On 5 September 1947 in Kraków, acting judge, Trainee Judge Franciszek Wesely, delegated to the Kraków District Commission for the Investigation of German Crimes, on the written application of the First Prosecutor of the Supreme National Tribunal 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 conjunction with articles 254, 107, 115 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, heard the person named below as a witness, who testified as follows:
| Name and surname | Czesław Łachecki |
| Date and place of birth | 13 September 1902 in Nisko |
| Parents’ names | Mieczysław and Zofia |
| Religious affiliation | Roman Catholic |
| Education | engineer |
| Marital status | married |
| Place of residence | Mościce Osiedle |
| Criminal record | none |
On 20 June 1940, I was transferred from Wiśnicz prison to Auschwitz as a political prisoner and I received camp number 1002. I stayed in Auschwitz until November 1944, after which I was transferred to the concentration camp in Groß-Rosen.
During my stay in Auschwitz, I was employed in the installers’ column, within the jurisdiction of the Bauleitung [building authority], which was subordinate to Obersturmführer Eggeling. In 1941, I even became a kapo of this column. Right after arriving in the camp, I was sent to the so-called quarantine, where the accused Ludwig Plagge, Unterscharführer or Scharführer at the time, would act with complete abandon. Straight away, Plagge punched me in the face the next day for not shouting "Achtung!" when he entered the bathhouse. In the photograph I have been shown (a photograph of Ludwig Plagge was shown), I recognize the accused Plagge with absolute certainty.
Plagge harassed the prisoners, including myself, on purpose, by his so-called singing, which he also often conducted after the roll call on his own initiative. During this "singing" we had to sing German songs, although many of the prisoners didn’t know German. If he didn’t like "singing", he organized some so-called sport. This involved falling down and getting up again, so-called rolling and frog jumps (hüpfen). This "sport" was so abusive that many prisoners collapsed to the ground from exhaustion. For the smallest transgressions, Plagge condemned prisoners to the so-called Kniebeuge, which involved the prisoner having to hold a squat position for several hours with his hands behind his neck.
Plagge often made malicious inspections at night and when he noticed that, for example, one of the prisoners was smoking a cigarette, he ordered a standing punishment for the whole day for the whole block, without food. The standing punishment involved the prisoners having to stand still, often with their hands behind their neck. The standing punishment that he ordered after the escape of the prisoner Wiejowski in July 1940 was particularly abusive. Plagge ordered the prisoners to keep their hands on their necks all the time – i.e. about 20 hours – and didn’t let anyone go to the toilet, as a result of which some people were exhausted and passed out. Plagge brutally beat and kicked anyone asking for permission to come forward. He was one of those SS men who executed the punishment of flogging on a specially prepared table. Many times after leaving quarantine I saw Plagge enter block 11 ("he death block") with a Flobert sub-machine gun to shoot the prisoners. It was widely known that Plagge carried out executions in place of Palitzsch.
Hans Aumeier, Lagerführer [head of the camp], I had the opportunity to get to know very well. I recognize him without doubt in the photograph I have been shown (a photograph of Hans Aumeier was shown). Due to his small stature, the prisoners called him "Łokietek" [Elbow-high] or "Frog" because he made funny moves when he beat the prisoners. I often saw Aumeier cruelly beat the prisoners, especially the so-called Muslims. He would punch or whip them and kick them with his boots all over the body.
As the prisoner Józef Sosnowski told me (no. 1293, residing in Gliwice – I don’t know his exact address), Aumeier personally shot several dozen prisoners in the Strafkompanie [punitive unit] in Birkenau with his pistol in June 1942, and the rest of the punitive unit was executed the next day. The company consisted of Poles, political prisoners sent to the SK at the end of May 1942, after their one-year stay in the camp. After the escape of about 20 prisoners from SK, the rest were shot. Prisoner Sosnowski was in SK at that time and was a witness to this execution.
Aumeier was particularly malicious in terms of reporting people and he almost always condemned those reported for a crime to be beaten, hung on the post, or put in the bunker (Stehzelle). I myself was sentenced to a one-hour hanging punishment, but by Aumeier’s predecessor, Fritzsch. The penalty of the post involved being hung on a chain with your hands behind your back. Reporting to the Lagerführer involved the prisoners coming into the Lagerführer’s room one at a time, and then he would impose penalties on the basis of previous reports, completely without questioning any of the prisoners or receiving any explanations from them; in other words, an SS man’s report to the Lagerführer was tantamount to imposing a punishment.
Among the [SS men] shown to me in these photographs, I recognize the accused Johann Becker, who was at the Standortverwaltung, the sewage department. Often in 1943 and 1944, I saw Becker beat and kick the prisoners for no special reason in the workplace. He especially liked to beat prisoners who didn’t belong to his kommando.
Heinrich Josten, Obersturmführer, who was promoted from non-commissioned officer, I met in the camp. He was known for – as I often saw myself – that when riding a motorcycle, he watched and eavesdropped on prisoners, and then reported to the Lagerführer, which resulted in prisoners being sentenced to flogging across a table. During the period when Josten replaced the Lagerführer during the roll call, he often sentenced prisoners to the penalty of flogging. Sometimes – especially in 1944 – I saw Josten serving at the railway ramp in Birkenau, when transports of Hungarian Jews arrived to be gassed. As a duty officer on the ramp he managed the transport of these Jews to the crematorium.
I recognize Hans Hoffmann in the photograph I have been shown. At the end of 1944 he was in the Political Department. I saw him beat the prisoners. Often as a result of his denunciations, prisoners were summoned to the Political Department and punished there.
At this the hearing and the report were concluded, read out and signed.