On 21 January 1947 in Łódź, an investigative judge of the District Court in Łódź, Deputy Prosecutor of the District Court Julian Leszczyński, with the participation of reporter M. Adamczykówna, heard the person named below as a witness. Having been advised of the criminal liability for making false statements and of the wording of Article 107 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, the witness testified as follows:
| Name and surname | Stanisław Suliborski |
| Year of birth | 1911 |
| Parents’ names | Stanisław and Leokadia |
| Place of residence | Łódź, Biegańskiego Street 8 |
| Occupation | doctor |
| Religious affiliation | Roman Catholic |
| Criminal record | none |
I was brought to the concentration camp in Auschwitz from Pawiak Prison in Warsaw on 15 August 1940. I remained there until 16 February 1942. During the first two weeks in the camp, we (1,500 people from the first transport from Warsaw) participated in penal exercises (running, “frog” jumps). The majority of prisoners who had been exercising fell seriously ill afterwards, due to purulent skin lesions on the legs. At the end of August 1940, after an inspection by the supervisory authorities, the camp leadership received the order that the prisoners with leg injuries be treated. The number of such prisoners amounted to about a thousand people, so a separate block had to be prepared for them.
At that time, Rudolf Höß, with the rank of Hauptsturmführer, was the Lagerkommendant (in charge of the camp and the SS guard), and Obersturmführer Fritsch [Fritzsch] was the Lagerführer (in charge of the prisoners).
After the two weeks of penal exercises, during which many prisoners were near the point of collapse because of the physical activities and the beating to death, we – that is, the first transport from Warsaw – were assigned to work. My work, as an unskilled worker, initially included levelling the ground, crushing stone and covering roofs. From 10 September 1940, I worked at the camp infirmary (Häftlingskrankenbau) as a doctor and carer (Pfleger). I had to hide the fact that I was a certified doctor. I said I was a student of medicine, since employing certified doctors at the camp infirmaries was strictly forbidden by the central authorities (in Berlin) at that time. Doctors could officially work at the infirmary from November 1941 (also as ordered by the central authorities). As I heard from fellow prisoners, who had been at different camps, similar regulations were also operating for example in Oranienburg and Dachau.
I initially worked in block 27, at the internal diseases ward. The mortality rate at that time was high. As far as I remember, at the camp, with up to 4,000 – 5,000 people, about one hundred per day died as a result of bad conditions of hygiene (no water – one well; no restrooms; cold, wet, overcrowded concrete barracks). There was too much work and not enough food. The clothing was inadequate – denim clothes, no hat and bare feet (until December 1940). Prisoners would spend 16 hours per day outdoors. From December 1940, we were allowed to have a woollen sweater, socks and a denim coat. In January 1941, one sweater, one pair of socks and gloves could be sent from home. Prisoners were dying because of the cold and hunger, not to speak of the violent deaths resulting from maltreatment.
I remember that in December 1940 or January 1941, when a certain number of Poles were ordered to be executed, one of them – a young prisoner of about 20 years of age – was staying in the infirmary. He was on the list of prisoners to be executed. By the order of the local authorities, he had to be taken to the execution ground, where other prisoners from his group were being executed. Prior to being taken to the execution ground, he was given an injection of morphine or ether (I don’t know which one exactly) and he died quickly.
From November 1940, by the order of the authorities (I can’t specify whether they were the local or the central authorities), prisoners with tuberculosis were killed with injections.
In the summer of 1941 (June), about 300 invalid prisoners were supposedly sent to a sanatorium near Dresden. As I found out from the doctor, SS-Hauptsturmführer Dr. Trzebinski, who had escorted the transport, they were gassed around Dresden.
From the summer of 1941, during the admission of ill prisoners to the infirmary, the Lagerarzt [doctor] would select a number of prisoners to be killed with phenol injections. At that time, Dr. Schwella [Schwela], Dr. Jung and Dr. Blaschke were the camp doctors. About 50 people per day were killed in this way, from a total of about 10,000 people in the camp and about 3,000 people in the infirmary, including 500 infected with typhus. The rest [died] from exhaustion, and those requiring surgery died from their injuries.
Prisoners’ injuries that were found to be a result of beating couldn’t be described in the medical records. I know many cases of rib cages that were crushed as a consequence of being stepped on, cases of necrosis of the buttocks and genital organs that developed because of beating (prisoners from this category were mainly brought from Lublin prison). False causes of death were most often given at the administrative office of the infirmary, as they were trying to hide the large numbers of prisoners killed by execution, gassing or lethal injections.
The German doctors were usually completely uninterested in the sick, suffering prisoners. They confined themselves to signing death certificates, while Dr. Schwela and Dr. Fischer practiced surgery on the prisoners. In the initial period, with a small number of prisoners, there were sufficient amounts of medicine. Later, medicines and dressings were lacking. For some time, medicines were smuggled in large quantities from the town of Auschwitz by the prisoners working in the Buna-Werke kommando.
In the summer of 1941, the food rations of the sick prisoners staying in the rewir [hospital] were reduced by half. It took about six weeks before the order was withdrawn. It must have been issued by the local authorities. In the period from November 1940 to the time when the selections started taking place, that is, up to the summer of 1941, a limited number of the sick were admitted to the infirmary, regardless of the fact that [they] may have been already dying. The main condition for being admitted to the rewir was a fever beyond 39 degrees, complete exhaustion, or a severe injury.
The SS central authorities were taking an interest in the killing by the use of phenol. I remember when in the summer of 1941, one of the Polish doctors in Auschwitz (Dr. Dering) was forced to perform a post-mortem examination of a prisoner killed with an intravenous phenol injection. This took place in the presence of a Medical Commission comprised of two SS-Obersturbannführers from the Institute of Hygiene in Berlin (I don’t remember the names). Polish prisoners were forced by the responsible personnel of the infirmary to give lethal injections.
The first gassing took place on 5 September 1941. 600 Soviet prisoners of war (brought directly from outside the camp) and 300 sick prisoners from the camp infirmary were gassed. The selection was made by three German doctors: Dr. Schwela, Dr. Blaschke and an SS-Obersturmführer from the Adolf Hitler Leibgarde, whose name I don’t remember. The prisoners of war were gassed in their uniforms, coats and shoes, and the sick were gassed in their underwear, in the cramped bunkers of the penal company (block 11). The process of taking the bodies out of the basements and undressing them took about a week and, apart from a special unit (Leichentrager Kommando), the entire personnel of the infirmary was engaged. Later gassings took place in the chamber next to the crematorium and the prisoners were told to get undressed beforehand. In this way, the technique of mass killing was perfected.
The report was read out.