ZYGMUNT BAUM

On 1 September 1947, the Municipal Court in Dąbrowa Górnicza, represented by Judge A. Pławski, with the participation of reporter Stanisław Urbański, interviewed as a witness the person specified below, who testified as follows:


Name and surname Zygmunt Baum
Age 21
Religious affiliation Jewish
Parents’ names Szymon and Hela, née Ptasznik
Place of residence Dąbrowa Górnicza
Criminal record none
Relationship to the parties none

The unsworn witness, having been advised of the criminal liability for making false declarations, testified as follows:

In the photograph presented to me, I recognize suspect Fritz Buntrock, whom I came across after I was interned at the Auschwitz camp. Let me correct myself: at Birkenau, the so-called Auschwitz II.

Initially, I was not familiar with the said person, but when I was appointed errand boy at the gate, I met suspect Buntrock. This is because my function was summoning selected prisoners to the guardhouse on an SS man’s orders, and many times I witnessed as SS men abused prisoners. I knew Buntrock’s name already at the camp; prisoners dreaded him. It was enough for someone to say that Buntrock was coming and everybody tried to get out of his way and hide, because if he stumbled across a prisoner on his way, he beat and abused him for no particular reason. I was also dealt a couple of blows in the face for no reason. Said Buntrock had the function of Rapportführer [report leader], and served in the rank of SS-Unterscharführer in section B II b at Birkenau. The function of the report leader was about being the unquestionable master of life and death of prisoners in a given section; to be precise he had 32 blocks under him, that is several thousand prisoners. In his capacity of report leader, he admitted prisoners to the camp and then took part in transporting them and sending them to crematoria. As prisoners were loaded into crematoria, SS men beat them and abused them. As the supervisor, that is SS-Unterscharführer, Buntrock was active particularly on such occasions, abusing people who were loaded onto transports for gassing. It is impossible to describe all crimes of Buntrock’s, who was known as a merciless torturer, abusing prisoners in cold blood. He was the cruellest person on the SS staff that I served under.

The following witnesses, who were at Birkenau with me, can testify about Buntrock’s activities: 1. Romuald Dąbrowski, resident of Gołonóg, next to the station, whose address I will supply within the next few days; 2. Zygmunt Małecki, resident of Warsaw, [...]; and 3. Leon Siwy, a long-term prisoner of Auschwitz and Birkenau, who lives in Silesia, but I do not know his address, which, however, can be provided by the Society of Former Political Prisoners in Katowice.

Witness Romuald Dąbrowski, whom I have named, lives in Gołonóg at [...].