Prosecutor Kurowski: Your Honor, I would like to call to the stand Zycher, prisoner no. 135179 of the Auschwitz camp, who may determine the circumstances of the operations carried out in crematorium III and the rebellion that took place there, as well as the circumstances of the extermination of transports at the ramp in Birkenau.
Presiding Judge: Does the defense have any requests regarding the prosecutor’s request?
Defense: We leave it up to the Supreme Tribunal.
Presiding Judge: The Tribunal has decided to hear the witness’ testimony. If he is present, please call him to the stand.
Witness: Zycher, 41 years old, Jewish.
Presiding Judge: I advise the witness to speak the truth. Making false declarations is punishable with a prison term of up to five years. Do the parties wish to submit any requests regarding the mode hearing of the witness?
Prosecution: We exempt the witness from taking the oath.
Defense: We exempt the witness from taking the oath.
Presiding Judge: The witness shall testify without taking the oath. Since the witness has been called to the stand at the request of prosecutor Kurowski, will the prosecutor please ask his question?
Prosecutor Kurowski: When was the witness in Auschwitz?
Witness: I was brought to Auschwitz in June 1943. We arrived at the ramp, because there was still no direct track to the crematorium. A selection was carried out right on the spot. Men were told to stand in rows of five on one side, women and children on the other. SS officers were standing next to the men and were segregating them. They chose young men, from 18 to 30 years old. Some asked them if they were craftsmen, others did not. Five percent of the men were selected and five percent of the women. Buses drove up and children, women and the elderly were loaded in. SS men beat the prisoners in the buses that were headed to the crematorium. People didn’t know where they were going. Then, we were taken to the “Sauna”, that is the bath. I walked through the crematorium. I saw a Red Cross vehicle driving behind the buses. For us, it meant that if somebody felt sick on the way, they would help him. But there was gas inside. We found that out later. All people who were taken to the “Sauna” had gold, diamonds, often their entire fortune with them. Those people were forced to wait in the yard for the whole night. Then, they were put into camp A. There, we slept on bare floor, without blankets, food or drink. Every day, we were beaten by the SS men who came to the camp. They wouldn’t stop beating us. I also remember some of the people who are present here beat the prisoners. (Here, the witness points at several defendants who had beaten them.) Each day I received a hundred lashes. They never had enough of the beating. They burnt my father, wife and mother. Every day there were transports to the crematorium. They would throw people out of the buses like coal. Moll and Szulc were present there. They took children and women to the crematorium, robbed their fortunes, running into the billions, and nobody knew what happened to them.
I read in a newspaper that they said they had wanted cigarettes. I must say that there were lots of chocolate or grapes – they took it all from people from the Netherlands, Belgium, Italy, Norway – they stole it and sent it home. Each SS man did what he wanted. For them, to kill a human being was no worse than to kill a fly.
Presiding Judge: Will the witness please be brief? The Tribunal is fully aware of the witness’ experiences and we understand his sufferings, but we ask the witness to respond to specific questions by the prosecutor. Will the witness please say what he knows about the prisoners’ rebellion?
Witness: I can say how the rebellion happened. I was then transferred to the kitchen, where I worked together with my brother. When we worked in the kitchen, I was in charge of camp A statistics. Every man who was brought to the camp, had to go through camp A. I had to write it all down. One day, I asked the head of the kitchen, what percent of people was sent to the camp, and what percent to the crematorium. He told me that 5 percent of men came here, 5 percent of women went to the women’s camp, and 95 percent of people were sent to the crematorium. There was a selection every day. They would carry out selections in the camp on the days of Jewish holidays. My brother and I knew that we were doomed anyway. I told him, “Those people who are brought here don’t know where they’re going, but we know”. We worked in the kitchen, so we could eat more. We had a deal with women from Zagłębie Dąbrowskie who would bring us gunpowder from the Union factory, where they worked, in exchange for food. We took that gunpowder to the Holzplatz [lumberyard], where three locksmiths worked. We stuffed the powder into waterworks pipes, together with a file. Then, we soldered the pipes and made hand grenades. We had wanted to organize the rebellion for the whole time, but we couldn’t, because there where Jews working in the Sonderkommando [special unit] whom we didn’t know, and we weren’t sure if they would want to participate in the rebellion. But people from the Sonderkommando were burnt every three months, and one day only people from Zagłębie where there, only our men. It was on 4 October 1944, on a Saturday afternoon. They wanted to burn our people from the Sonderkommando. We rebelled and blew crematorium III up. Then, they executed the whole Sonderkommando. When they started investigating where that powder had come from, four women – Gärtner, Róża Ickowicz, Esterka from villages near Warsaw and one other woman told them that my brother had given them food in exchange for powder, because they had been hungry. They hanged the four women, and burnt my brother alive, but before that they had tortured him. Before it happened, my brother told me that I should enroll when there was a transport. A few days later, there was a transport to “Buna”, so I volunteered as a locksmith and went with them. Before I left, I was in the “Sauna”. A transport from Italy arrived at that time and those people said that they were able and willing to work, that they had spent two weeks travelling and hadn’t eaten anything. We gave them the bread we had. Then, Aumeier came and said, “You’ll work there (the witness points his finger up); it won’t be hard work”.
Presiding Judge: Will the witness please say more about the rebellion?
Witness: What happened was that two kapos and three SS men were killed. They were thrown into the furnace alive. Then Höß came with dogs, and there was a terrible shooting, all bullets were shot. 70 people ran away, but they were all caught and exterminated. That crematorium was never open again. We didn’t organize it well, because we wanted to blow up all the crematoria, but we didn’t make it. I told myself then that our days were numbered and we had nothing to lose. That is when the rebellion happened.
Prosecutor Kurowski: The witness mentioned he saw the transports that were sent to the gas chambers. Where were those people from?
Witness: Many Yugoslavians, about 20,000, were once brought to camp A. They were guerrillas. SS men stripped them naked, doused them with cold water – it was freezing cold then – and beat them so long that not even one of them stayed alive in the yard. Later on, also Czech and Dutch people were brought, and in 1942 – Poles from the Pawiak prison, about 10,000. After they had been bathed, deprived of clothes and everything they had, they were brought to our camp. When they were standing in the yard, Lagerführer [camp leader] and his retinue came, selected several prisoners, tied them up and started beating them. The rest, not knowing that the wires were electrified, started running towards them, while the SS men stood still and shot them like animals, laughing. Lots of people died then.
Prosecutor Kurowski: When did the witness leave Auschwitz?
Witness: I stayed in Auschwitz from June 1943 to October 1944.
Defendant Aumeier: The witness has just said that I was present when a transport of Italian Jews arrived. When was it?
Witness: In 1944.
Defendant: I have to say that the witness must be mistaken, because I left the camp in 1944, although the witness claims otherwise so firmly.
Presiding Judge: Maybe the witness is wrong?
Witness: No.
Presiding Judge: The witness is free to go.