On 17 December 1947 in Radom, the investigative judge from the District Court in Radom in the person of Acting Judge B. Papiewski heard the person named below as a witness. Having advised the witness of the criminal liability for making false declarations and of the significance of the oath, the judge took an oath therefrom pursuant to the provisions of Article 254 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, following which the witness testified as follows:
| Name and surname | Marian Stanik |
| Age | 32 years old |
| Parents’ names | Kacper and Waleria, née Mamnicka |
| Place of residence | Radom, Żeromskiego Street 14, flat 16 |
| Occupation | miller by profession, currently unemployed |
| Criminal record | none |
| Relationship to the parties | none |
I was taken to the concentration camp in Oświęcim on 13 February 1943, and I remained there until 13 April 1943, on which day I was transported to a similar camp in Gusen, Austria, by the Donau River. At the time of my incarceration in the Oświęcim camp, Seidler was the deputy commandant of the camp, but he acted as the actual commandant. I suppose that general directives pertaining to the treatment of prisoners came from higher authorities, but undoubtedly all orders were issued by Seidler, who had the reputation of being a sadist among the older prisoners. I heard from my fellow inmates that Seidler was so inhumane and such a martinet that even some of the SS-men who served as Kommandoführers had confided in some prisoners whom they had grown to like that they should warn their friends to stay alert and work properly, as Seidler would, for instance, be coming to inspect their work. Those SS-men did this, among other reasons, to save their own skins, as they were afraid to fall into disfavor with Seidler in the event of some shortcomings in the performance of work on the part of the prisoners.
From Oświęcim I was transported to Gusen, and in May or June 1943 Seidler came there to assume the post of camp commandant, which he kept until the end of my stay, that is until 5 May 1945. It should be added that a week or two before the Allied troops entered the camp, the camp personnel and Seidler himself changed into plain clothes and steered clear of the camp premises, as the camp was then taken over by the Schutzpolizei and both commanded and manned by them.
My friend Tadeusz Nowakowski – I don’t know his present whereabouts or even whether he is still alive – who worked in the officers’ canteen and therefore had some opportunity to get close to and eavesdrop on the conversations of the camp authorities, told me that together with Zireis, the commandant of all camps in Austria, Seidler devised a plan to murder all the prisoners from Gusen, this being at a time when it was already obvious that the Allied forces would soon enter. However, the camp was already being guarded by police of Austrian origin, and the new commandant, in order to prevent this diabolic plan from being carried out, ordered his subordinates that should any SS-men enter the camp at night, the new camp guard were to stop them, resorting to their guns if necessary; an SS-man was allowed to enter the camp only if accompanied by two members of the new camp personnel. Seidler had a second plan, involving setting off a false alarm, gathering all the prisoners in the so-called Kellerbaum (six tunnels dug under a mountain), and blowing up those tunnels, which would result in the death of all the prisoners. Both these plans didn’t come to fruition thanks to the timely and sudden entry of the Allied troops and the opposition of the new commandant, who didn’t allow the prisoners to go to work on the critical day.
In November 1944, a transport of striped trousers arrived at the camp: I managed to take one pair, but one of the SS-men noticed it and brought me to Seidler. Seidler declared that the next day I should be shot for it, and when I answered him that I didn’t care when I would be executed, he went in a frenzy of rage, kicked me and punished me in such a way that I was suspended in his office for half an hour with my arms twisted behind my back, and then I was given 20 whips and incarcerated in a bunker. I was kept there for nine days, during which I was regularly whipped.
It was also Nowakowski who informed me that Seidler had often given his subordinates the following orders: on a given day he wanted to see for instance 200 or 300 fewer people at roll call; this meant that the guards had a free pass and had to liquidate the given number of prisoners. Of course such orders were always obeyed.
In the late autumn of 1944, a transport of Yugoslavian partisans, numbering some 80 people, was brought to the camp. On the next day during work, hidden behind the rocks, I saw that these Yugoslavians were being executed by the “death wall” next to the crematorium, with Seidler himself in charge.
I don’t have any precise information about the actions of Palicz and Chmielewski.
I have nothing more to add. The report was read out.