On 20 December 1946 in Lublin, Investigating Judge from the Fourth Region of the District Court in Lublin, with its seat in Lublin, A. Kowalski, interviewed the person named below as an unsworn witness. Having been advised of the criminal liability for making false declarations and of the wording of Art. 107 in accordance with Art. 115 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, the witness testified as follows:
| Name and surname | Stefan Markowski |
| Age | 36 |
| Names of parents | Jan and Józefa |
| Place of residence | Lublin, Młyńska Street 9a |
| Occupation | carpenter with the Polish State Railways |
| Religious affiliation | Roman Catholic |
| Criminal record | none |
| Relationship to the parties | none |
| I | was transported to Auschwitz from the Lublin castle prison on 22 September 1942, and |
| I | remained at said camp until 25 October 1944. On that day, mass transports commenced, |
taking Poles from Auschwitz to Oranienburg and other locations in Germany. They launched these transports for fear that the prisoners would be freed by the Soviet troops, and also because the camp was overfilled.
At Auschwitz, I worked in a joinery at first, for two and a half months. During this stint, I developed a serious throat condition, had a surgery, and spent around 30 days in the hospital because the wound would not heal. Despite the fact that the wound had not healed, Dr. Mroczek, a Polish doctor, discharged me because the Germans had tightened the so-called patient controls, and one such control was about to take place. The way it was usually carried out was as follows: marching before Klein (a German doctor and SS man wearing an officer’s uniform, I don’t know his first name or rank) were all the patients, without their underwear, completely naked, and he checked each patient against his prison number and medical records and arbitrarily, without any kind of examination, kept the files of those he deemed seriously sick and unfit for further treatment. Everybody would return to their beds and in the evening trucks would come, and, once the names had been read out, they would take away those individuals whose medical charts had been kept by Dr. Klein. A similar procedure took place every week and each time they took up to 200 people from various blocks, who were then transported to the gas chamber in Birkenau, located 3 kilometers from Auschwitz proper. When I was a patient, I was staying at block 21, and after one of Klein’s controls during which I was present a quarter of the 250 patients were selected, that is 60 people, and on another occasion it was again around 60 people. In other hospital blocks, a similar percentage of patients were selected that way. There were four hospital blocks: 28, 21, 20, and 19.
After I was discharged, I was assigned to the so-called Leichenkommando, a unit of corpse carriers, which was located at the basement of block 28. At that time, there were four carriers and the fifth member was a kapo guard. Together with the other carriers, I was tasked with transporting the corpses from the block hospitals to the basement of block 28, from where in the evening, between 10 and 11 p.m., the corpses were removed, loaded onto trucks and ferried off to the crematorium. We worked carrying the corpses every day, and every day we moved between 20 and 70 bodies of prisoners who had died following illnesses. Block 11 was the so-called bunker – in camp slang it was referred to as the “rozwałek” [smashery] – where the Germans executed prisoners from the camp and from the outside. I worked in the bunker for a year, from 9 July 1943 to August 1944. Block 11 was underground and, looking from the outside, you couldn’t see what was going on inside. It was strictly off-limits to the camp prisoners, and even SS men couldn’t access it unless they were on the block 11 staff. The corpses of the executed prisoners always lay in the yard of block 11 until the trucks with canvas canopies arrived. Together with the other carriers we moved these bodies – or rather dragged them – and loaded them onto these trucks.
Throughout 1943, the so-called Sondergericht would assemble regularly – they were SS men in officers’ uniforms. The trials were held at block 11 and after a brief investigation of a case the Auschwitz prisoners were typically sentenced to death by shooting, while civilians from outside the camp were sometimes pardoned, in that the death penalty was commuted to camp internment. All the others kept at block 11 were executed. On each occasion, a couple dozen sentences were passed. The highest number of convicts executed under such a sentence was 102 (during my time at the camp), including 16 women. Assigned to block 11 were prisoners whom the Germans suspected of illicit activities, mostly the so-called political prisoners. The general sentiment in the camp was that nobody from block 11 would ever be released. Trials were held every two weeks. Independently, the German authorities of the camp ordered the executions of prisoners at block 11 almost every day, between two and five people. Executions of batches larger than 10 people were carried out in the so- called Baderaum. I’m sorry, I take that back: small groups of prisoners were executed in the Baderaum, while larger executions always took place in the yard of block 11.
Larger executions were always conducted in the presence of the adjudicating panel and German doctor – Klein; also the camp commandant, Rudolf Höss, was frequently in attendance. When I was a prisoner at the camp, I saw Höss almost daily, and when I worked as a corpse carrier, I additionally saw him in the yard of block 11. I was always present during the executions, which took place in the following fashion: the convicts one by one undressed in the Baderaum and the block 11 kapo, whose name was Jakub, took the naked convicts, two at a time, holding them firmly above their elbows, to the wall, the so-called black wall, and stood them there, their faces to the wall, where two uniformed SS men with small-caliber rifles were waiting. These SS men would come up to the convicts, whom the kapo held by their arms, press the barrels against the back of their heads, and shoot them from close range. Once the convicts collapsed, we, the carriers, had to quickly get to the corpses, place them on the handbarrow, and move them to the center of the yard. The dead had to be removed fast because the kapo was already bringing in another two convicts. They executed people of various nationalities. Usually, the convicts were passive and frequently shouted, “Long live Poland!”, “…Czechoslovakia!”, “…France!”, “…Stalin!”, and so on. I didn’t notice Höss’s direct involvement in issuing the orders to shoot. It was believed that prisoners were taken to the gas chambers on Höss’s orders, but I don’t know whether it was on his own initiative or he was following the orders of his superiors. Let me emphasize that after each execution, Dr. Klein took down the prison numbers of the corpse carriers and addressed us, saying, “Remember: you didn’t see anything”. We were certain that we would be executed soon, too. All this happened in 1943.
Executions at block 11 took place until March 1944. Afterward, all convicts were reportedly taken directly to the gas chamber in Birkenau. After the last execution, the “death wall” and the two gallows at block 11 were dismantled. Once, I witnessed a public hanging at the camp, as 12 Polish prisoners of the Auschwitz camp who worked with the so-called measurement unit as surveyors were hanged from a rail suspended between two poles. They were hanged because two surveyors had inebriated a German guard and, after he fell asleep, fled the camp. The remaining 12 men were placed at block 11 and, after a few days, publicly executed in the roll-call square in front of the kitchen during the evening roll-call, with all the prisoners watching. Let me explain that they didn’t hang people from the gallows at block 11 in my presence because executions happened very fast and there was no time for hanging.
During my time at Auschwitz, when Rudolf Höss was camp commandant, the so-called needling took place. It was a procedure whereby civilians from outside the camp, and sometimes also from the camp, were taken to the hospital at block 20, where – in the presence of a German doctor – a prisoner whose name I cannot recall right now and whom other prisoners later killed during a transport injected them with a poison. I don’t know what poison it was but after the injection each victim momentarily dropped dead from the stool he was sitting on during the procedure. All this took place when I was a patient at block 20. I didn’t witness the procedure itself but my fellow carriers told me that such experiments were conducted. I myself saw an entire Gypsy family of 12 who died after injections in the heart. I personally passed a note to the carriers so that they would come and collect these Gypsies. At that time, I was already a convalescent and the hospital staff forced us to help them.
The carriers told me that these lethal injections in the heart were administered very often, that is once or twice a week. A dozen or sometimes even a couple dozen people were killed, up to 50 individuals. As I have already emphasized, in most cases, suffering such executions were persons of different nationalities, including Poles, and sometimes even Germans brought from outside the camp. Additionally, I saw sick Jews sterilized by a German doctor from outside the camp. They were always young men aged between 16 and 25. They came in groups of 20, 30 tops. They were operated upon under full anesthesia for experimental purposes. After a while, this room was closed and the sick Jews were ferried off, but I don’t know where to. Block 10, adjacent to block 11, was populated by women of varying age on whom German doctors, assisted by Jewish doctors (whose names I don’t know), performed all manner of experimental procedures, for example with the use of X-rays or other types of radiation. The goal was to prevent insemination in the event of subsequent sexual intercourse involving these women. Also, a number of surgeries were carried out. There were fatalities, sometimes a few cases a week. These women were taken to the basement of block 28, and then their bodies were moved together with those from block 11.
I have testified everything. The report was read out.