Third day of the hearing, 13 March 1947.
Proceedings began at 9 AM.
Present: as during the first day of the hearing.
Presiding judge: I resume the proceedings of the Supreme National Tribunal against Rudolf Höß. Please call witness Myłyk.
The witness has stated with regards to himself: Feliks Myłyk, 34 years old, Roman Catholic, married, civil servant, no relation to the parties.
Presiding judge: What motions do the sides have with regards to the manner of the hearing of the witness?
Prosecutor Siewierski: We relieve the witness of the obligation to take an oath.
Defence Attorney Umbreit: We relieve [the witness] of the obligation to take an oath.
Presiding judge: I instruct the witness about his obligation to tell the truth and about criminal liability for false testimony. Please tell us about the witness’s stay in the camp.
Witness: I was arrested on 18 May 1940 in Rozwadów on the San [and] taken to the Tarnów prison on the same day, and on 14 June 1940, on the first transport out of Tarnów, I was taken to Auschwitz.
There were already 30 German prisoners there, common criminals, brought form Sachsenhausen on 20 May 1940.
We arrived at the grounds of the camp, which did not really exist yet, as there had only been one building there, the so-called Stabsgebäude [staff building] – under the Polish administration [before the war] it was a granary right next to the rail tracks. There was a side track there and the train from Tarnów arrived at that side track, bringing us, i.e., 728 prisoners. The Gestapo that brought us was fairly gentle towards us on the train, fearing that the prisoners may attempt escape. We knew nothing about the existence of the Auschwitz camp, we supposed we were being taken to the Reich for [forced] labor as civilian workers.
When we arrived at Auschwitz, SS-men were already waiting for us. They were formed in a line from the train to the building entrance gate, and the moment the train stopped, they started calling to us: “ Los, los – raus, raus” [Quickly, quickly – out, out”]. All prisoners with their bags had to jump out of the train as soon as they could and they went from one guard to another, beaten with clubs and whatever else the SS-men had. In this fashion they were driven into the camp. There, they lined up: when one row ended, another was lined up. The entire transport was formed up in this way. We were beaten the entire time. Excuse me for asking this question, but maybe this account will take too long?
Presiding judge: Please, carry on with the account.
Witness: When we arrived in the camp, it was surrounded with a single wire, not yet [electrified], since – as I mentioned – there was only one building in the camp. Every corner had a wooden guardhouse manned by an SS-man with a rifle. After our arrival, they began to read out the list, the so-called Zugang. Not everyone could understand their names well, they were often mispronounced by the readers, who did not speak Polish. When we arrived there were 30 German prisoners on the [camp] grounds. At first we did not know they were prisoners, as they had navy blue jackets, striped pants and round caps. We thought they were German sailors on leave, as we had never seen uniforms like that before. When we got onto the camp courtyard, we found out what kind of sailors they were, as they “helped” us get into the line. They were the so-called Kapos who became so famous later. They had clubs or sticks they used to beat up unruly prisoners, unable to line up according to their orders, which barely anyone could understand. So the reading of the list of arrivals began. If someone did not understand their name, it was read out a few more times, and when he finally understood it, he was bludgeoned by a Kapo.
Every prisoner had a bundle. After the list of arrivals had been read out, all listed prisoners who had been arrested in Stalowa Wola were put aside. We did not know why we were set separately from them. There were some 30-40 folks from Stalowa Wola. We were formed up on the other side and ordered to give up all foodstuffs and sharp utensils we had with us, so bread, cigarettes, pocketknives etc. We threw [them] collectively onto a pile. Of course we were constantly hurried up by the Kapos and SS-men: “ Los, los.” The moment everyone turned in [everything] – although some concealed their pocketknives or pieces of bread or cigarettes, which was quickly revealed anyway, since upset people wanted to light up a cigarette sneakily, for which they were beaten up by the Kapos with sticks – we were told to strip bare, tie our clothes in a bundle, and with that we approached a table. There, we received a number, written on a piece of paper. It was the number of every one of us, staying with them for their entire time in the camp. The other number that each of us received was to be attached to the bundle. All those bundles were passed on to a room in the basement.
The naked prisoners went to the barber and the shaving began. As there were no professionals there, random prisoners were given shaving machines and they shaved the whole bodies of inmates. Afterwards, prisoners were only given underwear, without a shirt or tie, a suit, trousers, shoes, or without socks or a belt. How would the trousers stay on the prisoner – nobody cared, he could hold them up with his hands.
Everyone was chased out into the yard. At that moment began the famous camp “sport.” It consisted of running in circles, crouch-walking, of rollen (lying down on the ground and rolling), and of drehen (raising one’s hands up and spinning). Of course, if an order was not followed appropriately, we were beaten by the Kapos and SS-men.
There were no sports grounds. There was only the roll call square and this so-called “sport” took place there. We were tortured with this “sport” every day. I got number 92. The exercises went on from 5 AM to 12 PM, then a moment’s break, when we received some warm food, and after dinner, we did more “sport” until evening. In general, there were no pauses; maybe only if a given instructor was lighting up a cigarette or went to relieve himself. It was like that all the time. I was in that quarantine for a week. If someone became weak during the exercises, they were beaten, kicked, and if he could not move, he was placed aside. When he came to and could exercise again, he had to get in line and exercise.
This was the first period, there was no work yet, everyone was employed at the “sport”. My period of quarantine lasted a week. Then, an employee of the Political Department [camp Gestapo] (I had not known back then what the Political Department was, [just] like I did not know the members of the camp command) asked who spoke German. We were fed up with the “sport” and everyone wanted to get some kind of a job. I volunteered as someone who knew German from middle school. [My command of it] was [worse] than inadequate, but I wanted to create a possibility to improve my situation in the camp. I got into the command post of one of the NCOs. I learned later it was Oberscharführer Giesgen. At first, I did not understand all of the German words, I lacked phrase books and vocabulary, and I was beaten for that. But since there were no people who [spoke] German, I was kept there. I worked in the Political Department the entire time.
On 20 June 1940, the second transport of Poles arrived from Wiślicz, some 300 people. There was not enough room for them in the building where we were all lumped in together. The sleeping conditions were impossible. We all slept in our clothes on bare ground, we did not have any blankets yet, there was no toilet, just buckets, one per floor, for 350 people to relieve themselves in. If the floor was fouled even in the slightest, which was inevitable with so many [people], since the bucket was overfull, everyone was held responsible: the “sport” exercises were made more severe. Everyone had to squat on the ground, put their hands on their necks and jump for so long that most prisoners collapsed. Then it was stopped and we were ordered to run around the building. The Wiślicz people were therefore moved to the former artillery building in Auschwitz. It consisted of three blocks, fenced in by a few prisoners in the meantime. They were the corner buildings from the Soła [river] side. They were given numbers 1, 2, and 3. All prisoners were then divided during the quarantine into five blocks. The first section was put in building 1, second – in 2, third and fifth – in 3, as it had an upper floor, the fourth was probably saved for the quarantine. Camp uniforms were brought over for the Wiślicz people. I was given a new uniform and assigned to them in order to write down the new arrivals for the so-called records. The head of the office was Maximilian Grabner – an Untersturmführer [SS junior officer]. He did not wear any rank insignia, neither did the other Gestapo men. He had a turndown collar. For us, the prisoners, working in the Political Department consisted of being assigned to the new arrivals – the Zugangs – to write them down on sheets of paper, there were no personal file forms yet. I wrote down the Wiślicz transport. When the forms arrived, the personal file forms, they were filled in from those records: transports one and two, and thirty Kapos no. 1 through 30.
Our work in the Political Department consisted of writing down the new arrivals and working the typewriter. Later on, when there were cases of death, we wrote the so-called Fernsprechs, Schnellbriefs, in red frames. These were notifications for the appropriate authorities in Berlin who had sent the prisoner to the camp. Telegrams were sent to the families of all prisoners, including Poles. Later on those telegrams were abolished, they were only sent to the families of dead Germans.
We also filed the so-called Entlassungbescheinigungs. With outbound transports, that is, when prisoners were transported from Auschwitz to another camp, we would make a few copies of transport lists, record a transfer [of prisoners] to another camp, writing down the date and the location of the new camp, we filed notifications [for] other camps to which the prisoners were sent – the so-called Benachrichtigungen, we wrote notifications to Berlin for appropriate authorities that sent the prisoner to the camp, to criminal authorities and security authorities who had sent the prisoners to the camp.
Over time, the workload in the camp grew, as more prisoners arrived. In 1942, the first transports of women arrived. This was in February. The first transport of German women arrived. They were common criminals with green, pink, purple, and black triangles [prisoner uniform patches; colors corresponded to prisoner categories]. There were also women with red triangles [designating political prisoners], but they were an exception. These women arrived with a purpose, which we learned later, they were earmarked for overseers of other female prisoners, the so-called Kapinki, female Kapos. Shortly after, first transports of Jewish women from Slovakia arrived. There was more and more work in the Political Department. The demand for personnel grew. New employees were hired in the Political Department, but not Aryans, just Jewish women. Later on, I realized why it was so – the employees who knew too much about the camp were sent to death, and Jewish women were marked for death anyway, which they did not realize at first. The number of employees in the Political Department grew daily, as new transports arrived almost every day; the number of Jewish women employed in the Political Department grew.
This was also compounded by having to write protocols of executions, protocols of shootings that took place in Auschwitz. Those protocols were written exclusively by Jewish women by that point. We, the [male] prisoners, of whom there were still five, worked only on prisoner admissions by then.
Like I mentioned, the head of the Political Department was Maximilian Grabner. His right hand was Oberscharführer Kirschner. Then the so-called gassings started. Lists started to arrive from KB [Krankenbau, hospital], without any kind of heading, just with numbers, that is, the camp number, name, and possibly date of birth of a prisoner. We did not know what kind of lists those were, for what purpose. We got the order from the superiors of the Political Department to pull up records and files of those people based on those lists. After we pulled up those files, we were told to pack those files into a single registry, a single file to be set aside, without any additions. This was labeled [with the acronym] SB. Later on, we learned what that was. It was supposed to mean Sonderbehandlung. We later learned that they were those gassings. The lists arrived without a header; we were generally not supposed to know what those lists were. Those files, those records were set aside, only marking the date. It was not written if someone died or not. Just the date, nothing else.
In 1942, the following incident occurred: there were many sick prisoners in Auschwitz, the camp hospital filled up; it started to run out of places. The Political Department was therefore instructed that all sick were to be moved to a camp in Dresden. It was at the end of July of 1942. We were assured, same as the sick patients were, that there was a sanatorium there, that the sick will be able to receive treatment in the sanatorium, and get back to health. The Political Department again received a list from the camp hospital, a list of the sick to be taken to Dresden. We did not know if there was a camp there, it was just the assurances of SS-men and camp authorities that really convinced all of us that there is a sanatorium there.
There were people in the hospital back then who were almost healthy. I knew one – I cannot recall the name – who had a leg amputated in the hospital. He got gangrene and the leg really had to be amputated. The wound healed up, the man had already made a complete recovery, but he was in the hospital. He was also marked for the Dresden transport. After the lists were drafted by the camp hospital, they were sent to the Political Department, [which] made a transport list for its own use. Under orders from the superiors of the Political Department, I packaged those files in a single parcel. There were some 500 people in there. We brought up their records and set them aside. The files were taken over by the SS-men who were supposed to transport those patients to Dresden. We were employed in the evening at reading the lists of people who were to be taken to Dresden and were called out in front of the camp hospital in the presence of Oberscharführer Kirschner and other SS-men. Most of the sick could not walk on their own and were carried by nurses, the so-called Pflegers. After the list was read, everyone gathered in one place. After the entire list was read, two more Kapos were attached to that transport: Krankemann and one other, who did not have an arm, I cannot recall his name. All of these people were transported away on a train, a passenger train, even. The Pflegers carried the sick on stretchers or on their shoulders into the train. [The prisoners] were supposed to depart for Dresden, they were happy, they said their goodbyes to me: “Maybe we will recover over there, maybe we will get better, we are going to a sanatorium.” We handed over the files to the SS-men from the Political Department and they were to be passed on to the SS-man escorting the train. I did not see those files again for some time.
In the meantime, the following happened: aside from the Häftling [prisoner] numbers, there were also Toten [deceased] numbers. Everyone who died received a new number. Everyone received an arrival number [and] a departure number: through death, through release, or through transport. Those were the three [types of] exits from the camp. Shortly after that transport, I was called to one SS-man in the Political Department office to clean his shoes. It was actually my main task later on, as there were typists in the office, proficient in machine [typing], stenographers, who worked as schreiberki [office writers], and I was this kind of factotum for cleaning shoes, belts, ironing uniforms, repairing typewriters, pens, and clocks, and various other jobs. Aside from that, when there were transports, I also wrote Benachrichtigungs. So, as I said, I was called to the office to clean shoes. Upon entering any office, one looked around to see what was inside, which was understandable – one wanted to know where one was and what was going to happen. I noticed that on a table next to an SS-man there were files, in groups, along the entire length and width, and there were marks – made in blue pencil – a cross, and a date. I looked to see what those files were. I peeked and I saw that they were the files of the people who had been taken away to Dresden. Hair stood up on my head, as I had been convinced, like others were, that they went to Dresden, and suddenly I saw there all the files – I was certain they had left alongside the prisoners. What happened? In order to keep the prisoners from finding out, in order to keep even the Jewish women who worked in there from finding out, SS-men wrote the death notifications themselves.
The day everyone was gassed – I do not know where, they probably went away a kilometre or two, maybe it happened in some house, but they were all gassed together, everyone who was on the transport list – they spread it over a month. After the dates were spread out over an entire month, they entered fictitious causes of death. I realized those causes were made up because I had known many of the sick and I knew who was sick with what.
The second gassing in Auschwitz – the first took place in 1941, not 1942, as I read in the daily papers yesterday. Soviet prisoners of war were brought in, not a hundred of them, but about 600; I have more precise data because I worked in the Political Department. I am under the impression that they were not regular soldiers, but some kind of military officers. They were brought in at night and placed in Block 13, not 11; the block served the same function the entire time. The block had been emptied by everyone [in] the SK (penal company) earlier. The Soviet prisoners were placed there and gassed. The penal company was later given their uniforms to wear – there was not enough of the camp [ones], so they were dressed in those uniforms, except they had been given a red stripe across their backs and a red stripe on each side of their trousers.
Presiding judge: Was it Block 11 or 13?
Witness: It is the same block, since numbers changed as new blocks were constructed in Auschwitz.
Presiding judge: Is the witness aware of the fact that all orders regarding punishment were concentrated in the political office?
Witness: Yes, indeed, the Political Department was the brain of the entire camp. Every punishment administered to the prisoner went through the Political Department – I mean the recorded punishments. It was about keeping up appearances. If a prisoner committed a crime, a report was sent to Berlin and then an assent for the given punishment came from over there. Then an official punishment was held, even though the prisoner had already been punished before Berlin confirmed the punishment. Floggings and stójkas [punishment consisting of standing in place for extended periods] were subject to confirmation. In 1941 or 1942, the so-called standing cell punishment was created – the Stehbunker. Only some punishments were confirmed by Berlin, I do not remember which ones exactly, but floggings definitely had to go through Berlin. [So] every prisoner who had already received their share of the flogging, much larger than what Berlin assented to, was taken to Block 11 and then served his sentence again, since in principle a sentence was to be carried out after Berlin confirmed it. These things were regular occurrences: a prisoner would, immediately after their crime, receive not even triple what they were due, but many times that, and then a report was sent to Berlin, the punishment was approved, and then the sentence was carried out.
Presiding judge: Who had administered the punishments before that?
Witness: The first punishment that was official and in the presence of all the prisoners was handed out in July of 1940 as a result of the first prisoner escape from Auschwitz, accomplished by one Wiejowski. As a result, a prisoner who refused to admit he had supposedly been informed about the escape was given a whipping. The prisoner received 170 lashes, delivered by Obersturmführer (?) Palitzsch and another SS-man, whose name I do not remember.
Presiding judge: For what?
Witness: Because he did not want to inform on Wiejowski’s escape.
Presiding judge: Had he known about it?
Witness: He knew nothing and could not give them any kind of information. He got 170 lashes. Then he was taken away by us, the prisoners, [and] washed, since he was bleeding terribly; he was black all over. The prisoner even managed to survive that because his camp colleagues took care of him, and when nothing was proven against him in the end, he worked in the camp kitchen. It was the first official punishment handed out by the SS-men themselves.
Presiding judge: Had the political office been informed about it?
Witness: There was no special notification of that whipping, but the political office knew about it, as Obersturmführer Grabner was present for it.
The punishment whereby we had to stand still was also very memorable; that lasted from the evening roll call until 3 or 4 PM the next day.
Presiding judge: All night?
Witness: Yes, from 6 PM on Saturday. I remember that day exactly because Saturday was the day when we handed in our dirty underwear. All the prisoners were typically without underwear already, they were wearing just their coarse camp clothes. From evening until morning, all night, we were terribly cold.
Presiding judge: At what time of the year did that take place?
Witness: On 11 or 12 July 1940. A little less than a month after we were brought to the camp.
Presiding judge: Was the night cool?
Witness: Yes, very cool. We were watched by the kapos and SS-men.
Presiding judge: What about meals?
Witness: There were no meals. During the night, as I said, we were impossibly abused, we were not allowed to move, not allowed to relieve ourselves, even though people had come straight from work.
Presiding judge: Who had ordered such a roll call?
Witness: It was ordered by camp commandant Höß.
Presiding judge: Or perhaps by the political office?
Witness: I do not think so.
Presiding judge: It was a direct order from Höß – that is what the witness believes?
Witness: I believe so.
Presiding judge: Did the political office know?
Witness: The political office knew, as it was on duty, since interrogations lasted all through the night to the tune of the screams of the victims being beaten in an attempt to force them into any kind of testimony.
Presiding judge: Was the witness present for the interrogation?
Witness: No. One of the prisoners knew the transcript. It was Erwin Michalik, no. 234. He wrote the records of the testimony during prisoner interviews.
Presiding judge: How would such interrogations and forcing of testimony proceed?
Witness: At first they asked if anyone knew anything about the given matter and assured that there would be no consequences, that everyone would be able to go to the block, eat, get dressed, possibly go to bed later in the night. As they solemnly swore that they would do so if someone would say what they knew about the case, careless [prisoners] volunteered without even knowing that there was an escape. Because, in fact, maybe only two people knew anything at all. The rest knew nothing, but volunteered to say anything just to get that standing punishment to end. As soon as someone volunteered they were not asked what they knew, just knocked down and beaten with sticks for an hour or two. The SS-men held them down and the stenographer, who was present for it, recorded what they [the victim] said. The beatings went on for the entire night. As I said, people were not allowed to relieve themselves.
Presiding judge: Did the political office conduct any interviews under orders from the authorities?
Witness: Yes. There was a member of the political office appointed by the Gestapo, one Woźnica [Wosnitzka], probably a Silesian, an Untersturmführer. At first he went around in a uniform, he had a gold party badge and later on he wore plainclothes. He was the only officer of the Political Department who did not wear a uniform. He conducted the interviews. Regardless of that, the SS-men also conducted other, less important interviews. If the interviews were about other cases, related to other locations, the appropriate Gestapo would arrive and interrogate on site, in the Political Department. The officials of the Political Department conducted inquests about camp crimes, i.e. when evidence of some kind of conspiracy in the camp was found or in cases of theft or the so-called camp organisation.
Presiding judge: Did the interrogations include abuse, torture?
Witness: Every interrogation, whether with regards [to] crimes committed in the camp or outside it, in the underground, in the organisation, included elaborate torture. One of the worst forms of torture was the cradle, Schaukel, invented by Oberscharführer Boger. It was a pole with a perpendicular iron rod, which the prisoner was suspended from by being handcuffed or tied with wire or rope; the prisoner had to pull their knees up to their arms and then was swung around the rod. The arm joints suffered the most. The prisoner would spin around the rod. It was done in order to force testimony. The worst pain was to the arms, it was also exhausting to hang upside down.
Presiding judge: Did the Political Department use these methods without regard for sex?
Witness: Yes, without regard for sex.
Presiding judge: What other forms of torture are known to the witness?
Witness: I want to speak about what I saw myself. During the beatings, a prisoner was laid down on a chair in the room. During the swinging there were also strikes to the face with a fist or a tool. I do not want to speak about things I did not see.
Presiding judge: Did the witness attend the interrogations of women?
Witness: No. I did not attend prisoner interrogations at all. I only saw it by accident, having been sent by a Gestapo man from the political office to another barrack, which also housed the political office, with some kind of command or demand. I opened a door and saw it accidentally. None of us, the [male] prisoners, were there [at an interrogation]. There were only the Jewish women employed in the Political Department.
Presiding judge: Did the political office inflict any punishments, did Grabner or Höß inflict summary punishment?
Witness: In general, camp punishments were inflicted by a so-called Lagerführer, a camp director, and beyond that there was also the Lagerkommandant [camp commandant]. As for crimes [such] as withholding personal data during the Aufnahme [intake], the punishments were ordered by the Political Department. Prisoners would arrive with specific orders from the Gestapo. There were Stufe [levels] 1, 2, 3. At first, I did not understand what that meant. For a long time I did not see the difference between them. I only noticed it later. At first, from my point of view, everyone was tortured equally. Later on I noticed that there some crimes were more or less serious, in the German understanding, of course.
The prisoners who had committed serious crimes were later sent to penal companies, they were given black and yellow marks on their clothes and letters IL – InLager, inside camp, i.e. they were not employed outside of the main camp. Independent of that, lists with personal files would arrive from the Gestapo authorities with remarks on what to do with every prisoner. “Rücken [Rückkehr] unerwünscht” – return undesirable. People did not know at first that they had any annotations in their files. In general there was no difference, they went to work together. In 1942, I do not recall exactly when, some prisoners were selected from the camp and taken to the side camp, to Brzezinka – Birkenau. The files were moved over, the records remained. At first we did not understand what that was supposed to mean. But over time death notices from there would begin to appear: that someone or other died. I looked in the records – they were [arranged] alphabetically, the files were sorted by numbers. I looked – and I saw a little red cross. I thought it was just a mark. With time, I saw that more and more Totenmeldungs [notices of death] would arrive, especially of those who had little red crosses. Those exact [prisoners] were dragged out of Birkenau and out of the Stammlager [main camp] to Block 11 and there they were shot with small arms. Later on it turned out all those who had those annotations were shot. Only a handful survived by random chance.
Presiding judge: Did the witness know of those annotations? Did they include [any information on] why a prisoner was to be removed or did they not?
Witness: No, they were just short annotations. Even one of the employees of the Political Department had an annotation like that – prisoner 1108, Roman Taub. That man survived and is alive today.
| Presiding judge: | Does the witness know anything about those executions in Block 11? |
| Witness: | Yes. At first, the executions were performed collectively, meaning that people |
| –I | did not know on what basis at the beginning – were selected from some kind of list of |
prisoners [and] taken to the so-called Kiesgrube [gravel pits]. As it was right by the prison gate, we could watch the people standing there. There was a pit that had been dug there and we could even watch the shooting from the attic through a little window. The prisoners were brought over and shot by a firing squad. But since there were many civilian employees working at building the camp and the news would spread to the area, the shootings in the Kiesgrube were stopped, and later on the so-called Death Wall was built in Block 11. But they no longer shot people with rifles there; they used quiet small arms.
Presiding judge: What was that “Death Wall?”
Witness: It was a wall between blocks 10 and 11, built intentionally from Block 10 to Block 11, closing off the yard of the penal Block 11. Block 10 had windows out to that yard, [so they were covered] with shutters so that nobody from Block 10 could watch what was going on in the yard in front of Block 11. Prisoners were shot in front of that wall connecting blocks 10 and 11. It was eventually named the “Death Wall.”
Presiding judge: Were there many such shootings every day?
Witness: Shootings were not held daily in general. It is hard to say how often they took place.
Presiding judge: Did the Political Department know about that?
Witness: Yes. There were execution numbers, but those execution files were put completely separate.
Presiding judge: But the witness did not know the reasons for the deaths?
Witness: I did not know them.
Presiding judge: Were there no annotations in the files about how those people were marked for shooting?
Witness: No, there were none. In fact, that execution protocol only existed in theory; the way it would proceed was that a Lagerführer would receive names from the Political Department during the evening roll call and during the morning roll call – back then there were still morning roll calls – those names were called out and those prisoners were taken straight from the roll call square to Block 11, where the Lagerführer would later go with a carbine on his arm and the shooting would take place there.
Presiding judge: Did he conduct the shootings himself?
Witness: The Blockführer [block overseer] was present for it, but it was not official, as they were not listed in the execution protocol; it named the firing squad, so if the Blockführer was there, it was because he wanted to see it.
Presiding judge: Was there a court in the political office?
Witness: Courts would arrive sometimes.
Presiding judge: But there was no camp court?
Witness: There was not. There never was a court like that.
Presiding judge: The courts were only for the placement of the new arrivals, the so-called Zugangs?
Witness: Yes. Those courts were not always held in Auschwitz, as the Gestapo often sent a request for one prisoner or another, often for a larger group, and those were transferred – not to another camp, but to the Gestapo, from where they did not return at all, and if they did, they did so as cadavers, as the people murdered by the Gestapo were also burned in the Auschwitz crematorium. I often saw a car with a Gestapo man arrive, the man would go into the Political Department and announce he had brought corpses for burning. I accidentally saw what was in the car; they were people in civilian clothes.
Presiding judge: So, in general, the political office knew about those who were to be executed, it was only the causes of death that they annotated themselves. The witness does not know much about that?
Witness: The only annotations in the files were these: POP – but it is not known if that was proven or not. For example, there could be: “Member of a secret organisation” – but it is not known if [that] had been proven or not and if the court had sentenced them to death or not. Or there could be an annotation “(several words inGerman)” – “taken during an action against Polish resistance”. So this was not a sentence passed by any court, it did not list motives, it did not say what for.
Presiding judge: Was the political office aware of the selections that took place [in the camp]?
Witness: We would compile lists of those selected [based on data] from the camp hospital. But it was not everything, as in general they became very humane and wanted to cut short the pain of those who were very sick, the so-called Muselmanns, and they took them to the gas as per a list.
Presiding judge: The witness has used the expression “Muslims”, what does that mean?
Witness: It means a sick, weak person, one who could barely move any more. The Germans said “ Muselmanns”, we said “Muslims”.
Presiding judge: Was this an official designation? A powerless person?
Witness: Yes, a person driven to physical exhaustion, without flesh, barely shuffling along.
Presiding judge: So they were gassed in addition to others?
Witness: Yes. Every now and again, an extraordinary roll call was called. The Lagerkommandant, Lagerführer or one of the camp SS-men would arrive alongside the camp elder and kapos and they would drag those Muslims out of the line. They were listed, put on cars, and hauled to Birkenau, to the crematorium.
Presiding judge: To Brzezinka?
Witness: Yes.
Presiding judge: How many such “Muslims” were taken to Birkenau per day?
Witness: Such selections did not take place every day, as nobody became a Muslim overnight, but as regards the sick, I want to highlight [one thing]. The sick were written down according to their diseases – in this case typhus – in the hospital. The camp authorities, seeking to eliminate typhus in the camp, came up with the idea of gassing all the sick. They started making lists of typhus sufferers, but it often took some time for it to move from plan to action, for the people to be taken to the gas. In the meantime, some of them recovered, returned to camp, worked as completely healthy [prisoners]. Later on, when [the lists] based on the hospital records arrived, the Lagerführers would call for those numbers, even numbers of those who were already completely healthy in the camp and were working normally, and even if they cried and screamed, [they] were put alongside the sick in the cars and after that it was just their cries and pleas coming from the cars, and they were taken to Birkenau, to the crematorium.
Presiding judge: Such selections took place occasionally?
Witness: Yes, only when a sufficient number of patients had amassed.
Presiding judge: Who conducted the selections?
Witness: They were conducted by the camp doctor, I do not remember his name.
Presiding judge: The witness has mentioned “Muslims?”
Witness: That selection was conducted by the camp commandant, the camp SS-men in general, they would just grab prisoners from the line.
Presiding judge: Were they grabbed when they went to work or during the roll call?
Witness: It was usually done after work, or when kommandos [work details] went to work and Muslims remained in the camp. Another roll call was taken then and everyone employed in the camp was herded together and subjected to selection.
Presiding judge: Was their physical fitness tested?
Witness: No.
Presiding judge: It was all based on their appearance?
Witness: Yes.
Presiding judge: As for the women’s camp, does the witness have any data in that regard?
Witness: The first transport of women to arrive in Auschwitz was in the men’s camp in the Stammlager. 10 blocks had already been walled off and the women were placed in those 10 blocks, as Birkenau was not yet ready to accept women. It was only around the summer of 1942 that the women were moved to Birkenau and the ten blocks they left behind were gassed. Why? Because there were billions of insects in there, so many that [when] the prisoners employed there hauled the pallets out of those blocks one could not see a spot of their bodies, they were covered in fleas. Those women had no sanitary facilities in those blocks, no bathrooms, they could not keep themselves clean, especially since in a block like that [an area] that could normally house four people housed twenty. A single-story block like that housed 1000–1500 people and of course it was impossible to keep one’s body or room clean. I had already known about the events in that camp from my colleagues from the political office, the Jewish women. In the summer of 1942, Birkenau was completed and the women were moved there and I was not able to observe them any longer.
Presiding judge: Did the political office reach there?
Witness: Yes, a post of the political office was set up in Birkenau, it was subordinate to the main camp. An SS-man or two would sit there with two or three Hungarian Jewish women who worked in the Political Department.
Presiding judge: Is the witness aware of instances of the defendant arriving at the political office and making decisions, [and if so, then] what were their contents?
Witness: Yes, I saw the defendant in the Political Department often, but I cannot say anything about the content of his conversations, as [those conversations] only took place in Grabner’s office, behind closed doors, and I could not hear what they spoke about.
Presiding judge: After Höß would leave, was there any increased activity in the office, were there any orders from Grabner? Was it impossible to figure out the purpose of Höß’s visit?
Witness: It was possible, but only rarely, when there was an SB (Sonderbehandlung) for the gas or when entire transports of Jews were supposed to arrive, since those mostly went straight to the gas. So then it was possible to feel that out, as the officials of the political office, SS-men, would immediately get dressed and go out, leaving us under the watch of a single SS-man at most, when there were 30–40 female employees and five of us, the male employees.
Presiding judge: As for the SB, were prisoners also kept in the records of the political office?
Witness: Ones with numbers on their arms. There were lists, people were sorted into those capable and incapable of work. The able-bodied were taken to the camp and added to the prisoner registry, the infirm went to the gas.
Presiding judge: What was the ratio within a transport like that, how many were kept for labor?
Witness: The ratio varied, but it was more or less 30% going to the camp, 70% to the gas.
Presiding judge: Directly to the gas?
Witness: Yes.
Presiding judge: Based on the records of the political office, is it possible to determine the traffic in the camp, its numbers?
Witness: It would be possible, as the original tables of transports sent by specific authorities to Auschwitz were there. The political office had a list of registered prisoners in the camp.
Presiding judge: How many registered prisoners were there in the camp?
Witness: Some 200 000 men were registered. At first, everyone was registered, both Jews and Aryans, and everyone would receive their number. In 1943 – I presume it was to create an illusion that Auschwitz did not have too many prisoners – Aryan intake was separated from Jewish intake. Aryans would receive their numbers, and Jews would receive numbers up to 20 000, [initialled with the letter] A. When the number of arrivals reached 20 000, the numbering [with the letter] A ended and the numbering [with the letter] B began. It was the same for women. Women had separate numbers for Jews and for Aryans.
Presiding judge: How many such Aryan women were in the camp, approximately?
Witness: Some 90 000.
Presiding judge: And Jewish women?
Witness: As for Jewish women, they were also included in the first registry, as initially everyone was admitted under one, shared numbering scheme.
Presiding judge: And what was it like later?
Witness: Later on, the first 20 000 Jewish women were exterminated, and after that just under 40 000 were placed in the registry.
Presiding judge: Were there any more markings besides those?
Witness: There were Gypsies, who had a separate numbering scheme. Gypsies had the letter Z with a separate number range. Besides that there were also the so-called erzieherische Häftlinge – reeducation prisoners. Here, the women also had a different numbering scheme to the men.
Presiding judge: Was there any difference between the reeducation prisoners and regular prisoners?
Witness: Yes, there was a colossal difference. Because in general the so-called erzieherische Häftlinge had a preordained term for their stay in re-education camp. It was 21, 28, 37, 56 days, up to three months. But of course many of those prisoners did more time.
Presiding judge: Who determined that term?
Witness: There were special decrees from the authorities, i.e. the Gestapo.
Presiding judge: What was the criterion?
Witness: Running away from work.
Presiding judge: You mean from the work they had when they were free?
Witness: Yes. The prisoner was then placed in a reeducation camp, but sometimes they ended up in concentration camps too. I do not know how to explain that one person who refused to work ended up in a concentration camp and another in a reeducation camp.
Presiding judge: What reasons could cause prisoners to be held after their term and not released?
Witness: If they wanted to keep somebody, they created a fiction that they had committed a camp crime.
Presiding judge: What was a “camp crime?”
Witness: It was when someone had not followed an order properly or ate when it was not allowed, smoked when it was not allowed, spat on the floor etc.
Presiding judge: If the camp authorities concluded an infraction of this nature took place, what would the punishment for it be?
Witness: The prisoner would immediately receive their share of flogging, and then the camp authorities could potentially apply the regulations as they saw fit. It was done by a Blockführer, then, potentially, a Lagerführer.
Presiding judge: It has been mentioned here that one could obtain better employment or potentially a more strenuous one. Was it actually possible in the camp? How would it proceed? Was it done by the camp authorities or could such moves be made on one’s own?
Witness: Heavier work consisted of being employed at moving concrete pylons or carrying cement. In general, outside work was less desirable than working indoors, since an outdoor labourer was exposed to the influence of the weather, rain, humidity etc.
Presiding judge: Was lighter work considered a kind of a reward?
Witness: There were no rewards in the camp in general, it was more a result of the resourcefulness or cleverness of a given prisoner.
Presiding judge: How could such benefits be obtained?
Witness: One would report to the camp hospital. It was also worked by the prisoners, so they went along with you. So the prisoner would move from a kommando to the hospital, and then try to get a better kommando. They would seek out colleagues who had [various] positions in the hospital and try to get there through them.
Presiding judge: Did they try to get indoors, since it offered better chances of survival?
Witness: Yes. I never would have thought you can get a swelling of the head. In 1940, we did not have caps. We worked with our heads bare and shaved. Our heads would swell like pumpkins. We only received caps and coats on 17 December. There were also winter coverings, cloth uniforms and drill summer uniforms. Everyone did their best to protect themselves from the winter.
Presiding judge: What did “organising” in the camp mean?
Witness: It meant trying to just fool Germans and get food for oneself. One would “organise” anything that was needed for survival, so – foodstuffs.
Presiding judge: How could you “organise” if everything had to be turned in?
Witness: “Organising” consisted of having prisoners employed in the SS food warehouses taking food from there – Auschwitz included both a Truppenwirtschaftslager [troop supply depot] and a Hauptwirtschaftslager [main crew equipment depot]; I have learned that Auschwitz was also intended as a Stirtspunkt [Stützpunkt] – a support point for the SS.
Those who worked in the kitchen also had the possibility to take something from the kitchen warehouse. They would smuggle that food into the camp grounds and share with their colleagues. One could take any foodstuffs, without exception. I do not want to go into detail, but everything [could be taken].
Presiding judge: What were the food rations like?
Witness: I cannot say in calories or in weight. Every evening we would receive a quarter or a third of a loaf of bread, and when times were tough in the camp, even just a fifth, and a slice of sausage or a very thin slice of margarine besides. It was the daily allowance, handed out in the evening. In the morning we would receive coffee or Avo – I do not know what kind of brew that was, it was white, somewhat like flour.
Presiding judge: Did it taste good?
Witness: The prisoners were hungry, so it suited them, but later on even hungry prisoners could not drink that Avo. Dinner was Avo and Pellkartoffeln – boiled potatoes.
Presiding judge: When a prisoner “organised” something, they could just eat it?
Witness: No. They could eat around their colleagues, they just needed to take care that they were not seen by someone from the SS, as it would result in an investigation into how they got it, the Political Department would get involved, and then there were various consequences. We tried to hide it.
Presiding judge: Were there any so-called informants in the camp and what was their job?
Witness: There were informants. They gathered information from the prisoners and delivered it to the Political Department. It was about the underground in the camp, about political discussions in the camp, about reading and owning newspapers.
Presiding judge: Has the witness seen any informant reports?
Witness: Those were confidential, for Gestapo only, it did not go through prisoner hands. I have only seen one such report. It was made by prisoner Dorosiewicz, no. 17 000-something. He himself offered his services to the Political Department, he wanted to distinguish himself in that way to go free. Dorosiewicz later escaped the camp with one Jew, having murdered an SS-man from the Political Department who had been assigned to guard him. I do not know what happened to him later. I have only heard he showed up in Poland, but I do not know where. I have also heard that he murdered his escape companion, that Jew, as well.
Presiding judge: The witness cannot present any concrete information?
Witness: I cannot, but I insist he was an informant, as a report of his for the Political Department made its way into my hands by accident.
Prosecutor Siewierski: Can the witness tell us briefly who made the decisions to kill specific prisoners? I do not mean how it should have been done, but how it was done?
Witness: The decisions to kill prisoners were either ordered or not. The ordered decisions came from the Gestapo and with regard to the mass gassings, I cannot say, as only transport lists would be received.
Prosecutor Siewierski: I am only talking about the killing of registered prisoners.
Witness: That means recorded shooting. In this case, we received Schnellbriefs. They were Gestapo documents with a red frame and that is where the commands to carry out the shooting would be.
Prosecutor Siewierski: And if the order did not come from the outside, in what cases would the Political Department formally make a decision to kill?
Witness: There was no formal decision to kill, there was no decision-making process conducted formally, on paper. The people with the little red cross were shot by the Political Department, we would then write notifications for the families and Berlin that they died of such and such causes.
Prosecutor Siewierski: Were there any trials called in that Political Department?
Witness: The so-called Standgericht [special court] would arrive, but I cannot say how it was held as I was not present for that.
Presiding judge: Does the defence have any questions?
Defence Attorney Ostaszewski: One question. What was Grabner’s relation to Höß with regards to behaviour and with regards to subordination?
Witness: Grabner was in general Höß’s subordinate and they had frequent conferences together in Grabner’s office.
Defence Attorney Ostaszewski: But what I mean is could Grabner issue certain commands independently of Höß as a Gestapo man, or was he dependent on him and could only follow Höß’s orders?
Witness: Grabner would follow Höß’s orders, but he would also follow any orders he received in writing through the so-called Fernschreibung [mailed orders].
Defence Attorney Ostaszewski: But could he issue orders completely independently of Höß?
Witness: He could not, as all execution protocols were signed by Höß.
Defence Attorney Ostaszewski: So with Höß’s assent?
Witness: Yes.
Defence Attorney Umbreit: One of the previous witnesses has testified here that the defendant was a [major] figure in the camp, almost a demigod, that [that witness] could only see him from afar. How would you reconcile it with the witness’s testimony that the commandant took part in the selections of those so-called “Muslims?”
Witness: Yes, indeed, he did take part. I remember myself, in 1941, when there was an escape, ten people were selected from the block. I was not in that block, my brother was there, I was at Block 5 back then, and Block 2, the one that prisoner escaped from and where those ten prisoners were selected, was behind my block. I kept looking over there and I saw, and my brother told me, that Höß, in the presence of a Lagerführer and other SS-men, entered the block himself and pointed his finger at the people who were to be selected for death.
Presiding judge: I call a 15-minute recess.