Kraków, on 25 June 1945, I, Prosecutor Dr Wincenty Jarosiński, a member of the Main Commission for the Investigation of German Crimes in Poland, with the participation of a trainee judge Kazimierz Kotsch and a reporter Stefania Setmajer, acting pursuant to Article 20 of the provisions introducing the Code of Criminal Procedure, in connection with Articles 107 and 115 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, interviewed the former prisoner of Auschwitz and Mauthausen-Gusen II camps, Tadeusz Hanuszek, no. 124,777, as a witness, who testified as follows:
| Name and surname | Tadeusz Hanuszek |
| Date and place of birth | 11 July 1922, Kraków |
| Parents’ names | Błażej and Aniela, née Żmuda |
| Place of residence | Kraków, Czarodziejska Street 51 |
| Religious affiliation | Roman Catholic |
| Citizenship and nationality | Polish |
| Occupation | office worker |
On 20 April 1943, when I was listening to the radio at Gramatyki Street 51, the Gestapo drove up in two cars and arrested me and my colleague, Antoni Dymanus. When we were still in the apartment, they beat us up brutally. As a result I lost consciousness. After I regained it, we were driven to Pomorska Street. Our personal data was collected, and we were then transported to Montelupich prison. We were brutally beaten at both Pomorska and Montelupich Street. I was detained at Montelupich prison for several weeks and during that period I was interrogated six times. In the course of interrogations I was accused of being a member of an organization, distributing leaflets, listening to the radio and spreading information from the radio. They used various methods to force me to admit to the accusations. In addition to beating and kicking me, they also promised me freedom. Because I was very hungry, they also promised to give us more food if I admitted my guilt. I denied everything apart from listening to the radio, for I had been caught doing just that. My investigation at Montelupich prison was led by the Gestapo officer, Erich Vollbrecht.
At the beginning of June 1943, I was transported together with about 40 other prisoners to the camp in Auschwitz. We were driven in vehicles to Auschwitz I, where despite the rain we were ordered to stand by the wall, next to the gate, until 3.00 p.m. After commandos [work details] set off to work, we were ordered to run to the washroom, bathe, and give up all of our personal belongings. We were made to put on striped prison uniforms, then we were registered and marched to block 13. After staying there for two days, we were sent to block 2 – the quarantine block. I stayed there for four weeks and did not work during that time – I only had to do exercises aimed at preparing us for life in the camp. After four weeks we were moved to block 13a, and then to block 16a. In block 13a I met fellow prisoner Cyrankiewicz, who was a scribe at that block. He had a good reputation, for he was helping other prisoners.
After I left the quarantine block, I was assigned to the Getreidespeicherkommando [silo work detail]. Our task was to carry sacks with grain to a silo located on the second floor, or to carry them downstairs and load onto carts. The work was very hard, especially since the SS men who supervised us – Unterscharführer Pomplun and Rottenführer Titze from the Sudetes – rushed us and ordered us to be swift, while beating us with sticks, sometimes for absolutely no reason. The food was very lousy and scarce at that time. We were always hungry. The function of a block leader at block 16a was performed by a German from Berlin, Ewald Rudnick. A Pole from Warsaw, one Bogdan (I can’t remember his surname) was a scribe. Both of them – but especially Rudnick – were very cruel towards fellow prisoners: they beat them, and stole their food rations. Rudnick in particular engaged in thrashing prisoners all over the body with a hand or a stick, knocking their teeth out, and mutilating prisoners, while paying absolutely no attention to the injuries that he had inflicted.
Around that time I saw people being taken away from the hospital blocks, and then transported to the gas chambers. This often occurred several times a week. I was imprisoned in Auschwitz I camp until 17 September 1944. On that day I was sent together with a group of about 800 prisoners in a railway transport to Mauthausen camp.
I stayed in Mauthausen camp for about ten days. The housing and living conditions were similar to those in Auschwitz. After ten days we were transferred to Gusen II. This camp was established in the spring of 1944. It was located seven kilometers away from Mauthausen. It was a sister camp to Gusen I. Our work in Gusen I consisted of laboring in the quarries, while in Gusen II – in building Messerschmitt aircrafts.
In Gusen II we worked underground. The entire factory was carved out in the rocks. It looked like a small town. The streets located along the factory were marked with letters of the alphabet. I don’t know how many there were. In any case, I distinctly remember E street and I know that more of them were built. I can’t specify the number of the streets, because we had very limited freedom to move about. The side streets which branched out from the main roads were marked with numbers, starting with 1. I specifically remember street no. 16, but I don’t know if there were more of them. These streets – or tunnels, actually – were several (about five) meters wide, about seven meters high, and several hundred meters long. The total length of the streets was a dozen or so kilometers. The tunnels provided space for iron-working and mechanical equipment, as well as workshops manned by about 2,500 prisoners, who worked in a two shift system. Apart from the prisoners who worked building and fixing aircrafts and aircraft parts, there were also kommandos which built the factory’s extension. There was no ventilation in the tunnels, and the construction of the main air duct was in progress. We had no daylight – we worked under electric lights. Due to the use of acid and gases for welding, and because of the lack of ventilation, conditions in which prisoners often had to work in different sections caused a number of people to suffocate to death.
We were housed in Gusen II, which was located three kilometers away from our workplace. We had the following daily schedule: we were woken up at 3 a.m. Until 6.00 a.m. we completed the usual camp formalities. After we drank some black, bitter coffee, we were put on a train and transported to our work site. The prisoners were the only passengers on the train. The SS men who escorted us walked beside the train which adjusted its speed to their pace. At 6.00 a.m. we were herded underground to work. I worked as a fitter, punching sheet metal. The food was very lousy. We were given black, bitter coffee for breakfast, three quarters of a liter of soup made of weeds for dinner, and for supper – once again coffee, and about 250 grams of bread. The sanitary conditions were terrible as well. Although the rooms were equipped with triple bunk beds of normal size, two to three prisoners had to sleep in each bed. Since work was organized into two shifts, those who were coming back from work would lie down in beds which moments earlier had been occupied by the next shift.
Everything was filthy, lice and fleas were everywhere, and we changed our underwear once every six weeks. Our clothing also wasn’t sufficient. In addition to normal, striped prison uniforms, in December we received sweaters, and in January – prison coats.
The working conditions were very difficult, because prisoners who supervised work, kapos, SS men, and German civilian foremen demanded that the prisoners work quickly. They were beaten for the smallest mistakes or for no reason whatsoever. There were accidents in which the prisoners working on the extension of the tunnels and factory were buried under stones and sand, because no construction safety measures had been taken. The prisoners were not pulled out from underneath the rubble. The mortality rate at work was very high in general. Throughout my stay at Gusen II, there were on average 10,000 prisoners of various nationalities and religions. There were many prisoners from Yugoslavia, Italy, and Spain – communists who escaped to France after general Franco’s victory. The mortality rate was about a hundred people a day – due to the killings, work accidents, and diseases.
The sick were not treated properly in the camp and none of the prisoners wanted to go to the hospital blocks. Although there were two hospital blocks – no. 13 and 16, prisoners were admitted there only to be killed sooner. Those who were admitted to the hospital blocks did not get any medical assistance and their food rations were even four times smaller than those in the camp. Every once in a while all hospitalized prisoners were killed with sticks during a single night. We knew that the prisoners were killed with sticks, because in the morning following this kind of “cleansing”, we would see that the blocks were empty and there were corpses with smashed heads. This “cleansing” in the hospital occurred approximately once every six weeks. The corpses were transported to Gusen I and burnt in the crematoriums. The was no crematorium in Gusen II. The sick were tormented by means of special methods. During the most severe frosts, they had to open the windows and cold water was poured over them. Some of the blankets which prisoners used as covers were soaked in cold water and some prisoners were told to cover themselves up with those. Those sick prisoners who were not admitted to the hospital blocks and stayed in the blocks, where we worked, suffered a special kind of harassment. Upon returning from work, we often saw in our rooms several or up to a dozen or so corpses of those who had not been very severely sick and were killed by block functionaries or SS men.
Prisoner functionaries in the blocks were mostly common criminals from Germany. One kind of punishment which they would typically administer was flogging consisting of 25 lashes on the buttock. A special punishment involved, for instance, drowning in a barrel filled with water, located in the washroom. For minor offences such as smoking or protecting oneself from the cold with paper, the orderlies would forcibly push the prisoner into the barrel and drown him. The sick who were not in the hospital blocks but in so-called Schönenblocks [blocks for convalescents], had to show up at roll-call naked, regardless of the season of year. The roll-call often lasted several hours. Many prisoners died as a result.
On 20 January 1945, a so-called delousing was carried out in the entire camp. The prisoners who normally lived in sixteen blocks were herded into four blocks. They stayed there for three days. It was so cramped that we couldn’t move at all, and distributing food was simply impossible. For three days we remained there without food or any chance to leave the block. We were subjected to special kinds of torture. The prisoners had to relieve themselves on the spot. The room was filled with a terrible stench. After three days, our clothes were taken away and the whole camp had to appear at roll-call naked. Since many people had died because of such conditions, it was hard to determine the number of prisoners, so the roll- call lasted several hours, while we had to stand naked in the frost. After the roll-call we were herded into blocks which had just been disinfected with gas. Due to the cold, starvation and stench which filled the blocks, about 3,500 prisoners died within these three days – more than one third of the total number. We all remember that day very distinctly. Before we were rushed outside the blocks, we had been ordered to bathe in the washroom (in hot water – by way of exception) and then, despite the frost, we were told to return to the blocks naked.
The prisoners at Gusen II were marked in the following way: a line – six centimeter wide – was shaved from the forehead down to the back of the neck. We finished work at the camp at 6.00 p.m. and returned at 8.00 p.m. We were then given supper. We went to beds at about 10.00 p.m., so none of us was getting enough sleep.
As I have mentioned, we worked two shifts – day and night shift. People working night shift had it much worse, because they were supposed to rest during the day, while we were constantly subjected to air raids by Anglo-American aircrafts. During air raids we had to leave the blocks and hide in shelters, so no one could get any sleep and later they had to go to work tired. The prisoners often fell asleep during work due to exhaustion. Falling asleep at work was punished with death by hanging. The sentence was carried out immediately, in the workplace. German kapos were the ones who hanged the prisoners.
I became severely ill due to such working conditions. Before the arrest I was completely healthy, and so were my parents. Due to my imprisonment in the camp and to the harassment I had experienced, I feel very weak, I experience pains in my lungs, as well as a cough, vertigo, and a nervous exhaustion. My condition requires a comprehensive treatment.
I stayed in the camp until 5 May 1945, when the Americans entered Gusen, liberated the camp, and let the prisoners go wherever they wanted. None of the supervising SS men were captured, for they had fled the camp beforehand, leaving it in the hands of the kapos and the local police who were then seized by the American army. The prisoners lynched and killed the kapos who had been particularly brutal towards the detainees. As for the names of the Germans who were especially abusive to prisoners, I remember very well the name of a civilian foreman Wagner, who had left the camp earlier, and of a non-commissioned officer Schütze. Presently, I don’t remember any other names. Having been liberated by the American army, I headed straight to Poland and on 4 June 1945 I arrived in Kraków, where I am residing and undergoing treatment to this day.
At this the report was concluded, read out, and signed by way of confirmation that it matched witness Tadeusz Hanuszek’s testimony.