MOÏSE (MICHEL) ZECHEL

Sent to the Military Auditor

Liège, 16 October 1945

chief commissioner

City of Liège
Police station Chef 0
Of the 10th Security Brigade
No. 2682

PRO JUSTITIA

On 15 October 1945, I, the undersigned Artur Wery, police commissioner assigned to the Security Brigade, delegated by the police commissioner on behalf of the head [president?] of the city of Liège, pursuant to the document no. 116/I441/CC of 26 September 1945 by Military Auditor Bacquelaine, returning the annexes to the document along with our PV [Procès-verbal], I declare that our Inspector Grandry interviewed the witness:

Moïse Zechel, called Michel, married to Aptker, born on 4 January 1899 in Chișinău (Romania), of unspecified nationality, a dentist, residing at rue Robertson 3 in Liège, who testified in French.

I was first arrested by the Gestapo in 1940, and accused of being a propagandist supporting the allies and of boycotting German products. I was imprisoned in Breendonk until May 1942. Like all prisoners, I was beaten, especially by Weiss.

A month after my release, that is in June 1942, the hunt for the Jews began. In order to avoid the arrest, I hid in La Roche and stayed hidden there until April 1943 – until the day when I was arrested by the Gestapo again. One Telgmann, a German subject, who had been living in Liège for many years, belonged to the group who arrested me. Telgmann stole 10,000 francs from me. They were in a closet in the apartment where I was staying and where I got arrested. A Jew with a name or surname Jakub, who was hiding in Tilff was arrested at the same time as me. Telgmann and some Belgian man who was a member of the band stole 43,000 francs from him.

I was detained in the citadel at Liège for ten days, and was then sent to Malines [Mechelen]. Twenty four hours later I was part of the second transport meant for Auschwitz. This transport consisted of 1,800 people, all Jewish. A selection was carried out once we arrived at the train station. The Boche, that is the Germans, separated 300 of us from the rest of the group which was sent to the crematorium for annihilation.

I was sent from Auschwitz to Baunowitz [Bauerwitz], where I worked for six weeks in the camp hospital as a dentist. I then came back to Auschwitz, also to the hospital. The sick in the hospital were afraid to be looked after, because the SS doctors often gave them lethal injections. Those who were exhausted the most, were transported there by force and marched to the basement, where they were hit with a pole and killed – this task was carried out by Polish kapos. The Germans set the Poles against the Jews. The Jews were killed by the Poles, who were in turn killed by people of other nationalities.

Members of the medical staff were often forced to assist during these murders. Their task was to take the corpses and load them onto a truck which then transported them to the crematorium. Prisoners who had been tortured were very often brought to the hospital. They had to be looked after in order to be able to suffer through the same thing the next day. The Nazis’ favorite method of torture involved tearing the prisoners’ sexual organs apart. I personally looked after the prisoners who went through such torture.

After some time I managed to get permission to be transferred to Jaworzno [Yavochno]. The camp leaders, Rapportführer [report leader] at Auschwitz Stiebetz [Stiewitz] and others always took part in the said tortures and murders.

In Jaworzno, I was mostly beaten by the Rapportführer. The Nazis conducted selections among men in this camp, meaning that the weak and unfit for work referred to as “Muslims” by the Boche, were selected for the crematoria. In this camp I met Mister Wery. Everything that he said in his testimony is true. In every camp in which I was detained I was beaten by the kapos and SS men, but I do not know their names.