On 29 August 1947 in Oświęcim, a member of the Main Commission for the Investigation of German Crimes in Poland, Appellate Investigative Judge Jan Sehn, acting upon written request of the First Prosecutor from the Supreme National Tribunal, this dated 25 April 1947 (file no. NTN 719/47) and 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 Article 254, 107 and 115 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, interviewed the former inmate of the Auschwitz concentration camp, named below, as a witness, who testified as follows:
| Name and surname | Franciszek Targosz |
| Age | 48 years old |
| Citizenship and nationality | Polish |
| Religious affiliation | Roman Catholic |
| Occupation | Deputy Director of the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum in Oświęcim |
| Place of residence | The Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum in Oświęcim |
I was incarcerated in the Auschwitz concentration camp from 18 December 1940 to 21 January 1945 as Polish political prisoner no. 7626.
In the initial period I worked in various work brigades, for instance, for seven days I worked as a corpse bearer (Leichenträger), and in July 1941 I worked in the main administrative office of the camp (Häftlingsschreibstube). I also worked in the so-called Postzensurstelle – the camp post office, which was officially known as Poststelle Auschwitz II. Postzensurstelle was headed by Sturmscharführer Heider. He had a few SS men under his command, and they were tasked, for instance, with censoring letters to and from the prisoners. I was employed at sorting letters by their numbers. As a rule, a prisoner could receive two letters per month and also send two letters. However, there were a number of restrictions, of which the most severe was the so-called Postsperre. The prisoner who was punished with it couldn’t officially send or receive any letters. Such a ban was issued either by the head of the camp (Schutzhaftlagerführer) as a punishment for some infringement of the camp regulations or by the Political Department in connection with further investigation carried out by the Gestapo with regard to a given prisoner. If the Postsperre was ordered by the head of the camp, the delivery of letters was withheld for some time only, and they were later given to the prisoner. But if the Postsperre was ordered by the Political Department, all letters were handed over to that department. In the second case, the prisoner was allowed to write letters but they never left the camp and instead were delivered to the Political Department. Thanks to such a state of affairs, the Gestapo and the Political Department were often able to discover other persons involved in the case of a given prisoner. In order to spare the prisoners, I tried to the best of my abilities to sabotage these instructions. I stole a number of letters sent to the prisoners punished with Postperre; I would take them from the office and read them out to these prisoners, and also send their letters by unofficial means. I circumvented the regulations in a variety of ways.
Towards the end of November 1941, on the order of the then head of the camp, Hauptsturmführer Fritzsch, I began to organize a camp museum in Auschwitz; at first, the museum was housed in one room of block 6, and was then transferred to block 34, where it remained until the liquidation of the camp. Apart from me, seven and then twelve other inmates worked in this museum. They were painters, sculptors, graphic artists and two Jews who were translating the Talmud into German. I got both of them out of block 11, where they stayed as prisoners in the punitive unit.
In the museum, not only did the prisoners pursue artistic work, but I also collected various exhibits such as collections of medals and coins, ethnographic and military collections, ceramics, documents, books, liturgical paraments, banners, etc. The majority of the exhibits came from the belongings of the freshly arrived prisoners. Some were brought in by the SS men who liquidated many Polish institutions of both social and political character and even some religious establishments in the vicinity.
The camp command and individual SS men took great interest in the museum and visited it quite frequently, ordering us to explain our works to them and commenting on them, the remarks of course depending on their intellectual faculties. For instance, the head of the Political Department, Maximilian Grabner, thought everything that was Polish to be vulgar and lacking in good taste, and believed that only Poles could manufacture objects of such inferior quality.
During each so-called Hoher Besuch [important visit] the guests were taken to the museum. In August 1942, some SS dignitary visited the museum with his retinue, and Höß with his staff showed them around. During his visit, that dignitary talked to Höß about mass transports of Jews. As far as I remember, this was about mass transports of Jews from the Netherlands. It could be inferred from what they said that these transports had been entrusted in the care of Liebehenschel, and that he didn’t send them to the Auschwitz camp but sent them somewhere else instead. The camp in Majdanek was then mentioned. The dignitary stated firmly that this case was being handled by Liebehenschel, and that he had been instructed to dispose of it in the same way in which he had disposed of the transports of Slovakian Jews. The Slovakian Jews had been exterminated in Birkenau. They got into this conversation when they stopped by the Jewish liturgical paraments, at which they jeered. I overheard it as I was in the same room, although at some distance from the group involved in the conversation. At one point, Aumeier came over to me and asked me a perfunctory question, that is, how long it would take for me to finish the painting (I was working on a painting), but actually he approached me to see whether I could have heard what Höß and the dignitary were saying. A moment later he went back to them and said that everything was all right (“[Alles] in Ordnung”).
Before I was arrested in the spring of 1940, I had witnessed a conversation held in Biała in the office of the Sezemsky company by the Party political leaders (Politische Leiter), Bodo Ölwein and Walter Tetzner. Among other things, they discussed a social gathering for the SS and Party dignitaries that had been organized in the castle in Wisła. Those present included Obergruppenführer Pohl, who gave a speech at the occasion. A number of national and colonization issues were addressed during the said party. They also discussed the liquidation of Jews, and Liebehenschel and Höß were mentioned as two out of seven people who had been sworn in to carry out the extermination of Jews and generally all non-German elements. I remember this conversation very well; I was familiar with the surname of Liebehenschel since I knew it from publications owned by Ölwein and Tetzner. In these publications, Liebehenschel was mentioned as one of the highest-ranking SS functionaries.
Due to the fact that I worked in the Postzensurstelle and in the museum, I had a relative freedom of movement around the camp, and therefore I was able to observe the majority of the SS men who served in the camp. Hauptsturmführer Hans Aumeier was the first Schutzhaftlagerführer in the years 1942–1943. He was very brutal towards women; I often witnessed him beat and kick them. At that time, the women’s camp was still located in the parent camp, and when a woman looked at some man or the column of prisoners in search of her husband or son, Aumeier would come at her and beat her.
In the summer of 1942, when the women’s camp was transferred from the parent camp to Birkenau, I was discharging some duties related to my job at the post office and I found myself in block 11, in the courtyard of which I witnessed Polish women brought from the coal mining regions being unloaded from the cars. Those present included: head of the Political Department Maximilian Grabner, Aumeier, Kaduk and some other SS man from the Political Department. When the women left the cars, they were lined up against the wall of block 10. One of them, heavily pregnant, descended the steps very slowly, and then Aumeier came at her, kicked her and flung her to the ground, so that her companions had to carry her to the wall. Grabner approached one woman and prodded her about the breasts with his stick; he told another one that she smelled and stepped on her toes, and asked yet another whether this “alte Hure” [old whore] – he said this pointing at her neighbor – was her mother. When she answered him in the affirmative, he told the daughter that she would be an even greater “Hure”.
On the camp premises, Grabner didn’t torture the prisoners personally. In the bunker, however, he took it out on them, beating them, and he was also present at the executions by shooting which took place in the courtyard of block 11. I saw him myself during an execution of 17 men from Silesia in 1942. Aumeier was also present then. Both Aumeier and Grabner hated the Poles, especially the members of the intelligentsia, the difference being that Aumeier tolerated them as long as they were of some use to him.
I remember Unterscharführer and later Scharführer August Bogusch from the time when he worked in the Schutzhaftlagerführer’s administrative office. He was a stupid, rapacious and sneaky man. For example, he used to steal watches that had been handed over to the clockmakers for repair. I learned of it myself as the clockmakers worked under my supervision in the museum in block 24. He would also rob the museum of exhibits that he took a fancy to or thought useful to himself. He blackmailed the prisoners, demanding things and services that he had no right to, and if a prisoner refused or there was any delay, Bogusch reported the prisoner, which entailed severe punishment. As far as I could, I got hold of such reports through Hofmann, one of the last Schutzhaftlagerführers. Bogusch constantly hurled abuse at the Poles, calling them such names as Polish swine and bandits. According to SS man Vogt, who came from Bielsko and whom I had known before I was imprisoned in the camp, Bogusch took part in special actions in Birkenau (Sonderaktionen), which consisted of receiving and selecting mass transports from which the majority of people were sent to the gas chambers straight from the ramp.
On 21 January 1945, Bogusch joined the escort of our evacuation transport and along with others drove us on foot to Wodzisław. On the way, he beat the prisoners and ordered the SS men to shoot on the spot those prisoners who couldn’t walk on due to exhaustion. He kept an eye on me the entire time and threatened that should I attempt escape, he would shoot me on the spot. We left Auschwitz in the group of some 300 prisoners, of whom about a hundred were shot along the way.
Obersturmführer Heinrich Josten served in Auschwitz as the inspection officer (Führer vom Dienst, FvD) and was a deputy to Schutzhaftlagerführer Hofmann. As an SS officer, he took part in the special actions in Birkenau, that is, in receiving and selecting mass transports. In 1944 he carried out selections of Jews in the parent camp during which the Jews unfit for work were selected to be gassed. Such selections of Jews were also conducted when Liebehenschel held the post of the camp commandant, so at the turn of 1943 and 1944. I remember that during public executions by hanging, Josten would stand by the gallows, leaning against it carelessly and nonchalantly while watching the execution.
Obersturmführer Josef Kollmer was one of the SS officers from the Auschwitz crew, and he also served as the inspection officer. I saw him go to block 11 in the company of the camp commandant Höß. He also participated in special actions in Birkenau.
Sturmbannführer Franz Kraus arrived at the Auschwitz camp in the autumn of 1944. He was a member of the Schutzhaftlagerführer’s staff; he was very zealous and malicious towards the prisoners, and often reported on them. He also participated in special actions in Birkenau. It was said that he was transferred to Auschwitz by way of punishment.
The successor of Höß, Obersturmbannführer Arthur Liebehenschel, who held the post of camp commandant and Standortälteste [commander of the SS garrison] in the Auschwitz camp from November 1943 to May 1944, revoked in the parent camp all regulations that compromised the SS, that is, “the wall of death” and standing cells in block 11, and released the prisoners who had been incarcerated in the bunker of that block. He also introduced a number of small changes which resulted in the relaxing of regulations, banned flogging and forbade the SS men and kapos to beat the prisoners. During his time, the shootings in block 11 came to a stop. Nevertheless, the prisoners were also chosen for executions by shooting, only these were carried out not in the parent camp, but in Birkenau. The selections of Jews were not abandoned, and the victims were transported to the gas chambers in Birkenau. Liebehenschel introduced a new force, the so-called camp police (Lagerpolizei), which consisted of German prisoners whom he had brought himself from another camp. The police took over the duties of the former secret network of informers established by the Political Department. They pestered the prisoners a great deal. Thanks to all the regulations that resulted in the relaxation of the regime, it might seem that Liebehenschel’s rule meant a change for the better, but in actuality, nothing changed with regard to the general policy and the character of the camp as a place of extermination. Liebehenschel had the destruction of prisoners moved to Birkenau.
I remember Unterscharführer Kurt Müller mainly from the period of his service in the office known as Arbeitseinsatz [labor deployment office]. He was a fink, he filed reports on prisoners, and I also saw him in block 11.
Unterscharführer Paul Szczurek, a man from Silesia who spoke Polish, was involved in special actions in Birkenau. He told me himself that horrible things were happening there, and that it stretched his nerves to breaking point.
I recall Hauptscharführer Tannhausen only by sight. I recognized him in the prison in Kraków and I also recognize him in the photograph that was presented to me today. I remember that in 1942, Tannhausen and Kaduk took part in deporting women from Auschwitz to Birkenau after the women’s camp in Auschwitz was liquidated. Later, he was among the SS men who transported the “Muslims” from the front of block 20 to the gas chambers in Birkenau. I remember him standing on the cab step of a car which was used to transport the sick from block 20 to Birkenau, where they were then gassed.
The report was read out. At this the hearing and the report were concluded.