JOSEF ALSCHER

On 3 December 1947 in Kraków, Dr. Eryk Dormicki, custody officer in the Montelupich Prison in Kraków, heard as a witness the person named below, having first advised the witness of the criminal liability for making false declarations pursuant to Article 140 of the Penal Code:


Name and surname Josef Martin Franz Alscher
Parents’ names Franz and Rosalie Oberlender
Date and place of birth 5 June 1894 in Lignica
Place of residence Montelupich Prison
Nationality German
Citizenship German
Religious affiliation Roman Catholic
Occupation carpenter
Education six classes
Marital status divorced
Property ownership none
Criminal record from 1926 to 1930 I did time for fraud and theft, and from 1933 until the liberation by the Americans I stayed in nine concentration camps
Relationship to the defendant none

Aware of criminal liability for withholding the truth or making false declarations, I hereby solemnly swear that I will speak nothing but the truth, and disclose all the facts that are known to me.

Question: What can you say about the defendant Hans Aumeier who served in the camp?

Answer: As a prisoner of the Monowitz camp, I met the defendant Aumeier, who then served in the Main Auschwitz camp as a Lagerfüherer [camp leader], because he often came for inspections to the Monowitz camp. At the time, Aumeier would come about two times a week in a car. In the entire camp, among all prisoners, but especially among old prisoners who had met Aumeier in other concentration camps, he was known as “the Scourge” (der Schreck). His criminal activities can be best illustrated by the following incident which I myself witnessed. It happened in the autumn of 1943 on the premises of the rubber factory IGF [IG Farben] in Monowitz. At the time, my working team was tearing up the road in order to lay a cable. Aumeier came in his car and kicked up a row with the working men because he was unable to pass. In the meantime, he took out his revolver and, together with four people who accompanied him, shot two people dead, probably Poles. Next he ordered that the ditch be bridged with joists and beams which were to be used on the roof of the factory, and when they proved too long, he ordered them to be cut, and in this way made useless. He also beat me badly about the face, knocking out a few of my teeth.

This is all that I could testify, and I confirm the veracity of my testimony with my own signature.