On 28 December 1946 in Lublin, the Investigating Judge of the IV District of the Regional Court in Lublin with its seat in Lublin, A. Kowalski, interviewed the person listed hereunder as a witness. Having advised the witness of the criminal liability for making false declarations, of the contents of Art. 107 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, and also of the significance of the oath, the Judge administered an oath on the basis of Art. 115 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, whereupon the witness testified as follows:
| Name and surname | Halina Roszkowska |
| Age | 35 |
| Parents’ names | Józef and Zofia |
| Place of residence | Lublin, Karmelicka Street 2, flat 5 |
| Occupation | unemployed |
| Religion | Roman Catholic |
| Criminal record | none |
| Relationship to the parties | none |
| I | arrived in Auschwitz from Lublin Castle on 10 November 1942. I remained in Auschwitz |
until 18 January 1945, i.e. until the evacuation of the camp. I was in Birkenau the entire time. I know Maria Mandl well. She was nicknamed “Mandelka.” She was the commandant of the women’s camp. On average, there were 30,000–35,000 women of various nationalities in Birkenau.
In early February 1943, the entire camp underwent a general selection; this was ordered by the authorities of the women’s camp. A morning roll-call was set for 4.00–5.00 a.m., and all the women – even the those from the hospital, carried on stretchers – were forced to attend. Those of the camp authorities who took part in this roll-call included commandant Mandl, Drechsel (“Drekslerka”), Taube, Hasse, and Hössler; they all participated in the “sorting,” i.e. the selection of women. That day we were kept without food. Once we had been led out of the camp to a field, a literal decimation of the entire camp started and went on until 4.00–5.00 p.m., all in the presence of Mandelka. She stood there with a riding crop and together with her helpers picked every tenth woman from the ranks. Those selected were immediately moved aside and sent to block 25, called the “death block.”
This block was separated from the other blocks with a fence. The women taken to block 25 would be kept there for a few days, whereupon trucks would drive up and take them all to the crematorium. There were many cases of women dying of fear in block 25 even before the transport was taken to the crematorium. Their corpses would be loaded aboard the vehicles along with the living. Many women fought against being taken to the crematorium, and they were then severely beaten and kicked by commandant Mandl and her helpers, whom I have named above. Taube, a male, was the cruelest of the lot; he was the terror of the entire camp. His first name was Anton. How many women were taken to block 25 after this decimation, I cannot say. Later on, selections were held occasionally, more or less once a week, but sometimes more frequently, depending on the Germans’ mood. During roll-call, those women who were weaker and sick with swollen legs and spots on their faces and bodies were pointed out and sent to block 25, from where they would be taken in trucks to the crematorium, frequently on the very same evening. Jewesses were abused the most, however women of all nationalities suffered terribly. There were cases where those weaker in spirit and less resilient would intentionally go “to the [fence] wires,” which were electrified with high voltage, and these women would die instantly once they touched the wires.
I would like to give the following example of the abuse of which Taube and the others were capable: one time during a roll-call, in 1943, I think, I saw a young, 16-year-old Gypsy girl run from block 25 and stand with us for roll-call. Soon, Taube arrived and, having checked the numbers in block 25, he started looking for the Gypsy girl among us and duly found her. He dragged her out of the line and started beating her with a stick as thick as a hand, and thereafter dragged her towards block 25, all the while kicking her in the stomach. There may have been 300–400 paces to block 25 from the roll-call assembly area, and the block was clearly visible. But Taube savaged the Gypsy girl so terribly that she did not make it to block 25, dying along the way.
Regardless of the aforementioned facts, many women were taken to block 25 directly from other blocks or from the hospital. When a selection was to be carried out at a block, inmates would first be ordered to remain in their designated barrack. Next, Mandelka would arrive with Taube and her helpers, and the prisoners would have to strip naked, while the Germans proceeded to select people en masse, with complete randomness. It happened on a number of occasions that entire blocks were taken to the crematorium, regardless of whether the women were healthy or sick. People were taken en masse from the so-called Revier (i.e. hospital), where three to four women shared a single bed, while there were as many as several dozen beds, perhaps even a hundred. Up to 300–400 women would be taken, depending on how many there were in the block when the so-called commission arrived.
Maria Mandl was some 30–40 years old, very handsome and tall blonde, but while she was pretty, she was a thoroughly bad person. She was a sadist, she would abuse people for the flimsiest of reasons; many times she hit women prisoners in the face and kicked them, usually in the stomach, without being provoked at all. Mandl’s helpers were as degenerate as she. Once, I felt sick and ran away from work. Hasse saw me on the camp grounds and hit me in the face, and when I fell over, she started beating me and kicking me in the stomach. When I later crawled back to the block, beaten black and blue and covered in mud, the girls could not recognize me.
All the women prisoners lived in constant fear and terror of being taken to block 25. For amusement, the guards would oftentimes take us to the area around the block and keep us there for a few or even a dozen or more hours, while the women from block 25 would be beaten and kicked right before our eyes, lying half-dead in the yard, all swollen. Moreover, block 25 was usually overcrowded, and many women had to remain in the yard. But the air there was unbearable, there were so many insects and so much filth that many women preferred not to go into the block, and instead stayed out in the cold, in the yard – even during the winter months. When we were held as spectators in front of block 25, we were threatened that the same would happen to us, too, if we ever ran away from work.
The SS men were typically under the influence of alcohol, and they were present during selections of women for the crematorium. They would regularly abuse the selectees in the area of the crematorium. What is more, they would order all of them to strip naked, picking out the prettiest and the most attractive, playing the most disgusting games just before sending them to their deaths. Young Jewesses suffered the worst abuse; they were often taken to the crematorium straight from the transport, and all their valuables and clothes would be taken away beforehand. After gassing, the bodies would have their golden teeth taken out.
In 1944, transports arrived almost daily, and many a time everyone – literally thousands of people – would be sent to the crematorium straight away. The crematoria worked non-stop, day and night. 5,000 and more people would arrive in a transport. Sometimes there were several transports on a single day. It was commonly known in the camp that children were thrown alive into the crematoria and into pits dug for that express purpose. Piles of wood would be arranged alongside and within the pits, and the living would be incinerated along with the dead (i.e. those just gassed). These pits were dug because not all of the bodies of those gassed could fit into the crematoria.
I would like to add that any reason, real or imagined, was sufficient to torment us. For example, in winter commandant Mandl would order everyone to strip bare during roll-calls, and she would check to see how many sweaters we had on us, sometimes keeping us out in the cold for even several hours. If she found a sweater on anyone, she would take it, and then she would abuse the women who had sweaters by beating and kicking them. This was because we were not allowed to wear any clothes aside from our striped uniforms. We were allowed to wear clothes only later – towards the end of 1944 or perhaps in the middle of that year. The lot of the female prisoners improved a little only in late 1944, when the Germans were suffering military setbacks on the front line. I would like to stress that the beginnings of the camp were the worst.
After a transport was brought to Auschwitz, [the new arrivals] would be stripped, all their clothes taken away, and then they would have their heads and bodies shaved; next, these women were sent to the bath, where they were ordered to stand on the top step. At the same time, hot steam would be pumped into the room. Those who were weaker and sick women could not reach the top step. But the SS men, holding burning hot irons, would prod the women to force them higher up the steps. There were screams of pain and despair. The SS men were indifferent to the pain of the screaming women and would carry on with their “games,” laughing.
The women’s quarters in the blocks and the infirmaries were terrible. The beds had triple decks, and they were low and dirty. We lived without light, as many as a thousand to a block. Besides, there were hordes of rats. There were cases when rats fell from the upper bunks, and in the morning, prisoners had their noses, ears or pieces of cheek bitten off. As many as 8 to 12 women would sleep on a single bunk, even though it was intended for no more than four persons.
If I saw Mandelka or any of her helpers again, many facts concerning the criminal activity of the commandant and the entire German crew of the camp would surely come back to my memory.
I would like to explain that the camp in Birkenau was one of the sub-camps of Auschwitz and was subordinate to the general Auschwitz command. I do not recall the name Rudolf Höss. Perhaps if I saw him, I would recognize him. I can therefore say nothing about the criminal activities of Rudolf Höss.