WŁADYSŁAW DUDEK

On 22 November 1947 in Kraków, Deputy Prosecutor from the Ninth Region of the Prosecutor’s Office of the District Court in Kraków with its seat in Kraków, Z. Horodyński, with the participation of a reporter, assistant Z. Gembarzewska, pursuant to Article 20 of the provisions introducing the Code of Criminal Procedure, heard the person named below as a witness. Having been advised of the criminal liability for making false declarations, the witness testified as follows:


Name and surname Władysław Dudek
Age 27 years old
Parents’ names Władysław and Helena
Place of residence Kraków, aleja Słowackiego 18, flat 4
Occupation student at the State Cooperative High School
Criminal record none
Relationship to the parties none

On 7 January 1941 I was transported from the Tarnów prison to the Auschwitz concentration camp, where I stayed until 23 January 1941, on which day I was sent with a transport of other Polish prisoners to Flossenbürg. In the concentration camp in Flossenbürg, I came across SS-Hauptsturmführer Aumeier, who served there as a Schutzhaftlagerführer [camp leader]. On 14 June 1941 two prisoners escaped from the camp; it happened at 2.00 a.m. Then a general roll call was assembled; the Germans and the Czechs were allowed to take blankets with them, but the Poles from blocks nos. 10, 12 and 13 and other Polish prisoners had to lie on the ground for about 24 hours. Prisoners from block 12 were particularly harassed, because the two escapees were from that block. Aumeier and other SS men trampled on the prisoners’ heads and beat them with a cat-o-nine-tails, which lasted for almost the entire night and the following day. On the same day, a prison van brought the corpses of the two escaped prisoners. These bodies were presented to the prisoners during the roll call, and Aumeier warned the prisoners that such would be the fate of everyone who would attempt escape from the camp.

At about 2.00 a.m. on 3 July 1941, another prisoner fled the camp, and although he got shot and wounded by an SS man, he managed to jump the wires and escape from the camp. A general roll call was immediately assembled. This roll call lasted for 48 hours, and for the whole time the prisoners didn’t receive anything to eat and were then sent to work without any food. Aumeier ordered that the bread for the Polish prisoners be distributed among the Germans and the Czechs. During this roll call, Aumeier, Schmatz and Schrimer beat and kicked the prisoners so violently that about a hundred prisoners from all blocks died as a result of it.

During this roll call, when we were standing at attention, I moved my head; then Aumeier came at me and punched me a few times in the face so hard that I fell and my nose bled. When after some time I got up and again made a movement with my head, I heard Aumeier’s voice behind my back, ordering that I be taken from the ranks, and then Schmatz and another SS man whose surname I don’t remember beat me with shovel handles.

On 15 July 1941 there was a third roll call after an escape of a prisoner. Then, Aumeier, Schmatz and other SS men trashed the prisoners in an unheard of manner.

After a few days, the escapee was brought back and another roll call was organized, during which Aumeier ordered that the prisoner be beaten up in front of all the prisoners gathered there. The prisoner received a drubbing from Schmatz and another SS man whose surname I don’t remember. He was beaten with bull whips. The beating was attended by the camp doctor, an SD man; seeing that the prisoner began to swell as a result of the beating, he ordered that it be stopped. A few days later, during a morning roll call, Aumeier publicly read out a death sentence for that prisoner who had been so dreadfully beaten, and he ordered that he be hanged in the eyes of all prisoners who were gathered there.

During my stay in the camp, I didn’t witness Aumeier personally kill any prisoner, but I did see him beat and torment the prisoners in an inhumane manner, as I have described above.

The report was read out.