In Warsaw on 19 November 1946, the Acting Investigating Judge of the 2nd District Court in Warsaw, Halina Wereńko, delegated to the District Commission for the Investigation of German Crimes in Warsaw, and acting in accordance with the 10 November 1945 Decree on the Main [Commission] and District Commissions for the Investigation of German Crimes in Poland (Journal of Laws No. 51, item 293), heard the testimony of witness Dr. Alina Brewda on the basis of Art. 107 and 115 of the Code of Criminal Procedure. Having been advised of the criminal liability for making false statements, Dr. Alina Brewda, a former prisoner of the Auschwitz concentration camp (No. 62761), testified as follows:
| First and last name | Alina Brewda |
| Date and place of birth | 14 June 1905, Warsaw |
| Religious affiliation | None |
| Nationality and citizenship | Polish |
| Marital status | Unmarried |
| Place of residence | Warsaw, Szeroka Street 2 |
| Education | Doctor of obstetrics, gynecologist; gynecologist surgeon at the camp |
| Occupation | Doctor of the Central Polyclinic of the Ministry of Public Security |
On the fourth day of the Jewish uprising, on 22 April 1943, I was in a transport of some 2,000 people who had been rounded up in the ghetto and sent to Lublin, to the so-called Luftschutzplatz, where after an eight-day selection the transport was divided and sent to camps in Treblinka, Trawniki, Pomiatów, and Majdanek. I was sent to the Majdanek camp, where I stayed until 22 September 1943.
During that time, I was running a sickness block of malaria patients – Greek women – and I was a gynecologist for the entire Majdanek sick room. Due to my professional qualifications, Berlin ordered that I be sent to the Auschwitz camp, and correspondence was carried out in this matter because, with the help of the local doctors, I tried to avoid having to go there. However, on 22 September 1943, under the escort of the Oberaufseherin [senior female overseer] of the Majdanek women’s camp, Ella Brich, I was transported to the Auschwitz camp, where I was assigned to Professor Dr. Clauberg’s experimental block 10, at the disposal of Dr. Wirths.
At that time, Himmler’s order was issued that only a woman could be a doctor in the women’s hospital blocks. Block 10 was a brick one-story building located right next to block 11 – the so-called bunker – where until December 1943 executions occurred all the time in the yard and could be heard and seen from the building of our block 10. This block housed the so-called experimental stations in which German doctors performed various experiments. On the ground floor of the block there were two large hospital rooms called sick rooms, an X-ray unit, an operating theater, a dental station office, an institute of hygiene, a nurse’s room, a room for the SS, and finally a bath and toilets.
The first floor housed prisoners who had been selected for experiments and gathered there for this specific purpose. They comprised only Jewish women of 14 nationalities. I provided exact figures in October 1945 to Professor Grzywo-Dąbrowski in Warsaw, while now I am only citing these figures from memory and a small note which I kept:
Nationality Number
English 1
Austrian 10
Belgian 30
Czech 4
French 45
Dutch 200
Yugoslav 2
German 70
Polish 30
Russian 12
Slovak 8
USA 1
Age:from16to18–40
from18to25–70
from25to30–100
from30to40–150
from40to50–80
from50to60–58
498
Hungarian 5
Greek 80
In total: 498
There were four experimental stations in Block 10.
1. Obersturmbannführer Professor Carl Clauberg from Królewska Huta, where he had an enormous private gynecological-obstetrics facility. In the camp, Clauberg founded the experimental station in December 1942 and worked there until the end of the camp’s existence. His deputy was a chemist, Dr. Goebel, a civilian specially brought to the camp for the production of new contrast fluids, because supplies of lipiodol and iodine were exhausted. In the laboratory established in the camp, apart from the liquids, Dr. Goebel set up the production of creams, toothpastes, and other cosmetics. Clauberg’s assistants were also SDG (Sanitätsdienstgrad [auxiliary medical personnel]) Oberscharführer Bünning and female prisoner nurses of Slovak nationality: Magda Hans, who later died of tuberculosis; Sylvia Friedmann, handed over in May 1945 to the Soviet authorities; Ria Hanzová from Humenné (Slovakia); and a Polish woman, Eugenia Białostocka, currently residing in Warsaw at Królewska Street 31, flat 25. The women were bought by Prof. Clauberg from the camp administration, paying one mark per week for a female prisoner.
The experiments of Prof. Clauberg consisted of injecting contrast fluids – lipiodol and iodine – into the uterus and fallopian tubes of the prisoners, followed by X-ray photographs of the sexual organs. The treatment was brutally performed and often caused complications in the form of peritonitis, inflammation of the ovaries and fallopian tubes with high fever. As the stores of iodipin and lipiodol were exhausted, Goebel created new contrast fluids, injecting them to more and more patients. Goebel’s fluids were useless, because they did not give clear pictures, and injecting them caused excruciating pain and burning sensations, so much so that the patients’ screams were so unbearable that duty SS women darted from their rooms to ask what was going on. Admission to the room where the experiments took place was forbidden for everyone, even for SS women. I was present three times during the experiments. The first time, I was summoned by Dr. Clauberg himself because the patient on the table experienced a collapse, and I, as a block doctor, had to save her. During the second and third time I was present during the experiments conducted by Goebel, for his patients also experienced collapses on the operating table. I managed to save all of them, but as a result of these experiments the women suffered from peritonitis and adnexitis (three to four months).
Prof. Clauberg did not carry out sterilization procedures, but his treatments often led to secondary sterilization after inflammation of the appendages. Women were subjected to salpingography two or even five times. About 300 women were used for these experiments. I remember some of the names of the prisoners who had been operated on, but due to the need of maintaining medical discretion I cannot disclose them without the consent of the patients, as the subject involves manipulation of reproductive organs and secondary infertility complications.
The experiments were conducted on women, both elderly and young, who had already given birth, and less often on virgins. The treatments were aimed at preparing women for artificial insemination. In May 1944, I had the opportunity to see the secret files that Bünning was to send to Berlin. I found a letter there, in which Clauberg repeated his request for permission to put together prisoners – 400 men with 250 women who had already been X-rayed and prepared to accept artificial insemination. Some women were to be fertilized artificially, some naturally. From the day of sexual intercourse, women were to be subjected to salpingography in order to obtain pregnancy photos in the earliest periods. The permission from Berlin did not come, but all the preparations were made. The prisoners were to be located in block 1, in the so-called Represäntationslager [?], which was built between July and September 1944, some 500 meters behind the wires of the Auschwitz I men’s camp; the model camp was to hold 3,500 women. In January 1945, while working in the infirmary in the model camp, I saw block 1. There were shared toilets for men and women with a half-meter divider. The block was intended only for the research work of Prof. Clauberg.
2. From April to September 1943, in block 1, Hauptsturmführer Dr. Edward Wirths, a gynecologist from the Rhineland, ran an experimental station as well. Until September 1943, his deputy was a Jewish prisoner, a professor at the University of Breslau [Wrocław], Dr. Samuel, who was later gassed in January or February 1944. At the beginning of the station’s functioning, Dr. Wirths was assisted by a French prisoner, Dr. Adélaïde Hautval, who refused to participate in treatments after two weeks’ time; [Hautval] was subsequently sent to Birkenau and deprived of medical rights for a certain period.
The experiments of Dr. Wirths consisted of an amputation of the cervix for the purpose of studying early forms of cancer. The smallest sore or cut on the part of the vagina [cervix] gave enough reason for the surgery. After the experimental operations, the prisoners were sent away from the experimental block. The cut parts of the vaginal cervix were stretched on a string, fixed, and sent to Hamburg for microscopic examination.
At the time of my arrival at the camp (22 September 1943), the station was no longer functioning in the sense of performing treatments. Until January or February 1944, Dr. Samuel had been performing colposcopies of female patients and attempted to capture a visible image on the plate. The experiments did not give results.
In January or February 1944, Wirths opened a treatment room for typhoid and scabies in block 10. He ordered 12 female prisoner typhus patients to be brought from Birkenau. A prisoner, Dr. Feikel, pretending to be naive, brought in 12 female prisoners – mostly female German criminals with typhoid fever. I do not remember the names of these prisoners. Wirths personally injected them intravenously with a bitter almond smelling liquid – judging by the odor, it was a weak dilution of potassium cyanide. One of the patients died due to complications caused by the disease.
At the same time, prisoners suffering from scabies were placed in Wirths’ ward – Italian women and one Frenchwoman, whose names I do not remember. Wirths advised to rub the patients with a mysterious liquid that had a potassium cyanide smell. The preparation was brought by Wirths’ secretary, a prisoner of Austrian nationality – Hermann Langbein, who at the time was the head of the underground organization in Auschwitz, and is currently the head of the political school of communist Austria (in Vienna). After a secret examination by the Jewish prisoner Strauch, the agent turned out to be a solution of potassium cyanide 1:10,000. We lubricated the patients with water and told Wirths that the preparation did not work. As it was February 1944 and there was anxiety about the approaching military front, the experiment was abandoned and we continued the usual treatment. Before my arrival at Wirths’ work station, approximately 120–150 women aged 30 and over were subjected to cervical amputation. The operations were not painful, and were carried out under barbiturate anesthesia; no patient died. Sterilization procedures were not carried out at Wirths’ station.
3. Obersturmführer Schumann, who claimed to be a professor, which was even questioned by the SS, performed some of his experiments on the sterilization of women and men in block 10. His experimental station was in Birkenau, and from time to time he used an X-ray room in block 10, but he ordered that his operations be carried out here. Schumann conducted experiments from 3 April 1943 to October 1943, on young men between the ages of 18 and 28 and girls from 15 to 19, i.e. on about 60 women and about 700 men (90% of whom were Greek Jews of both sexes).
One stage of the treatments involved X-ray irradiation of the men’s testicles and the area of women’s ovaries. Schumann used castration doses. After four or six weeks, prisoner doctors, on his orders, cut out the left ovary in one series, and the right in the other. The excised ovaries were sent to Hamburg for microscopic examination. Patients often had peritonitis, parametrium inflammation, etc., with high fever, frequent internal bleeding which resulted in death; the integument did not usually heal, giving off large amounts of puss. After healing, there were signs of uterine prolapse, premature menopause, weight gain, hypertrichosis, blood clots in the head, headaches, sudden sweating, and mental changes. After these procedures, the female prisoners suffered a lot because the abdominal cavity remained open. Prisoners were sent back to Birkenau or Auschwitz, from where they usually went to the gas chambers.
I remember the names of some patients, but I cannot disclose them without the consent of those who had been operated on because of my obligation of medical confidentiality. The operations for Dr. Schumann were conducted by prisoner doctors: the previously mentioned Dr. Samuel and Dr. Władysław Dering, who used to serve the German Nazis, under the Volksliste.
In November 1944, 12 Greek girls aged 14–18 arrived in block 10 and were operated on by Dr. Dering. He performed 12 laparotomies within 24 hours, changing only his gloves. I was present during the operation because on the orders of Schumann it was I who was to perform these operations. I wiggled out of the situation extremely fast, claiming that I cannot do abdominal surgery, especially “for the record.” Dr. Dering undertook the treatments taking 1–2 hours each; I was supposed to “watch” how it was done. Dr. Dering carried out the operations with lumbar anesthesia, which he usually performed alone or ordered one of his prisoner assistants to do it. Dr. Schumann was partially observing the operations. Of the 12 girls who had been operated on, one died within 12 hours due to internal hemorrhage (insufficient ligation of the ovarian artery). The second one died due to acute peritonitis 24 hours after the operation. We hid the remaining 10 patients in the block after 6–8 months of bed rest, until my arrest on 6 July 1944. When I returned from Birkenau to Auschwitz in January 1945, three weeks before the evacuation, I met several of these girls. I presented the cases of four of them to Soviet physicians in May 1945, after our liberation in Neustadt-Glewe (a branch of the Ravensbrück camp) by the Soviet army.
Dr. Władysław Dering was released from the Auschwitz camp due to the efforts of Prof. Clauberg which lasted for about eight months. He was released for a year and engaged as a private assistant to Prof. Clauberg at his clinic in Królewska Huta. It was in December 1943 or early 1944.
In May 1944, Dering was already brought to Block 10 as a civilian by Clauberg’s private car to be confronted by the prisoner Nora Hodys. The case of Nora Hodys–Dering–Höss–Wirths was the work of the underground organization of prisoners in Auschwitz. It was staged in order to discredit Höss, the then Oberkommandant of the Auschwitz camp, and to put him at odds with other Germans of the camp. I played a significant role in this effort, Höss had to face disciplinary action due to his closer relations with the female prisoner.
4. Block 10 also housed a blood testing station (Blutspendung), which was a department of the institute of hygiene, where there were several experimental stations, e.g., a research station for plants, meteorological, bacteriological laboratories for SS hospitals in the Silesian-Kraków district, and an experimental and scientific research on blood groups A and B, B and C – searching for these blood groups in all secretions, saliva, sweat, urine, etc. Obersturmführer Dr. Weber, stood at the head of the hygienic station in Rajsko. In the ward located in block 10 in Auschwitz, Weber’s deputy was Münch and two Oberscharführer – one of whom was named Zabel. I do not remember the second person’s name.
The experiments concerned blood groups and secretions of 130 female prisoners. In addition, they were infected locally (intradermally) by the injection of the streptococcus serum, followed by the administering of sulfonamide preparations. The infected places were rubbed with ointments. Details about the institute in Rajsko can be provided by one of Weder’s prisoner subordinates – Dr. Fleck and his wife, who are currently in Lublin, where Dr. Fleck is a professor at the university.
The lab in block 10 in Auschwitz was first led by Dr. Fleck, and then by a Czech female prisoner Dobra Kleinová – now a member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia. You can reach her at the following address: Prague, Na příkopě 33, K.S.Č., addressed to the secretary, Helena Feferova.
Untersturmführer Frank, who was a dentist for the SS, had a dental-technical laboratory in block 10. The office was equipped with technical equipment, dentures were made there with the use of teeth from the prostheses of gassed prisoners.
During my entire stay in Auschwitz, I cooperated with a secret international underground organization of prisoners, taking part in the works assigned to me. In November 1943, as a result of a severe epidemic of typhus, complicated by pemphigus, the Birkenau camp was closed and completely isolated. Members of the underground organization, unable to establish communication, after consultation with me and my friend Kleinová, decided to create a course for nurses. I had put together a program that included practical and theoretical exercises. This program, presented to Wirths, who liked the project of a “university” in the camp, was approved by Berlin in January 1944. A group of girls were selected from Birkenau; contacts were established. The course was officially hosted by Dr. Gralla, unofficially by myself and several colleagues. At the time, the senior block prisoner at block 10 was a Slovak, Margarit Kaufman – a homosexual woman and sadist, problematic for the members of the organization. On the orders of Langbein and Werl (the Lagerälteste [senior block prisoner] serving a 10th year in the camp for being a communist), I reported to Wirths that the senior block prisoner was mistreating the sick and that I was reporting it as a doctor. Consequently, I was appointed the chief physician of the block and granted rights of a senior block prisoner. This was during the course for nurses, between 17 January and 14 February 1944. At that time, I had access to the books of the block without supervision.
On 6 July 1944, I was committed to the bunker for, as Wirths had said it, betraying the secrets of the block. I stayed there until 23 July 1944, after which I was sent to Birkenau and stripped of medical rights. In January 1945, I was again assigned as a doctor to the model camp and employed in the infirmary. During this time, Dr. Gralla, Hermann Langbein, and 18 other people from the sick room were sent to other camps.
During the evacuation of the camp on 18 January 1945, , we were rushed through the town of Pszczyna to Wodzisław (108 kilometers from Auschwitz), from where we were taken by trains to Neustadt-Glewe in Mecklenburg, and to the concentration camp constituting a branch of the Ravensbrück camp.
The report was concluded and read out.