A report of testimony given before the Voivodeship Jewish Historical Commission on 24 February 1947 in Kraków.
The testimony was heard by: Maria Holender, MA
The testimony was made by:
| Name and surname | Róża Nass |
| Date and place of birth | 9 January 1907, Biała near Bielsko |
| Place of residence before the war | Kraków, Brodzińskiego Street 3 |
| Present place of residence | Kraków, Sławkowska Street 23, flat 6 |
| In the case of Luise Danz, | Aufseherin [overseer] in the concentration camp in Płaszów: |
I worked in the “Enamel” factory in the Zabłocie district of Kraków from 1942 to August 1944. 300 women and also 700 men were quartered there. In the spring of 1944, Aufseherin Luise Elisabeth Danz was assigned to our camp.
On the first day she was very kind to us; she came to our barrack when we were busy shortening the striped clothes which had been distributed that day. We complained that we worked in very high temperatures in the factory, so we asked her permission to shorten the sleeves which made it difficult for us to work when it was so hot. She readily agreed and even advised us on how to do it.
One Sunday a few days later, very early in the morning, she stormed into the barrack, yelling at us to immediately put the striped clothes on and go out without taking anything. Danz came with another Aufseherin, and when we were leaving the barrack both of them began to punch us in the faces and pull us by the hair. Then they ordered us to line up in front of the barracks and they went inside to plunder. I saw through the window that Luise hid something under her blouse. Since we stood for several hours and the incident took place in the early spring, we soon shivered with cold.
Later, Danz would call us one by one to one of the barracks and check whether we had some underwear under the striped clothes. Those who wore underwear were forced to take it off and were beaten in the process. Danz beat all women without paying any heed to age: both the old and the young, the healthy and the weak. She took away everything: our underwear, combs, toothbrushes, towels, all personal items, although – as it later turned out – she had no right to do so. She came everyday from 7.00 a.m. to 7.00 p.m.
When we worked in the factory, she would stroll among us and watch us so that we would not speak with the Poles, and she pestered us at every opportunity. When she saw girls with bleached hair, she would beat them unconscious.
She didn’t allow us to wash ourselves or our striped clothes during breaks at work, although it had been allowed so far. Once, she hit my friend Frydzia Kiwetz in the face because Frydzia washed her striped clothes and hung them up to dry in a drying room on the factory floor.
Danz frisked us upon return from work to the barracks. She meticulously searched us for foodstuffs. Whenever she found something, she hit the prisoner in the face. Generally, she beat the prisoners for everything: for wearing a white collar with the striped clothes, for a nice hairdo, for a well-groomed appearance. But she tormented us the most after we had been transferred to the camp in Płaszów. Whatever she couldn’t do to us in the factory because of director Schindler (a German, a decent person), she took out on us in Płaszów. Once, she beat Adela Stergast unconscious in the Appellplatz only because Stergast looked neat in her striped clothes.
While still in the factory in Zabłocie, she took away all our bedclothes, comprising blankets, pillows and sheets. She wasn’t authorised to do this as well.
She did us harm at every opportunity, taking away from us such things as the most severe Lagerführer [camp leader] used to let us keep and which she had no right to take.