JANUSZ HRYNKIEWICZ

On 12 September 1947 in Toruń, District Investigative Judge Józef Becker, acting as investigating judge of the District Court in Toruń, with its seat in Toruń, interviewed the person specified below as an unsworn witness. Having advised the witness of the criminal liability for making false declarations, the witness testified as follows:


Name and surname Janusz Hrynkiewicz
Date and place of birth 1924, Ciechocinek
Parents’ names Kazimierz and Ewelina
Place of residence Toruń, Prosta Street 20 or Gdańsk V, Piastowska Street 6.
Occupation student at Gdańsk University of Technology
Criminal record none
Relationship to the parties none

I was interned at the Auschwitz concentration camp as a political prisoner from May 1941 until August 1944, at the sub-camps of said camp at Buna, Gliwice no. IV and Birkenau, then, from August to November 1944 in Neuengamme and the Bremen sub-camp. Then from November 1944 to 14 April 1945 [I was] in Buchenwald, and after, until the end of the war and at the time of liberation, in Flossenbürg and Dachau.

After being shown the photographs of suspects Kurt Müller, Karl Seufert, and Otto Lätsch, attached to the case files, the witness declared that from his time at the Auschwitz camp he knew all of them by sight, and Müller and Lätsch also by their names.

Said persons were part of the administrative team of the camp, the so-called Lagerführer [camp leader]. Initially, Müller served in the rank of Rottenführer, and then Untenschurführer.

Lätsch was a Unterscharführer all the time, but I do not recall Seufert’s rank. Lätsch and Müller were Blockführers at block 11 at Auschwitz, where I was interned. I do not recall the function that Seufert carried out and based on my observations, I cannot testify anything concerning his treatment of prisoners. However, I have direct information based on my own observations pertaining to Lätsch and Müller. Müller was considered a harsh martinet, but he did not display sadistic tendencies. His excessive willingness to serve aggravated the camp’s circumstances in that he made any illegal contact between fellow prisoners impossible. Müller’s duties included supervising the prisoners at the detention facility, the so-called bunker. Particular crimes perpetrated by Müller and Lätsch are not known to me, or, in any case, I have no recollection of them. I also have no information from third parties concerning Müller’s and Lätsch’s torturing prisoners.

It was Lätsch with whom I had the longest contact during my stay at the concentration camp, both at the Auschwitz camp and its sub-camps in Buna and Gliwice no. IV. At Auschwitz and Buna, Lätsch was a Blockführer, and at Gliwice IV, he was the Lagerführer [camp leader] of said sub-camp. If Lätsch fulfilled the function of the Lagerführer at Gliwice IV until the end that is until the liberation, he should have information about the burning of prisoners in the barracks of this camp. This fact is known to the Association of Former Political Prisoners in Katowice, regional branch, which can provide more details concerning the case. As regards Lätsch, likewise, I do not have any information concerning his maltreatment of prisoners.

It is possible that more accurate information concerning said persons can be provided by the following former political prisoners:

Leon Mackiewicz, director at the Regional Supply Fund in Toruń, Bydgoska Street;

Jerzy Wrześniowski, Zabrze, Katowicka Street 9, flat 2; Upper Silesia.

The report was read out before it was signed.