XAWERY DUNIKOWSKI

On 22 September 1947 in Kraków, a member of the Kraków District Commission for the Investigation of German Crimes in Poland, Municipal Judge Dr. Henryk Gawacki, upon written request of the first prosecutor of the Supreme National Tribunal, this dated 25 April 1947 (file no. NTN 719/47), in accordance with the provisions of and procedure provided for under the Decree of 10 November 1945 (Journal of Laws of the Republic of Poland No. 51, item 293), in connection with Art. 254, 107, 115 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, interviewed the former Auschwitz concentration camp prisoner specified below as a witness, who testified as follows:


Name and surname Xawery Dunikowski
Age 73
Religious affiliation Roman Catholic
Citizenship and nationality Polish
Occupation sculptor and professor at the Academy of Fine Arts
Place of residence Kraków, Karmelicka Street 27, flat 6
Testifies freely.

I was detained in the Auschwitz camp with the first prisoner transport on 22 June 1940 and stayed there until the liberation of the camp by the Soviet army. I was a political prisoner with number 774.

During my stay at the camp, I was incarcerated in the bunker in block 11 – I do not know on whose orders and for what reason, because I was not interrogated. I was released after about eight weeks. Since all prisoners detained in the bunker were released on the same day at the time when Liebehenschel was the camp commandant – having recently succeeded Höß – the talk around the camp was that Liebehenschel was the one who ordered that prisoners be released from the bunker. Alfred Wóycicki, current literary editor at Teatr Krakowski [Juliusz Słowacki Theatre in Kraków], was among them, released after a three-day detention. In the bunker, I shared a cell with Colonel Stamirowski, Szumski – a lawyer from Warszawa, and others, whose names I no longer remember.

I was detained in the bunker at some point in the autumn of 1943. I remember well that after about four weeks more SS officers came. I do not know who they were. They opened some cells, called out the prisoners and took them into the corridor. Several hours later, all of those prisoners were shot in the courtyard of block 11. I base this statement on the fact that the windows of my cell were near the “death wall” and I recognized the prisoners’ voices. The majority of the executed were military men. They were eliminated on a charge of organizing some conspiracy.

Lienehenschel was not present when I was being released from the bunker, so I did not meet him in person. I was told that I was going to be released by some SS man I did not know.

At that the report was concluded, read out, and signed.