners in one day, so it was only thanks to my wits that I managed to avoid queuing and got inside the block. I was examined by Dr Roman Zenkteler from the Poznań District, prisoner no. 20497. He took my temperature, asked what was wrong, and instructed me to come back the following day after the roll call. On the following day during the morning roll call, when I was not able to stand at all and I was lying in mud, the block Schreiber called out my number and told me to go to the hospital.

Block 12 could only fit about 70 patients, the so-called “prominents.” We knew they would not be sent to the gas chambers. The sick that were to be sent for gassing were placed in block 7, and they were taken to the gas chambers by trucks once a week. On that day, 35 prisoners were admitted to the hospital – 33 were placed in block 7, while prisoner Michał Adamczewski, a camp cook, and I were sent to block 12. However, before we were assigned there, we had been examined once again by a German doctor, Untersturmführer Rohde. I do not know why I was assigned to block 12. A year later, I asked Dr Zenkteler about it, and he said “I knew you’d survive anyway.”

Zenkteler was a 56-year-old chunky man, with thick bones, short and bandy legs, round face, and bushy eyebrows. He was distrustful, treated the sick harshly and often hit them for minor misbehavior. He was ruthless towards younger doctors and the infirmary personnel – for the smallest transgressions they were beaten, scolded, or removed from the hospital and sent to work in the camp. Together with German doctors, he selected the sick for the gas chambers. Sometimes it was impossible to understand that man because if you confronted him in a harsh manner, you could win his affection with your courage. He was a big coward and was very afraid of the SS men, while the sick and the hospital personnel were terribly afraid of him. He came from the Poznań District and later became the so-called senior hospital Lagerältester.

At the beginning, I had my own bed in the hospital, later I shared it with another man. The food was the same as in the work part of the camp. The doctors examined us, recorded our medical history, but they did not give us any medicines. Throughout my entire stay, which lasted 8 days, I was given only one aspirin pill. Then I was transferred to block 8, the block of the sick, where I also stayed for 8 days. I was placed in room 4 with prisoners suffering from typhus fever. People could not reveal that they were suffering from typhus because they would be killed by phenol injection. Doctors who were prisoners, or even Rohde, who was German, turned a blind eye and diagnosed such patients as suffering from “influenza” in their medical files.

After I stayed in block 8 for four days, Dr Jerzy Reichmann, a Pole, came to my room and asked, “Who can read and write in German?” I was among those who came forward. After I wrote down the anamnesis of a patient, which I did well, I was employed as a Schreiber in the surgical room of Dr Chaim Krause, a Polish Jew from Kielce. He was more eager to treat the sick if they gave him something to eat. My task was to write down the medical history dictated by the doctor, count the number of patients, clean the room and take the corpses out. Occupying that position, I had greater freedom of movement, and since block 8 was situated next to block 7, I had a chance to see transports of prisoners destined for the gas chambers.

Generally, people from block 8 were not taken to the gas chambers. However, sometimes if there were not enough people in block 7 to fill the required number sent for gassing on a given day, the sick from block 8 filled the empty places. I know that once or twice completely healthy work personnel, consisting of prisoners from block 7, were taken to the gas chambers so that the number indicated on the gassing order was reached. The decision on who should be transferred from block 8 to block 7, and consequently sent to the gas chambers, was taken by prisoner doctors. They usually chose terminally ill patients. There were two transports to the gas chambers per week, mostly in the morning, when the rest of the prisoners were outside the camp.

Prisoners selected for gassing were first gathered in block 7 or in its yard. Then, trucks arrived and the sick were hurried or thrown inside, and the whole transport headed towards the gas chambers. Sometimes prisoners destined for gassing had a tattoo with the letter “A”. At the end of February or at the beginning of March 1943, the gassing was still taking place in the temporary chamber, in the white house by the forest. The average daily mortality in block 8, when I stayed there, amounted to 20–30 people out of a total of about 250 sick. In block 7, the mortality was significantly higher. On average, the number of prisoners in that block was about 800.

About 150 of them died every day, but I remember that one day that number rose to as many as 320 people. Prisoners in block 7 were treated and fed the same as other blocks, but since only seriously ill prisoners were placed there and their number was so high that there was hardly enough room for them in the block, the majority of those who died simply suffocated due to lack of air. At that time, the senior of block 7 was Wiktor Mordarski, prisoner no. 3000, former deputy prosecutor from Nowy Sącz. He helped prisoners a lot, saving them from transports. If the number of prisoners that had to be taken to the gas chambers was not clearly indicated in the order, but he was only instructed to take some prisoners from block 7, he was able to transfer several healthy prisoners to block 8.

In this way, he saved the lives of many people who are still alive today. In order to do so, he had to reach an agreement with the senior of block 8. At that time, that position was held by Józef Bernacik from Poznań, prisoner no. 15517, who came to Auschwitz from Dachau. He was a very good person, so all prisoners called him “Dad” – he gave a sense of security to all Poles. Later on, he became Lagerkapo, and since he was one of the older prisoners and spoke good German, he was respected also by German Kapos.

Since I had been placed in the room for patients suffering from typhus, I contracted that disease. For the fourteen days that I was sick, I received no medication and, despite very high temperature, I had to walk barefoot on a stone floor to the toilet situated about 30 steps away. During that time, almost all the Poles in Birkenau were being sent to other concentration camps in Germany.
Those who stayed in Birkenau were only sick Poles, a part of the hospital personnel, and a few professionals. All the Poles from the transports who had previously held the position of Kapo or performed administrative functions in the camp were replaced by Czechs and Jews.

I was afraid that I would lose my job as a doctor’s Schreiber, so I returned to work, although I was still very ill. While I was suffering from typhus I ate almost nothing, so I got hunger diarrhea. My life was saved only thanks to food packages I began receiving from home almost every day.

In November 1942, as my friends told me, 60 boys from Zamojszczyzna were brought to Birkenau with their families. The boys were all under 14 years old and were placed in a separate block. At the end of March, they were transferred to Auschwitz and, as I found out later from my fellow inmates, injected with phenol. Only three boys survived from that group. The senior of block 7, Mordarski, managed to hide them in his block. When I was staying in block 8, I saw through a keyhole SS man Franz Schulz, who was not a doctor, but a Röttenführer, injecting phenol into about 20 Greek Jews suffering from malaria.

I saw them being escorted from block 7 to the infirmary room in block 8, and then brought one by one into the room where Schulz was waiting. Schulz instructed every prisoner to undress from the waist up, approached him, stuck the needle deep into the prisoner’s heart, and injected phenol. After such an injection, the prisoner collapsed immediately. Then, Jewish prisoners who were there with Schulz took the convict by his arms and pulled him into the carpenter’s room. After the entire group was injected, the corpses were taken away by ambulance from the carpenter’s room to an unknown location. The last transport of prisoners from block 7 to the gas chambers took place at the end of March or at the beginning of April 1943.

From that moment on, Aryan patients were no longer gassed. Additionally, during that time in the camp, an official order was issued which prohibited the beating of prisoners, but it did not mean that all beatings stopped. That moment marked the beginning of a better life for the camp prisoners. We were treated slightly better and from June 1943 those who suffered from typhus could admit they were ill, without the fear of being injected. There was even a typhus fever ward created in the camp. At that time, 600 patients infected with this illness received treatment.

At the end of April and the beginning of May 1943, three transports of Poles, consisting of about 3000 people, arrived at Birkenau. Two transports were from Warsaw, and one from Łódź. These usually contained members of the intelligentsia and people who had been involved in underground activities. They brought a new life to the camp, where the Poles had felt alienated during the previous three months because there had been just a small group of us. The newcomers occupied many positions in the camp’s self-government. They cheered us up by bringing us news about the political situation, sometimes about our families, and the situation in the General Government. On 17 May, I replaced a Czech, who had been sent to a newly opened camp for Gypsy families, as a block clerk.

Before I went to the bathhouse for the first time, I had hid my purse with documents in the bunk bed in which I slept, so when I became a block Schreiber, I hid it in a closet in the Schreibstube. Two days after I became a Schreiber, an SS man from the Political Department came to our room and searched it thoroughly without saying a word. He found my purse with my documents, hit me several times in the face, took the documents away, and threatened that I would be sent to the Strafkommando [penal unit] under the suspicion of attempted escape. I was very scared because I knew very well from my friends’ stories what the Strafkommando was. I had also had a chance to see it for myself when observing prisoners working in that detail.

Sometimes prisoners from the Strafkommando could get help from doctors and be placed in the hospital, but it only happened to a few of them. The number of people in the SK was usually over 200. Prisoners in the SK did not know how long they would stay there. The periods differed, but there were also people who had been sentenced for a permanent stay in the SK. You could be transferred there even for a small violation of rules. The SK was located in block 1. The yard was surrounded by a high wall topped with barbed wire. The SK prisoners were allowed to leave the block and the yard only when escorted by SS men to work.

They were prohibited from communicating with prisoners from other blocks. Their job was to dig drainage ditches stretching around the camp or to do Vistula River engineering works. They had to work quickly and the only way they could move around was to run. The Kapos in the SK were only German, the biggest criminals and sadists. Although those prisoners were given the same food as prisoners in other blocks, they could hardly ever finish their meal because they were being persecuted by the SS men, block authorities, and Kapos. The SK prisoners were often woken up at night, ruthlessly beaten with sticks, kicked, and often forced to stand in rows in the block yard for an entire night. Then, they were rushed off to work, without any food.

One inmate, whose name I cannot remember right now, but it might have been Antoni Kępa from Łódź, prisoner no. 6874, a barber by profession, who worked as a barber in the SK for some time, told me that one day in winter, the whole SK was ordered to stand naked in a field all night long. At work, they were treated in a cruel manner and were brutally beaten all over their bodies and killed with anything that was lying around, not only for the smallest misconduct but also for behavior that the SS man or Kapo simply did not like. They were drowned in the ditches they dug.

Therefore, it is not surprising that in such conditions it was impossible to survive, and some prisoners left the SK alive only thanks to favorable circumstances and exceptional luck. Every day, several dozen corpses arrived by a special cart from the SK workplace. The block leader and Kapos entertained themselves in the block by telling one or several prisoners that they would die in a few minutes, then they would hang them on a hook in the toilets at the sound of a gong.

The prisoners died of suffocation. Another method that was used to kill people was to hang them by their legs on a hook, while putting their head into a bucket filled with water. Other common methods of harassment included Kniebeugen, physical activities, and forcing prisoners to satisfy their natural needs at a specific time and pace. Regardless of the season, the prisoners had to wash themselves naked in the morning, but they were given no towels, so they had to put the underwear on while still being wet.

Apart from the SK, there was also another way to punish prisoners for small violations, namely placing them in a bunker. The bunkers were located in block 2. I saw with my own eyes what the bunkers looked like. Some of them were 60 by 80 cm, and were 2 m high, so the prisoner was able to stand up inside, but other bunkers had a ceiling so low that it was only possible to remain in a bowed position. There were no windows or doors. The bunkers were completely empty, had a stone floor, and could be entered through a hole that was padlocked and situated under the floor. Sometimes more – up to four – prisoners were squeezed into such a bunker.

Due to lack of air, the prisoners suffocated. When they left the bunker, they often had bite wounds on their fingers, which they had inflicted on themselves because of the pain they felt while suffocating in uncomfortable positions. Generally, prisoners were placed in such bunkers for a night, and they had to go to work the following morning. They did not know how long they would stay in the bunker. The period varied. I knew an inmate named Wiesław Kielar from Jarosław, prisoner no. 290, who was punished with a month in a bunker for wearing two sweaters at work in winter.

During the time when I was in Birkenau and the SK was located there, the seniors of block 1 were Arnold Bom, a German, prisoner no. 8, and two Poles from Chorzów who had signed some documents in the camp certifying their German citizenship: Franciszek Daniach, whose number was over 11000, and Emil Bednarek, with a number over 1000.
In the yard of the SK block, there was a gallows, where official death sentences were executed, and a bench used for flogging prisoners. The executions for a so-called escape attempt took place in the presence of the whole camp in the roll call square.

Women who were brought to the camp were placed in a separate women’s camp located just behind the wires of the men’s camp. It was called FKL (Frauenkonzentrationslager). The admission process was exactly the same as in the men’s camp, but women, after they had undressed, were rushed completely naked to the bathhouse which was located in the FKL. If there was not enough room in the FKL, they were rushed to the bathhouse in our camp, also completely naked.

The women had their heads, armpits, and their intimate parts shaved by men. Generally, the personnel in the bathhouse consisted of men, while groups of women were escorted by SS men and the so-called SS Aufseherinnen.

On 23 July 1943, the whole men’s camp was transferred from the so-called BIb (Bauabschnitt Ib) to the newly built BII, but healthy prisoners were placed in section BIId, while the sick went to section BIIf. Between the work area of the camp and the hospital area, there was section BIIe, which was occupied by Gypsies from April 1943. The hospital area BIIf consisted of 18 wooden Swiss-type barracks with floors and windows. Those barracks were warm, light, had a ceiling and normal stoves. Bunk beds in the rooms had two levels. There were about 44 beds in each barrack, which could fit about 90 people. Later on, sometimes about 170 people were placed in the blocks for people suffering from typhus. Living conditions improved considerably and food portions (better soup, white bread) for seriously ill prisoners increased. At that time, I was a block Schreiber in typhus blocks 10 and 11.

The Gypsy camp BIIe consisted of 32 stable-type barracks. The first transports arrived in April and within the following few months the number of people reached 18 thousand. The families were kept together, so the men resided with the women and children. They received black badges, which meant Asoziale [asocial] and Arbeitsscheue [layabout], and their numbers were preceded by letter “Z” for Zigeuner [Gypsy].

They were numbered from one to 18 thousand. At first, the Gypsies were treated and fed better than other prisoners. The camp authorities also organized a so-called Kindergarten with a merry-go-round for the children. Initially, they did not work in the camp, but their task was to keep their section clean. The majority of these Gypsies were German. Their camp resembled a normal Gypsy camp outside Auschwitz, because the Gypsies wore their own civilian clothes. Some of them were people who had served in the German army, but were taken from their homes and placed in the Gypsy camp while they were on vacation and wore civilian clothes.

They were able to get food items and other things in their own canteen, which was considerably better equipped than our camp kitchen. They were allowed to have money, while we were not since we had coupons. The Gypsies begged through the barbed wires and tricked other prisoners out of food in exchange for so-called fortune telling. Only Gypsy women were fortune- tellers. Since their camp was extremely dirty, infectious diseases, such as typhus or scarlet fever, began to spread, which resulted in a relatively high mortality.

The Gypsy camp existed until July 1944. During that period, 12 thousand people died of various diseases. At the beginning of July, 2000 of the healthiest men and women were selected out of the 6000 people who were still alive, and taken to Germany to work, while the remaining 4000, which I saw with my own eyes, were loaded onto trucks and taken to the gas chambers, where they were poisoned. The Gypsies were being loaded onto the trucks from 8 p.m. until late at night by the Sonderkommando, who treated them with extreme brutality. The children were being thrown onto the trucks like packages.

Before the Gypsies were transferred, the so-called blokszperas [ban to leave the block] were announced and numerous SS officers surrounded our blocks. We had to keep the windows shut, but since block 10, where I was staying, was situated about three meters away from the Gypsy camp, I could see – provided I was careful – what was going on there. SS men surrounded the Gypsy camp along the barbed wires.

The Gypsies, who had probably sensed the upcoming danger, started to run away and hide, trying to save themselves. We could hear terrible screams and several shots. The SS men even climbed the roofs to prevent people from escaping through the windows located there. We had suspected that something bad would happen to the Gypsies because the healthy ones had already been transported out of the camp, and on the day of the final liquidation of the camp all non-Gypsy prisoners who worked in the Gypsy camp were instructed to move to the non-Gypsy camp. In this case, these were doctors, Pflegers [nurses], and Schreibers. On that very day in the evening, after the announcement of the blokszperas throughout the Gypsy camp, the Gypsies were also instructed to nail the doors of individual blocks with boards so that no one could enter them from the outside.

On the following morning, the camp authorities looked through the files of all the Gypsies in our camp, marked with letter “Z.” These were mainly people being treated in the hospital. They were loaded onto trucks and poisoned in the gas chambers, just like the rest. The same happened to two Gypsies and one Gypsy woman who somehow managed to survive the previous day by hiding in the Gypsy camp.

On the day following the liquidation, the Gypsy camp resembled a wasteland, a devastated and silent place deprived of life. I would like to mention that when the Gypsies came to the camp, they had lots of money and gold. That money was then transferred, through the canteen and by swindles, into German pockets. In the canteen it was possible to buy only bad cigarettes, “[illegible] soups,” sometimes raw sauerkraut, beets in vinegar, snails from a barrel, and mineral water. I remember that once they also had pickles. In the canteen there were also shaving tools, toilet paper, and other similar items. Sometimes they had salad vegetables. After the Gypsy camp was liquidated, only a few Gypsies who were not marked with the letter “Z,” normal Schützhäftlings, were left in Birkenau. They came mainly from roundups.

Sometimes Gypsies, both men and women, were released from the Gypsy camp under the condition of sterilization. If they did not agree to be sterilized, they had to stay in the camp. I know this from doctors and nurses, because the procedures took place in the operating room in block 2.

In August 1943, the gassing of prisoners resumed. Only Jews were gassed – the first such transport to the gas chambers consisted of about a thousand people. Then, every month or every two months until October 1944, groups consisting of 300 to 1000 Jews were sent to the gas chambers and poisoned. Each transport of Jews to the gas chambers was preceded by the visit of a German doctor, accompanied by an SS assistant, the so-called SDG (Sanitätsdienstgehilfe).

The doctor superficially examined the Jews and dictated the numbers of selected prisoners to the SS man. Based on those numbers, a list was prepared and sent to the Political Department, where some names were approved, while others – of Jews accused of specific political crimes, not coming from ghettos or roundups – were crossed off the list. After two days, such a list was sent back to the SDG and the people who were on it were transferred to the bathhouse in block 16. All these prisoners knew they would be poisoned with gas, but they deluded themselves into thinking that they would somehow avoid being killed. In block 16, before the arrival of the trucks that would transport them to the gas chambers, they behaved in a strange way. Some of them seemed half-insane, others were giving speeches, trying to lift the spirits of the rest, and still others wanted to eat and smoke.

After about two hours, they were taken by truck to the gas chambers and poisoned. The doctor who made the list of prisoners selected for gassing in August was a German, Obersturmführer Helmersen, allegedly the son of the president of the Berlin police. He was a German sadist who hated Polish people, especially the intelligentsia. He was a young man, about 30 years old, and, according to the prisoners, knew nothing about medicine.

I saw with my own eyes and heard from other inmates that, at different times of day and night in the period from August 1943 to May 1944, people were being transported by trucks from the Auschwitz freight station straight to the gas chambers. At that time, all the crematoria were already operational and following the arrival of each transport, the crematoria chimneys smoked day and night. The transports were huge and often consisted of several dozen trucks.

Each transport was followed by an ambulance with Zyklon B, although the passengers believed that it was there for the purpose of immediate medical assistance. Such transports often arrived every day, but sometimes they would stop for up to two weeks. People were transported by truck from the freight station until a railway siding was constructed – it took them straight to the crematorium. I had a chance to see prisoners being unloaded from the trains because the ramp was located near block 11, and there was some open space between it and the block. We were allowed to walk there and even go as far as the barbed wires that separated us from the ramp.

Mass transports of Jews from Hungary commenced in June 1944. A daily transport of such Jews consisted of a dozen or so trains. It all lasted for nearly a month. We estimated that during this period about 350 thousand Jews were brought to Birkenau. When the trains arrived, everyone was instructed to get off and leave all their belongings in the cars. Then, a German doctor performed a selection, sending only the healthiest men and women to the camp, while the rest of the men, women, and children were transported to the gas chambers and poisoned. The influx of people who were to be poisoned with gas was so huge that, although the gas chambers in crematoria I and II could fit two thousand people each at the same time, and the chambers in crematoria III and IV 750 people, the camp authorities had to poison prisoners in the temporary gas chamber located in the white house by the forest.

There were not enough furnaces in crematoria III and IV to burn those who had been poisoned in the gas chambers, so a wooden pyre was built next to crematorium IV for burning the gassed corpses. Those who had been gassed in the white house were burnt on a pyre constructed nearby. Two holes were dug near the pyres to bury the remaining parts of bones. The whole camp was then filled with a horrific smell. It was dark from the smoke.

The gas chambers were sometimes so crowded that no more people could be poisoned. The men – Hungarian Jews – were then sent to the Gypsy camp, while the women who were to be gassed were placed in a special section, still under construction, the so-called section III (Bauabnschnitt III). We called that section “Mexico” because nobody registered those women or gave them numbers. There were not enough SS men, so police from the east came to guard the women. In the barracks where they lived, there was no medical assistance, water, or toilets. Immediately after their arrival, the women were shaved and deprived of all belongings.

They had to take off their underwear and put on light dresses over naked bodies. The women only waited there until the gas chambers were empty, which lasted up to two months. During that period, they were escorted in groups to the gas chambers and poisoned. A small number of the healthiest Hungarian Jews, selected by the doctor at the station, were sent to the camp and marked with the letter “A” and an additional number – 1, 2, 3, 4, etc. Those Jews were then sent in groups to work in coalmines and factories. Due to such work conditions, their health quickly deteriorated, as a result of which they were transferred back to the camp and poisoned in the gas chambers.

While the corpses were being burnt on the pyres, which usually took place in the evening, we often heard the cries and screams of children and the barking of dogs, so we assumed that the children were being burnt alive. Our assumption was partially confirmed by the fact that the cries and screams ceased after a while.

Sometime in September 1943, the first transports of Czech Jews, consisting of about 5000 people, were brought to Birkenau by train cars. They were men, women, and children. The families were placed in individual blocks in section BIIb. The section consisted of 32 blocks. Additionally, one or two other transports of Czech Jews arrived at Birkenau. These Jewish families were not separated, so the section was officially called the Familienlager. The Jews were treated very kindly and were allowed to take almost all their belongings with them. They were not shaved or sent to work, and they had permission to receive food packages from their families or friends. They were also allowed to write letters. A special hospital was set up for them in the camp and they were treated like non-prisoners.

These were rich Jews from Theresienstadt, where the biggest Czech ghetto, consisting of about 70 thousand Jews, was located. These were very rich people, which was noticeable at first sight. We assumed that the camp authorities were treating Czech Jews so well to spread propaganda in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia. The second transport of Czech Jews consisted of about 2000 people.

Within six months of their arrival, all these Jews were poisoned in the gas chambers. Before the first transport was poisoned, all Jews from that transport were transferred to section A. Only doctors and twins were excluded from the transport and left in section BIIb, but they were transferred to hospital section BIIf when the second transport was being exterminated. A day before the gassing of the first transport, the people who were to be gassed were instructed to write letters to their families, but to mark them as written a month later than it really happened.

After the transports of Hungarian and Czech Jews, a few transports from the Łódź Ghetto were brought to Birkenau. There were tens of thousands of these Jews. They were treated in a similar way to the Hungarian Jews, namely a small percentage of the healthiest people were sent to work in mines and factories, while the rest was taken to the gas chambers and poisoned. Those who were healthy were marked with the letter “B” and a number.

Due to the mass gassing of prisoners, a special detail, the so-called Sonderkommando, was formed. It consisted of about a thousand Jewish prisoners, of different nationalities, and several Russians who had been brought there from the Majdanek camp. Initially, the Sonderkommando was located in a normal camp, section D, block 12, but as it grew bigger it occupied blocks 9 and 11. I would like to explain that during this period the Strafkommando was transferred to block 13. The Sonderkommando block was surrounded by a wall, and its members were not allowed to contact other prisoners in the camp.

Prisoners were assigned to the Sonderkommando by the Lagerführer, and such a transfer amounted to a death sentence. The youngest and healthiest prisoners from the entire camp were selected to join that work unit. I remember very well that, during my time in the camp, three details – one every three weeks – were exterminated by poisoning in the gas chambers. The members of the Sonderkommando were usually killed with phenol.

When the transports of Hungarian Jews arrived, and then the Czech and Łódź Jews, the Sonderkommando was transferred to the rooms located above crematoria I and II. After the extermination (gassing) of those Jews, a part of the Sonderkommando was placed in the gas chambers of crematoria III and IV.
After spending some time in the Sonderkommando, the prisoners seemed half-insane and stopped reacting to the monstrosity of their actions. They were primitive criminals. My inmates told me that one prisoner employed in the Sonderkommando met his own mother in the camp. He himself escorted her to the gas chamber and fulfilled his duties, although he knew that she was going to be gassed.

In September 1944 – I do not remember the exact day – at about 4 p.m., the SS men became unusually active and started rushing details from work back to the camp. Then, we saw that crematorium III was on fire. Some prisoners were escaping from the building through section G towards crematorium I.

We assumed that a rebellion had broken out in the Sonderkommando. Later on it turned out that we were right. Some prisoners from the Sonderkommando who worked in crematorium I, had joined the group of escapees from crematorium III. Then both groups cut the high- voltage wires and barbed wires surrounding the crematorium and tried to escape. SS men ran after them, shooting. I do not know how many prisoners tried to escape, how many managed to do so, or how many were killed.

Anyway, no prisoner was brought back to the camp alive and 92 prisoners were missing at the evening roll call. There was no other repression or persecution implemented as a result of that rebellion. Later on, a Kapo from crematorium III – I don’t know how he had managed to survive and why he had not escaped, but he had gunshot wounds and was taken to the hospital – told us that, as a result of the rebellion, the Sonderkommando employed in crematorium III was persecuted in a particular manner. The prisoners were instructed to strip naked, so they assumed they were going to be gassed.

The rebels killed an SS man and a German Kapo from crematorium III, set their own beds on fire and escaped.

I have already mentioned that, apart from doctors, twins were singled out from the transports of Czech Jews during the liquidation of the family camp. I would also like to add that from among all the transports of Jews which had been brought to the camp after June 1944, also midgets and physically impaired people, regardless of their sex, were singled out. In the men’s camp, where only the selected prisoners were placed, there were about 120 people, from three-year-old children to elderly prisoners.

They were allowed to have hair because they did not go to work and they were favorites of Dr Mengele, a Hauptsturmführer, who was the chief doctor in Birkenau. A special anthropological infirmary was then set up. It employed professionals, prisoners who were doctors. They performed various experiments on the twins and midgets, measured their skulls, height, etc., tested their eyes, hearing, and other senses, made plaster casts of their jaws and teeth, analyzed their blood, took pictures, but I do not know what was the purpose of those examinations.

Several times in summer 1944, I saw with my own eyes the executions of prisoners in crematorium II that took place in the evening. They were killed with a short bolt gun that is usually used for slaughtering cattle. Since there was light inside the crematorium, I saw it through a window. The procedure was the following: every minute two prisoners from the Sonderkommando escorted the convicts one by one to a place where an SS officer killed them with the bolt gun aimed at the back of their head. In this way, they killed a dozen or so prisoners.

I stayed in the Auschwitz camp from 28 January 1943 to 20 January 1945. From August to November 1943, apart from working as a block Schreiber, I also worked as a painter, because I was afraid that the German doctor Helmersen would remove me from the block for the sick.

Therefore, all day long I wore a painter’s suit stained with paint and I painted blocks 10 and 11. At that time, the senior of the two blocks was Hans Bock, prisoner no. 5, a German who had come there from Auschwitz-Buna. He was a very good man, nicknamed “Dad,” who tried to help the prisoners in any possible way. Bock was formerly the hospital Lagerältester in Auschwitz I, but for helping the prisoners too much, he was degraded and sent to Birkenau, where he held the position of head block senior.

Bock liked me as well and he helped me. When Bock was transferred to the Lagischa camp, somewhere in Silesia, he asked doctor Helmersen to appoint me his successor to the position of the senior of blocks 10 and 11. This was my job until November 1944.

At the beginning of December 1944, doctor Helmersen was sent to the front and his position was assumed by doctor Thilo. He was a martinet, but he cared about the patients’ health. However, it did not prevent him from sending a cured patient to a gas chamber. On 24 November 1944, I was selected, together with other Poles, to be transported to a different camp located in the Reich. As a result, I was transferred to section D. I was placed in block 11, which at that time – after the Sonderkommando was transferred to the crematoria – served as a transport block, and then in block 32.

We waited there for about ten days for the train cars that would take us away. In the meantime, I managed to contact two prisoners: Klewin and Fajkosz, who prepared transport lists and were employed in the so-called Arbeitseinsatz [labour deployment]. Since I had helped prisoner Klewin in block 10 when he was sick, he owed me a favor and took my file out of the files of prisoners who were to be transported to the Reich. He also advised me to simulate an illness and try to get to the hospital. Therefore, I “organized” some propidon and a syringe, and asked a friend to give me an intramuscular injection.

As a result, I got a high fever. In order to make my way through the gate from section D to hospital section F even easier, I also simulated that I had a yeast infection on the chin – I put some iodine on my chin and face and on top of it I made “spots,” using zinc ointment. Due to the high fever, I was admitted to the hospital and I avoided being transported to Germany with about 1500 people who left the camp on that day, namely on 4 December 1944. I was admitted to the hospital by Dr Epstein.

The chief doctor diagnosed me and sent me to block 8. I stayed there for two weeks thanks to the fact that during that period doctor Mengele was transferred to the SS hospital. Dr Horstmann, who assumed Mengele’s position, knew nothing about the camp regulations. After two weeks, when I left the bed, I was transferred to block 18, where I worked as the block Schreiber. I stayed there until 20 January 1945.

On 18 January 1945, the last transports of healthy prisoners marched off to the east, escorted by SS officers.

On 20 January 1945 at 3 p.m., the last SS men left the camp, leaving us without supervision. About 8 p.m., two SS men came to the Canada detail in section BIIg and set the warehouses on fire. The warehouses were full, although the most valuable items were constantly being transported out of the camp, because new people were coming. The Canada warehouses consisted of about 30 blocks. Since I knew that there were no SS men in the camp anymore, when I heard artillery shots, I knew the front line was very close. I was afraid that the SS men would return and take the remaining prisoners to the Reich, so I talked to a few friends of mine: Stanisław Zawadzki from Końskie, Władysław Rodowicz from Warsaw, Jerzy Borodzicz from Grodno, and Alfons Budrowski from Łuków.

We escaped from the camp at 11.55 p.m. and headed to the south. Two Polish prisoners, Władysława Kamińska and Janina Grzybowska, both from Warsaw, joined our group. The weather conditions were very unpleasant – the fog was thick and the day was freezing cold. We went through snow that reached our knees. While we were still in the camp, we put on civilian clothes, took backpacks from the open warehouses and filled them with food.

We could hear the artillery shots coming from the north, so we went in the opposite direction and we knew we were going to the south. Driven by fear of falling back into the hands of the Germans, we went quickly almost without stopping, not feeling tired until 6 a.m. Then, we reached a village called Brzeszcze. We saw a house with lights on. First, we sent our two female companions to make a reconnaissance, and then we were invited by the host to come in.

It was the house of a man called Jurczyk who worked in the Brzeszcze mine. As Auschwitz prisoners, we received an extremely warm welcome – we were given food and allowed to have some sleep in the house. Generally, the local people were very kindly towards Auschwitz prisoners. It was not possible to cross the front lines, so we stayed in different houses in Brzeszcze for over a week.

On 28 January, the Soviet troops entered Brzeszcze. We asked them if we could return to Kraków and they let us go. We set off for Kraków on the same day via Chrzanów. I arrived in Kraków on 29 January 1945 and I have stayed here until today, working in the Społem Cooperative.

I would like to add to my testimony that in the camp hospital I often met Jewish prisoners who had been sterilized by the Germans with the use of X-rays. They lay in block 10, which was for people suffering from skin diseases, with terrible genitals wounds. I was told that these experimental operations were performed by doctor Schumann, called “professor”. He wore a German aviation lieutenant uniform.

I would also like to list a number of names of “the biggest German camp villains”. These were: Lagerkomendant Höß, his deputy Kraus, Lagerführer Aufmeyer [Aumeier], Lagerführer Schwarzhuber and Rapportführers: Palitzsch, Schillinger, Polocze, and Kurpanik. In the women’s camp: Lagerführerins Mandel [Mandl] and Drexler [Drechsel]. From the Political Department: its chief Grabner and officers Brochut [Broch?], Hoffman, and Lachmann; Blockführers: Buldog, Wolf, Grapatin, and Baretzki, as well as Mohl [Moll], the head of the crematorium.

The report was read out. At this point on 19 April 1945, the hearing and the present report were concluded.

SCHLOMO (SZLAMA) DRAGON

Schlomo Dragon, Left.

“I dug up Gradowski’s manuscripts, which were buried in the area of crematorium II surrounded by barbed wire, and handed them over to the Soviet Commission.” – Schlomo Dragon

Oświęcim, 10 and 11 May 1945. District Investigating Judge Jan Sehn from Kraków, a member of the Commission for the Investigation of German and Nazi Crimes in Oświęcim, at the request and in the presence of a member of that Commission, Deputy Prosecutor of the District Court in Kraków Edward Pęchalski, with the participation of a court expert, Dr. Jan Zygmunt Robel, in accordance with section 254 in connection with Articles 107 and 115 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, interviewed former prisoner no. 80359 of the concentration camp in Auschwitz as a witness, who testified as follows:
________________________________________
Name and surname Schlomo Dragon
Date and place of birth 19 March 1920, Żeromin, Sierpc District
Parents’ names Daniel and Małka Beckermann (both deceased)
Marital status single
Occupation tailor
Religious affiliation Jewish
Citizenship and nationality Polish
Place of residence before the arrest Bieżuńska Street 16, Żeromin (now I will probably be living in Żeromin at Mławska Street 10)
________________________________________
I was brought to Auschwitz by train with a transport of 2,500 Jews of both sexes and different ages from the Mława ghetto on 7 December 1942. The transport was received at the station by Lagerführer Plagge, Rapportführer Palitzsch, and camp doctor Mengele. Being there already, they performed a selection, placing the women and children in one group, and the men in another. 400 people were selected from the men’s group. I was also selected. The 400 of us were escorted to the Birkenau camp on foot. The rest, that is, all the women and children, and the men not included in our group, were transported by trucks in an unknown direction, but outside the camp.

Our group was placed in block 3 of that section of the camp, which was later on turned into the women’s camp. Then, I was transferred to block 22, the old bathhouse, and afterwards to block 14 of the same camp section.

On 9 December 1942 in the evening, Moll, Plagge, Palitzsch, Siwy, and Arbeitseinsatz Mikus came to block 14. Moll said he would choose laborers for a rubber factory. Each of us approached him; Moll asked what our profession was and watched us carefully. If a prisoner was strong and healthy, Moll assigned him to the group, which – according to what they had told us – was supposed to go to work to the rubber factory. My brother and I said we were professional tailors, so we also joined the group which was being formed by Moll and his companions. The next morning, that is, on 10 December 1942, as soon as all kommandos left for work, Moll came to block 14 and ordered, “ Sonderkommandoraus.” This is how we learned that we belonged to some “ Sonderkommando” and not a unit designated to work in the rubber factory. We did not know what that Sonderkommando was because nobody explained it to us.

Ordered by Moll, we stepped outside the block, where SS men surrounded us and escorted us out of the camp in two groups of a hundred people. We were taken to a forest, where we saw a brick cottage covered with straw thatch. The windows were bricked up. On the door leading into the house, there was a tin sign with the inscription “Hochspannung – Lebensgefahr” [high voltage – danger of death]. About 30-40 meters from the cottage, there were two wooden barracks. On the other side of the house, there were four pits that were 30 meters long, 7 meters wide, and 3 meters deep. The edges of the pits were burned and covered in tar. We were lined up in front of the house. Then, Moll came and told us that our job would be to assist in cremating old people and those with lice, that we would receive food for ourselves, that we would be taken to the camp at night, and that we had to work because those who would not be willing to work would be beaten with a stick and bitten by dogs. The SS men who escorted us did indeed have dogs with them.

Then, Moll divided us into several groups. I was assigned, along with 11 others, to a group which, as it later turned out, had to take corpses out of the house. All 12 of us were given masks and taken to the house’s door. Moll opened the door, and we saw that inside there were naked bodies of people of different ages and both sexes. Moll instructed us to take the corpses outside, to the yard in front of the door. We started doing it – four of us carried one corpse. Moll got annoyed, rolled up his sleeves, and threw the corpses through the door into the yard. When we said that, despite the lesson he had given us, we could not do it, he told us to work in pairs.

When the corpses were already in the yard, a dentist, assisted by an SS man, extracted their teeth, while a barber, supervised by an SS man, cut their hair. Then, another group loaded the bodies onto carts (Rollwagen). The carts were situated on tracks that led to the edges of the pits. The tracks ran between two pits. A different group was busy preparing the pits for cremating the corpses. At the bottom, they first put thick pieces of wood, then finer ones crosswise, and finally dry branches. Another group took the bodies brought by the carts to the edge of the pits and threw them inside.

As soon as all the corpses from the house were transported to the pits, Moll poured kerosene in four corners of the pit, lit a piece of rubber and threw it on a spot covered with kerosene. A fire broke out and the corpses burned. While Moll was lighting the fire, we were standing in front of the house and watching him carefully.

After all the corpses were taken out of the house, we had to thoroughly clean it. We washed the floor with water, covered it with sawdust, and whitened the walls. The inside of the house was divided by transverse walls into four chambers. The first one could accommodate 1200 undressed people, the second one – 700, the third – 400, and the fourth – 200-250. The first chamber, the largest one, had two windows. The other three had one window each. The windows were closed with a wooden hatch. Each chamber had a separate entrance. On the entrance door, there was a plaque, as I mentioned earlier, with the inscription “Hochspannung – Lebensgefahr.”

The inscription was visible only when the front door was closed. When the door was open, it was not visible, but you could see a different inscription: “Zum baden” [to the baths]. When the people destined to be gassed entered the chamber, they saw yet another inscription placed on the exit door from the chamber. It said “Zur Desinfektion” [to disinfection]. Of course, behind the door with the last inscription, no disinfection took place. It was just the exit door from the chamber, through which we pulled the corpses out to the yard. Each chamber had a separate exit door. Engineer Nosal from Oświęcim made an exact drawing of the chamber I have described based on my testimony.

That chamber was called bunker 2. Apart from that chamber, there was also another one, about half a kilometer away, marked as bunker 1. It was also a brick house, but it consisted of only two chambers, which together could fit less than two thousand undressed people. Each of the chambers had only a front door and a window. Near bunker 1, there was a small barn and two barracks. The pits were located very far away and the tracks for the carts led to them.

In the evening of the first day, we were escorted after work back to the camp. However, we were not put in block 14, from where we had left for work, but in block 2. A different group, which – as it turned out – worked in bunker 1 that day, was also placed in that block. It was a closed block, surrounded – unlike the others – by a wall. We were not allowed to communicate with prisoners from the other blocks.

They did not need the entire kommando for gassing people. Usually, the gassing took place at night. About 20 prisoners were then chosen from our kommando to assist with the job. Actually, the gassing itself was carried out by SS men. It was done in the following way. The people were taken by trucks to the barracks. Those of us who were assigned to the job helped the sick get out of the trucks and undress in the barracks. All the people had to undress in there. The barracks, as well as the space between them and the chamber, were surrounded by SS men with dogs. As soon as they undressed, the people walked naked from the barracks to the chamber.

The SS men at the front door encouraged them with truncheons. When the chamber was full, the SS men closed the door, and Mengele instructed his aide, Rotenführer Scheinmetz, to begin the gassing. He said, “Scheinmetz, mach da fertig.” Then, Scheinmetz took out a can of gas, a hammer and a special knife from a Red Cross truck, which followed every transport of prisoners headed to the gas chambers. He put on a mask, opened the can with the knife and hammer, and poured its contents through a window into the chamber. Then, he closed the window and took the can, hammer, knife, and mask back to the car. The Germans called the truck “Sanker.” I myself heard Mengele many times asking his aide, “Ist der Sanker da?” As soon as they finished, Mengele and his aide left in the ambulance, and we were escorted to the block.

I do not know how it was at the beginning, but later on, following such a night gassing, SS guards stayed at the bunker, and especially at the barracks, because sometimes when the bunker was left unguarded until the morning, boxes with gold teeth, along with other items of the gassed people that were stored in the barracks, were stolen. The gassed corpses stayed in the bunker until the morning, until the arrival of the kommando who burned them.

The cremation process was the same as the one I have described before, which took place on the first day of my work at bunker 2.

The following day, the things left by the people gassed in the barracks were taken away by a special kommando who sorted and transported them to the Effektenkammer [personal effects warehouse] in Auschwitz. The pits were cleared of ashes usually about 48 hours after the cremation. In the ashes, there were remains of bones. You could see skulls, knees, and long bones. We tossed the ashes out of the pit with shovels. Then, trucks arrived and the ashes were loaded on and taken to the Soła River.

We also unloaded the ashes from trucks into the Soła River. Of course, we were supervised by SS men. We had to cover the space between the car and the water with tarps so that no ashes would fall on the ground. The SS men instructed us to throw the ashes into the water in such a way that they would flow with the current and not go down. As soon as we unloaded the truck, we threw the ashes off the tarps into the water and thoroughly swept the entire place with brooms.

When we opened the chamber, the bodies of the gassed people were usually in a lying position. If there were many of them in one spot, they lay on and supported each other. Sometimes they were in a standing position with the torso bent forward. In many cases, I saw white foam on their lips. When you opened the chamber, it was very hot inside and you could smell the gas – it was suffocating, and it gave you a sweet and pleasant sensation in your mouth.

The gas cans were metal with a yellow sticker. The same as the ones used later on in the crematorium. Most of the people that were gassed in the two locations had been transported from Poland, but there were also Lithuanians, French people, and Jews from Berlin among them.

Bunker 1 was entirely demolished in 1943. When crematorium II was built in Birkenau, the barracks near bunker 2 were also demolished and the pits were filled up. However, the bunker remained until the end and, after a long break, it was opened again and used for gassing Hungarian Jews. Then, new barracks were built and the pits were excavated. At that time, we worked in the bunker in two shifts, that is, day and night. I also worked there, I believe, for two days. During that time, we took the corpses out of the bunker shortly after the gassing, and that is why sometimes when we entered the chamber, we could still hear moaning, especially when we took the corpses by the hands and pulled them out of the chamber.

Once, we found a living child in the chamber. It was all wrapped in a pillow, including its head. When we unfolded the pillow, it turned out that the child’s eyes were open and it seemed alive. We took the child with the pillow to Moll and reported that the child was alive. Moll took it from us, carried it to the edge of a pit, put it on the ground, stepped on its neck with his heel, and then threw it into the fire. I saw the whole scene with my own eyes and I noticed that when Moll stepped on the child’s neck, it moved its hands. The child did not scream through the whole time. I cannot say if the child was breathing because I did not check it, but in any case, it struck us that the child did not look dead.

Bunkers 1 and 2 could fit about 4000 people. All the chambers in bunker 2 together could accommodate over 2000 people at a time, and bunker 1 – less than 2000.
In 1943, we were transferred from the women’s camp to the BIId camp and placed first in block 13, and then in block 11. Around autumn of the same year, I was employed again in the Sonderkommando. In between the days when I worked at the bunkers, I was part of the Abbruchkommando [demolition unit]. I worked at crematorium V. Until May 1944, we worked there in the garden, chopping wood, and transporting coke, because the furnaces in crematorium V were not operating yet.

The crematorium was opened only in May 1944, when the transports of Hungarian Jews began to arrive.

The work in the crematorium was supervised by Moll. His orders were executed by Kommandoführer Gorger, and another Kommandoführer, Eckhardt. We were guarded, among others, by SS men Kurzschlus and Gustas. The crematorium was built in the same way as crematorium IV. The two crematoria had four furnaces on both sides. Each furnace could fit three corpses. The undressing room and the gas chambers (bunkers) were located above the ground.

The gassing in those crematoria was performed in the same way as in bunkers 1 and 2.

People were transported to the crematoria by trucks, and later on, after a railway siding to Birkenau was opened, they were also driven on foot to crematoria IV and V from the train ramp. As soon as they arrived, they entered the undressing room and Gorger would rush them saying, “Do it faster because the food and coffee will get cold.” The people were asking for water. Gorger told them that the water was cold and they could not drink it, but they should hurry up because when they left the bathhouse, they would get some tea that had been prepared for them. When everyone was in the undressing room, Moll stepped on a bench and spoke to the gathered people.

He told them they had arrived at a camp where the healthy would go to work and the sick and the women would remain in the blocks. He pointed at the buildings in Birkenau and said that before going to the camp, everyone had to take a bath because otherwise the camp authorities would not let them in. As soon as they all got undressed, they were herded naked into a gas chamber.

Initially, there were three chambers and later on a fourth one was built. The first chamber could fit 1500 people, the second – 800, the third – 600, and the fourth – 150.

From the undressing room, the people went through a narrow corridor to the chambers. Inside, there were signs that said „Zur Desinfektion.” When a chamber got full, SS guards closed the door, although usually Moll did it himself. Then, Mengele gave Scheinmetz an order, and he – just like at the bunkers – went to the truck with the Red Cross sign, took out a gas can, opened it, and threw its content through a sidewall window into the chamber. The window was situated quite high, so he had to use a ladder to reach it. And here as well, just like at the bunkers, he did it wearing a mask.

After some time, Mengele announced that the people were already dead, saying, “Es ist schon fertig,” and he left with Scheinmetz in the Red Cross vehicle. Then, Moll opened the door of the gas chamber. We put on masks and dragged the corpses from individual chambers through the corridor to the undressing room, and then through the undressing room and another corridor to the furnaces. In the first corridor, located by the front door, barbers cut the corpses’ hair, and in another corridor, dentists pulled out their teeth.

We laid the corpses in front of the furnaces on an iron stretcher, which we then slipped inside on rolls mounted at the furnace door. We placed the corpses on the stretcher in such a way that when the head of one body was pointed forwards, we placed the other one with its head backwards. We would put three bodies into each oven. When we were putting a third corpse inside, the ones that were in the furnace were already burning.

I saw that the corpses’ hands, and then its legs, went up. Anyway, we were in a hurry and I was not able to watch the whole cremation process.

We had to hurry up because when the limbs of the corpses that were already burning went too high, it was difficult to slip a third corpse into the furnace. As for the stretcher, two prisoners lifted it by the end situated away from the furnace, and one prisoner grabbed it by the end that went first into the furnace. When we slipped the stretcher inside, one of the prisoners held the corpse down with a long iron poker, which we called a hoe, forked at the end, while the two others pulled the stretcher out from under the corpse. As soon as the furnace was loaded, we closed the door and loaded another one. The burning took 15-20 minutes. After that time, we opened the furnace doors and slipped more corpses inside.

In the period when the Hungarian transports were arriving, we worked in crematorium V in two shifts. The day shift lasted from 6.30 a.m. to 6.30 p.m., and the night shift – from 6.30 p.m. to 6.30 a.m. the next day. We worked like that for about three months. However, since the crematoria were less efficient, pits were dug next to crematorium V and were used for burning the Hungarians. There were three larger and two smaller pits. Bodies were burned in the pits by crematorium V in the same way as in the pits by bunkers 1 and 2.

The person who lit the fire was also Moll. The ashes from the pits were taken out in the same way as in the bunkers. They were mashed in special pestles and then taken to the Soła River. Initially, the ashes from crematorium furnaces were buried in specially dug ditches. Later on, however, when the Russians launched their offensive, Hoß gave an order to dig up the ashes from the pits and transfer them to the Soła River.

Due to administrative obstacles, the witness’s interview was discontinued on 11 May 1945 at 5.00 p.m.

[After the report was read out, the interview was concluded. Then on May 17, 1945, the witness Szlama Dragon continues his testimony as follows:]

The chambers in crematorium V that were used for gassing were about two and a half meters high. In any case, I could not reach the ceiling with my hand. From the top of the door to the ceiling, there were still about 70 cm. An adult man of an average height could reach with his hand the bottom edge of the window opening through which the contents of the Zyklon B cans were poured into the chamber. Scheinmetz, however, had a special ladder which he climbed to pour the Zyklon B into the chamber.

In different periods, that activity was performed also by other SS men whose names I do not know. I know Scheinmetz’s surname because initially he was the Kommandoführer of our Sonderkommando. I do not know his first name. He is a man of an average height, shorter than I, blonde, and probably about 26 years old. He always employed girls from Slovakia. I do not know if he talked to them in Slovak or in German.

The head of crematoria IV and V, as well as bunker 2, was Hauptscharführer Moll. He was stout and of medium height, and had blonde hair which he parted in the middle. His left eye was artificial. I think he was about 37 years old. His wife and two children (the son was about ten years old and the daughter was younger – about seven) lived in Auschwitz.
Lagerarzt [camp doctor] Mengele usually assisted the gassing of people.

He was a dark- haired man of my height, I think, about 40 years old. He always arrived by the ambulance which transported the Zyklon B. Other prisoners employed in the Sonderkommando and I saw that when people were being gassed, he was standing by the door leading to the gas chamber. The door had a window. When the gassing was over, the gas chamber was opened by order of Mengele. When we were taking the gassed people out of the chamber, Mengele was no longer present in the crematorium because he would leave immediately after making sure that the victims had been gassed and after giving an order to open the door of the gas chamber. He left in the same ambulance.

I never saw Mengele examine people destined for the gas chambers or their corpses.

At the beginning of May 1944, we began gassing and cremating transports of Hungarian Jews in crematorium V. The corpses of gassed people from the first few transports were burned in crematorium IV because the chimneys of crematorium V were broken at that time. Until the end, Hungarian Jews were burned in pits dug for that purpose next to crematorium V. There were five pits which were 25 meters long, 6 meters wide, and about 3 meters deep. About 500 people were burned in the pits every day. However, since more Hungarian Jews were transported to the camp, bunker 2 was reopened and those people were also gassed and burned in there. I do not know how many people per day were burned in the bunker because when Hungarian Jews were being burned there, I was not working at bunker 2.

Both the Sonderkommando working at crematorium V, as well as the Sonderkommando employed at bunker 2, worked in two shifts: day and night. We did the job in May and June 1944. I estimate, based on my observations, that about 300 thousand Hungarian Jews were burned in crematorium V within the two months. Those people were herded to crematorium V on foot straight from the unloading ramp at Birkenau.

They were men, women and children of different ages. When such a transport was to arrive at the crematorium area, we were locked up in two small rooms specially designed for this purpose. We were not allowed to talk to those people or tell them what would happen to them. However, sometimes they fainted on the way. We had to carry such a sick person, under the escort of an SS man, to the crematorium. In such situations, we often talked to the sick we carried. Most of them did not know they were going to die, and when we told them they were going to a crematorium, they did not believe us.

I remember that in 1943, 70 thousand Greek Jews were burned in crematoria II-V. I remember this number because before those transports arrived, the Kommandoführer of crematoria II and III, Kelar, threatened us that the good times were over for us because a transport consisting of 70 thousand people would soon arrive from Greece. He told us this because before those people from the Greek transports were gassed, we had had a break from work in the crematoria and we did not work hard.

As for other nationalities, I do not know any numbers and I cannot say how many people from individual countries and nations were gassed in the crematoria of the Auschwitz camp. I believe that the number of people gassed in both bunkers and the four crematoria was over four million. Other prisoners employed in the Sonderkommando thought the same.

The Schreiber [clerk] of our kommando, Zalman Gradowski from Grodno, made notes in which he recorded, based on information provided by prisoners working in all the crematoria, the number of people gassed and burned in individual crematoria, as well as all the experiences of Sonderkommando prisoners. Gradowski was shot in October 1944 during the rebellion. Five hundred prisoners from the Sonderkommando, which at that time consisted of 700 prisoners, were shot. A hundred of them slept in crematorium II, another hundred in crematorium III, and 500 in crematorium IV. I dug up Gradowski’s manuscripts, which were buried in the area of crematorium II surrounded by barbed wire, and handed them over to the Soviet Commission.

There was a notebook and a letter addressed to whoever should find it. At the request of the Soviet Commission, all the documents, which had been written in Hebrew, were translated into Russian by prisoner doctor Gordon. The Soviet Commission took those documents with them. I know that there are more documents and notes buried in the area of crematorium II, as well as pits, filled in with earth, containing ashes of corpses burned in the crematorium. These items can be found in front of the crematorium furnaces. I cannot indicate an exact location because after the crematorium was demolished, it all changed there.

The area was leveled when the German were still there, so I lost my sense of direction. I did not work gassing or burning people in crematoria II and III. Zisner and Mandelbaum were employed there. Tauber worked with me and, before he was transferred to the crematoria in Birkenau, he also worked at crematorium I in Auschwitz.

Before I was assigned to a newly created Sonderkommando in December 1942, the Sonderkommando that handled both bunkers consisted mostly of Slovaks. All members of that Sonderkommando were gassed in crematorium I in Auschwitz. As I already mentioned before, the Sonderkommando that I was assigned to consisted of 200 prisoners. That number was soon raised to 400. Then, 200 prisoners from that Sonderkommando were sent to Lublin, while 20 Russians arrived from that city and joined us. The Russians told us that those 200 sent to Lublin were executed there by shooting. In 1943, 200 Greeks were assigned to our Sonderkommando; in 1944 – 500 Hungarians.

In October 1944, 500 prisoners were shot: 400 in the yard of crematorium IV, and a hundred in a field next to crematorium II. In the same month, about 200 prisoners from the Sonderkommando were selected and escorted to Auschwitz. As we were informed later on by prisoners employed in Canada [the warehouses with prisoners’ belongings], they had been gassed in a chamber that was essentially used for gassing things stored in Canada. In November 1944, a hundred prisoners from the Sonderkommando were sent to Groß-Rosen. At least that is what we were told.

In any case, they left with a penal transport. Following all those reductions, there were over a hundred prisoners left in the Sonderkommando. Crematorium V was open until the last days of the Germans’ stay in the camp. They blew it up with dynamite before they escaped. It was on 20 January 1945. In the final period, only prisoners who died or were killed in the camp were burned in that crematorium. People were no longer gassed. At that time, 30 prisoners from the Sonderkommando worked in the crematorium, while the rest were employed at the demolition site of crematoria II and III. I worked at the demolition site.

At the end of May 1944, I was transferred with the entire Sonderkommando from block 11 of the BIId section to crematorium IV, where I lived until October 1944. As I testified before, about 700 prisoners from the Sonderkommando lived in that crematorium in October 1944. Since at that time the crematoria did not need so many people, we were afraid we would also be gassed and that is why we decided to organize a revolt. We had planned it for a long time, we had contact and connections with the outside world, we made grenades, we had weapons and a camera, and we were waiting for the third Soviet offensive to begin because we thought that our operation could be successful only in the event of an offensive.

In October, our situation seemed dangerous, and that is why we decided not to delay the revolt and took action. I do not remember the exact date, but it was on a Saturday, when we attacked SS guards, injuring 12 SS men. Reportedly, some of them were killed. The prisoners from the Sonderkommando who lived in crematorium II carried out their operation at the same time. The Sonderkommando from crematorium III did not have enough time to start their operation.

SS reinforcements immediately arrived at the area of our crematorium and several companies surrounded the whole area. About 500 prisoners were shot dead. The rest hid and managed to save their lives. I hid under a pile of wood and Tauber in the chimney of crematorium V. All survivors were transferred and accommodated in crematorium III. We were kept alive because an investigation was being carried out at that time to uncover our entire organization. However, it was not successful, despite very frequent personal searches in the quarters, because after the collapse of the revolt we had buried all the tools, especially the grenades, and ceased all underground activities.

I lived in crematorium III until November 1944. Then, the entire Sonderkommando was transferred to the BIId camp. I was placed in block 3. From October 1944, that is, since the revolt I have described, I worked at the demolition site of the crematoria, in particular of crematorium IV. It had burned down during the revolt, so we only demolished the walls. Iron parts of the crematorium furnaces were transported to Auschwitz, where they are still stored in the Bauhof [construction depot]. At that time, other prisoners from the Sonderkommando worked at the demolition site of crematoria II and III. The dismantling of those crematoria began in November 1944 and we were told they were to be transported to Groß-Rosen. Iron parts of the furnaces from those crematoria, doors – ventilation devices, benches, stairs, and other parts – have been stored to this day in the Bauhof.

I would like to point out that the doors and window hatches in bunkers 1 and 2 and in crematoria IV and V were of the same type. They were made of thick wood, were heavy, with rabbets and with joints sealed with felt. The door was closed with double large handles, which were sealed with screws. The bunker doors had no peepholes. The doors leading to the gas chambers in all the crematoria (II-IV) were equipped with peepholes. There were no wooden shutters in crematoria II and III because Zyklon B was poured into the gas chambers in those crematoria through openings in the roof. The openings were covered with concrete slabs.

I am submitting schematic drawings of bunkers 1 and 2, and crematorium V. The structure of crematorium IV was identical and was located symmetrically opposite crematorium V. Could the Tribunal please attach the submitted sketches to this report so that my testimony is clearer and properly understandable?

I stayed in block 13 of the BIId camp until the beginning of January 1945. Then, I was transferred, with the whole Sonderkommando, to block 16, from where I was sent with a transport to the Reich on 18 January. We went on foot and I managed to escape from the transport with Tauber near Pszczyna. The whole Sonderkommando, that is, over a hundred people, left Auschwitz with me.

I do not know which prisoners survived. Mosiek Van Kleib, a Dutchman, has recently returned straight to his homeland. The Sonderkommando prisoners who left Auschwitz on that day were, among others: Zawek Chrzan from Gostynin, Samuel – a Frenchman, Leibel from Grodno, Lemko from Czerwony Bór, Dawid Hencel from Rypin, Moszek and Jankel Weingarten from Poland, Sender from Berlin, Moryc from Greece, Abram Dragon from Żuromin, Serge – a Frenchman (Blokälteste), Abo from Grodno, Becker Berek from Luza, a cousin from Radom, and others whose names I do not remember.

I am going to settle in Żeromin, where I will start working in my profession. I suppose my brother will also return and we will work together. I expect I will be drafted into the army. Following my camp experiences, my nerves are completely exhausted, I want to return to a normal life, get away from the camp atmosphere, and forget about everything I experienced in Auschwitz.