Sixth day of the trial, 17 March 1947.
Commencement of the session at 9:05 a.m.
Those present as on the first day of the trial.
Presiding Judge: I hereby resume the session of the Supreme National Tribunal in the case against Rudolf Höß.
The defense was to submit a statement in the case concerning witness Tadeusz Pietrzykowski.
Defense Attorney Umbreit: Your Honor, we have no objections as regards this witness being summoned.
Presiding judge: The Tribunal has decided to admit evidence from the testimony of this witness.
Please summon witness Adam Kuryłowicz.
The witness gave the following information about himself: Adam Kuryłowicz, 57 years of age, secretary general of the Central Committee of Trade Unions, married, Roman Catholic, no relation to the parties.
Presiding judge: Do the parties wish to put any motions with regard to the procedure of interviewing the witness?
Prosecutor Cyprian: We exempt the witness from taking the oath.
Defense attorney Umbreit: So do we.
Presiding judge: With the consent of the parties, the Tribunal has decided to exempt the witness from taking the oath. I remind the witness of the obligation to tell the truth and of the criminal responsibility for making false declarations.
Please tell the Tribunal about the organization of the underground at the Auschwitz camp, since the investigation has revealed that you were an active member of the underground and could educate the Tribunal about the issue. Please give a complete account – and as detailed as you can remember – to the Tribunal.
Witness: I was transferred to the camp from Pawiak prison in May 1941. The underground movement was already active in the camp and was administered by the late Norbert Barlicki, Stanisław Dubois, Kazimierz Czapiński and other prisoners, who were already present at the camp when I arrived. We immediately expanded the cells of the Auschwitz movement so that we would have our men in every working unit and every block, remaining in close contact with them to use their observations to determine exactly how the camp authorities persecuted and destroyed the Polish element.
At that time, there were around 8,000 prisoners at the camp. The first two months of internment were the most difficult. Inmates were subject to severe persecution on the part of the camp authorities, who used very strict measures to wear them down and bring about their physical destruction during this initial period of incarceration. For that reason, our primary job was to keep up the spirits of Poles who arrived at the camp, so as to prevent situations where men coming from the outside, from freedom, or directly from prison suffered a mental breakdown at the camp and became Muselmanns, losing all will to live. Let me bring up the name of Edward Hryniewicz, a man who was physically very strong and had devoted his entire youth to promoting sport among the working classes. In the days of freedom we called him “Ox” because that is how strong he was. But his body needed large quantities of food. Meanwhile, at the camp, we received the following rations: in the morning, a cup of black coffee, provided you could elbow your way to it; at noon, a bowl of soup made from boiled turnip, as we called it at the camp, or nettle, or cabbage leaves – and that was all we got at noon; in the evening, we again got a cup of coffee and a portion of bread, around 200g, and a tiny slice of margarine or some horse sausage.
We were woken and rushed to the roll-call at 4.30 a.m., and then to hard labor, according to our assignments. I remember that in 1941 the construction of a new, huge barracks area located in Birkenau commenced. The site where this camp was being erected was one huge swamp. This is where the prisoners were driven without any shoes – we either walked virtually barefoot or in the so-called pattens, which were no more than a wooden sole and a band of cloth over the toes. This was it when it comes to the prison footwear and, dressed that way, we were driven to that swamp and ordered to work from 6 a.m. to 12 p.m. A lunch break of one hour followed, during which we were brought some cold soup from the camp, and then we were put back to work until sundown. Then, these people were driven to a roll-call at the central camp. During the roll-call, people were kept for hours standing to attention, for no reason. I remember one such roll-call, which lasted 17 hours straight. During that time, people stood to attention without knowing the reason. There were rumors that it was about an escape from the camp. In the morning, we were rushed to our blocks and we were not allowed to have any rest; we were driven back to work instead. During that roll- call, 112 people standing in the rows died. They dropped dead from exhaustion. The weak ones who were going down were dumped next to our block. SS-men walked around and stamped on the dying prisoners in the face or in the heart. All this happened in front of our eyes. Faced with such experiences, the weakened body of a man who was spiritually broken collapsed rapidly. This is why our imperative was first and foremost to save these people and keep up their spirits, and additionally to prevent their physical deterioration. First and foremost, we tried to organize food in larger quantities. Describing the situation extant at the camp, we alerted the residents of neighboring villages, and they, acting by stealth, provided us with bread, and sometimes even with fat, throwing the products over the fence. Next, we tried to plant our men in the so-called potato room and the kitchen, and that way we could get some more soup or crushed waste potatoes (they were boiled unpeeled). There was a slaughterhouse operating at the camp and we managed to set up a cell of our underground organization there in order to obtain some horse sausage or meat. We also managed to install false bottoms in the carts coming to the camp, and we tried to hide meat and sausage there so as to deliver it to the camp. The tinsmiths worked outside, and when they returned to the camp, they brought with them pipes which they had made in the workshops located outside the camp, and in these pipes they would bring some food. In this way the organization could provide at least some help to those who needed it. We also took advantage of the fact that sand was brought in and cinder was moved out. Every such opportunity was used to smuggle as much food as possible into the camp.
Local residents helped us greatly, but our access to them was very limited. There was only one working unit, namely the geometricians’ unit, the so-called Landmessers, who worked outside and moved about the environs of Auschwitz earmarked for the expansion of the camp to 40 sq. km. This kommando of Landmessers was able to contact the civilians living in the vicinity of the camp and thus supply us with food, while at the same time passing on information about what went on in the camp. But the SS men and camp authorities soon figured out that details of the goings on at the camp were leaking out through this channel, so when they first got wind of our organization, some of the Landmessers were liquidated – executed at block 11. From 8:30 a.m. in the morning, dozens of prisoners – suspected of being involved in the clandestine movement or simply spotted by snitches, and duly handed over to the political division – were killed at block 11 by firing squad.
When at the end of 1941 they realized that the salvos made the prisoners agitated instead of pacifying the camp, they began to execute people with an automatic, which, when fired, only released a muffled “puff”, and it was not heard outside. There was one Rapportführer [report leader] Palitzsch, who could execute 270 prisoners with his automatic over the course of a single day, and then he would stroll through the camp with his rifle, as if he was returning from hunting.
The organization immediately sent this information out, giving a precise number of prisoners, their camp numbers, and, if possible, also their names so that the outside world would be kept apprised of our experiences at the camp.
As regards the expansion of the camp to 40 sq. km, we did not know at first why it was being done. Toward the beginning of 1942, the first transports of Slovakian Jews began to come in, and then we realized that this camp was designed to exterminate the human element, not only the Jews, because in 1941 Jews were not there yet.
Aside from SS-men, there were also German prisoners at the camp, who were brought in around that time. Drilled at other camps, they wore green triangles – they were common criminals and thugs, who were the worst butchers and murdered dozens of people every day. Operating at the camp was the so-called Sonderkommando [special unit], to which people were assigned for violating some regulations or for not sewing on a button. Since we were not given spare underwear for six weeks, it was no surprise there were lice everywhere, and when they were found on Sundays during the inspection of the underwear, you got assigned to the Sonderkommando. It was the most taxing unit, which meant death for the prisoner. Whoever got assigned there might as well have said his goodbyes to his comrades because he would not be seeing them again. They departed for labor earlier or later than we did and the Arbeitsdienstführer [labor service leader] standing at the gate issued an order: “40 oder 60 Männer”. What does that mean? It means that at least 40 or 60 people should be killed during labor that day. If it was more than that, then it was fine, but if it was fewer, then the Sonderkommando Kapo – if it was a Sunday, then this was done on Monday – attacked these prisoners, his colleagues, and killed them in a barbaric fashion. They wore regular striped uniforms, only with an armband with the sign which read “Kapo” or “Unterkapo”, and they killed as many prisoners as they pleased. All it took was the sore arms of a man who could no longer work. I, for instance, worked operating a concrete mixer, where it was necessary to feed gravel into the machinery all day. You ran out of steam and your arms hung loose. It was enough for a Kapo to notice that a worker was idle for a moment, and he would take away his spade and start to hit him on the head, not only with the wooden part but also with the metal one. The prisoner would crumple down and the Kapo would turn him face up, place the handle on his neck, stand on both its ends, swing for a moment, and kick the victim so he would turn face down. This is how Kapos and Unterkapos killed dozens of men a day, in front of my eyes, following the orders of the Arbeitsdienstführer. When the prisoners heard the “40 Männer” order issued at the gate, they lost their cool, broke the ranks, and ran toward the wires, and if SS-men did not shoot them first they grabbed the high-voltage wires.
I remember the death of Prof. Sedlaczek, the scoutmaster of the Warsaw district, who went with me to the so-called Bauhof, where the job was to unload 20 or 22 wagons loaded with bags of cement, 50 kilos each, and do this quickly. You had to run with the load to the warehouse and then run back, and the wagon was not parked at the warehouse but purposely left some 200 meters away so the prisoners would face a harder job. SS-men lined up along the way and beat us. I remember – it was in July 1941 – that Sedlaczek was carrying a bag on his shoulders. All the skin had come off because these bags had scratched them up and blood was gushing profusely; Sedlaczek lowered this bag, or the bag broke, but in any case an SS-man came up to him – a huge guy we called “the Japanese” – and hit him in the face a couple of times. Sedlaczek, who spoke German, said, “I know the German nation and its culture, and I am surprised that you should be beating a man exhausted from his work and physically drained, just because he dropped a bag of cement. This is beneath the dignity of the German nation”. Then, the SS-man took his rifle and started to hit Sedlaczek with its butt. He fell to the ground. When another prisoner approached with a bag of cement, he took this bag and pelted it with full force at Sedlaczek, who was on the ground, crushing his spine. I took Sedlaczek back to the camp on my own shoulders. He died a few hours later at block 28.
I could discuss thousands of such flashbacks from my time at the camp. Our organization informed the outside world of all this.
I must say that our organization suffered heavy losses, and the local residents who helped us and were a conduit between us and the outside world, were completely displaced from the area throughout 1942, and, according to our intel, they were exterminated. We were told to take down the buildings they had left behind – good buildings, where our countrymen had lived a few months before, were wiped off the face of the Earth and replaced with a vacant lot which no civilian could access. The communication between our world and the outside world was problematic. We had reached a decision that we had to send some of our people outside to set up a new contact cell. The escape of one prisoner from the camp resulted in the deaths of a number of people. While it was possible to escape from the camp, facing all of us who were planning it was great responsibility: namely, a number of people were selected at the escapee’s block. The way it was done was that the Blockführer came and arbitrarily selected particular prisoners, saying, “Ab, ab” [away]. One by one, 10 or 15 people were pulled from our ranks and taken to block 11, and if the escapee did not return after three days, or they did not catch him, these people were executed, provided that they had made it until day three.
Consequently, our decision to send people outside was a hard one to make. Still, we had to pursue this option if we wanted to stay in touch with the outside world. A dozen was sent out, and a dozen within our organization died. We were tracked by the gentlemen from our working unit, and most of all the political division, who planted their cells in our organization.
One need think only of Mr. Ołpiński, who in 1939, during the so-called “leaven trial” involving deputy minister Starzyński, fled to Germany before the court passed the sentence, and during the 1939 campaign said on the German radio – right now I do not remember which channel – that the Poles did not deserve to live and enjoy freedom. Now, Mr. Ołpiński was installed at the camp.
When he arrived at the camp, his backstory was that he had been arrested by the Gestapo in Paris and he personally told me that he was working for the London government. Obviously, we did not believe him because he was a Gestapo agent sent to the Auschwitz camp so that, as a Pole, he would gain the trust of the prisoners and uncover the organizations operating inside the camp. Mr. Ołpiński, despite great care, despite living at special block 25, despite having at his service the whole administration and all doctors, got what he deserved. We did not know how to part company with Mr. Ołpiński and eliminate him. We deliberated on this for a long time and decided to plant a typhoid louse on Mr. Ołpiński. When he went down with typhus, he did not go to the hospital so that we would not terminate him as a snitch, and a snitch he was, who was working for the political division. But the Polish doctors, who also belonged to our organization, despite instructions from the head SS doctor, took such good care of Mr. Ołpiński that he eventually rotted away in the camp.
Our organization had its cells in the political division, and this despite the fact that only the most trusted people could get there, those who subscribed to the German’s plans and ideas; nevertheless, we still managed to install our people there, and they provided us with all the top secret documents that were sent out through the political division and the camp’s head office. We retained the copies and sent them outside through underground channels.
This is how our organization functioned from the moment I arrived up until the very end, that is the evacuation between 18 and 19 January 1945. It had its highs and lows. There were lows in that sometimes our people were compromised, either through their own carelessness or through the activities of snitches. Therefore, we had to cover our tracks somewhat for fear that, when subjected to torture, a man caught working for us would be unable to withstand the pain and thus give us away. One of our men, Jarzębowski, a geometrician with the Landmessers unit, managed to escape. He got in touch with an outside organization, and delivered the materials that we had obtained. But due to his carelessness (intending to keep in touch with us, he kept too close to the camp) he was captured and brought back to the camp. He was severely tortured, and I saw him lying on an operating table – he had been beaten to a pulp, his whole body was one blue wound. He asked us for poison. We could not give it to him, for he was watched by an SS doctor. I found this story in the press, too. There was a doctor there who gained considerable infamy, one Władysław Dering. He did not have the courage to give him the poison that had been prepared. Jarzębowski was returned to block 11. For five weeks he was tended to by the doctors, and thereafter hanged from the gallows. He assured us he had named no names and that we could carry on with our work because despite the torture he had given nobody away. This is how our people conducted themselves, and under such conditions it was possible for us to run our organization. Obviously, though, we still had to pick our men with the greatest care.
If you ask me in greater detail about the composition of the organization, about who was part of it and if these were people saw eye to eye on politics, I will answer that in 1941, when I arrived at the camp, the organization’s core was a Polish Army cell, and that a lot of activists subsequently deported to the camp also joined this organization. We looked only for people of strong character, ones who could be trusted and were ready to sacrifice themselves for the cause. One of the members of our conspiratorial cell was Jan Mosdorf. He worked with us unstintingly right until he was executed. I am mentioning this fact so as to present a broader outline of the beginnings of the underground movement. Indeed, under the circumstances it would have been impossible to rely only on some ideologically coherent group of like-minded individuals – opportunities were perforce limited, and you had to consider the involvement of persons from other organizations who would be worthy of serving the cause.
A lot of the people from our resistance cell died. However, in the early days of the organization, we tried to pull together. When large numbers of Poles were brought in in 1942 (in 1941, the highest prison number was 18,000, for within two months two thirds of a transport would die or be killed, with only one third of deportees surviving the first two months), the first sixty or so days were the hardest period for prisoners. They worked in the harshest conditions, they could not catch the drift of things yet, and they did not know how to get in touch with the organization. But life in the camp was hardest for those from the countryside. They were unable to strike up meaningful social relationships, and so they tended to shut up within themselves – they were among the first to perish. Individuals who had been integrated into social structures in the days of freedom found it easier to meet others, to coexist with them, to share everything in order to avoid death. But despite all this – let me repeat – two thirds of the incoming transports died within two months. I remember that in the autumn of 1941 they brought in around 1,500 men: they were tall, big men from the Zamość and Kielce regions, each strong as an ox and well-built. But faced with the meager food, almost all died within two months. Every single one of them. Later, we looked for some survivors from these transports, but we could not find anybody alive. I am describing all this to give you an idea of what difficulties the underground organization faced when trying to find and stay in touch with various groups of Poles. It was difficult. People were dying, so it was constantly necessary to look for other individuals who would be willing to cooperate.
After 1942, the organization was expanded by admitting groups of German political prisoners who were ideologically and politically aligned with us. I have to say that, although there were not too many of them, a few prisoners of German nationality were in sympathy with us, with our self-defense efforts, our struggle, and these people remained in our ranks, inspiring our self-confidence. Thanks to their assistance, we could sometimes obtain materials which were more readily accessible to them than to us. As far as I know, one such idealistic German prisoner, Lanbein, will be interviewed here. He was an unimpeachable man, and we knew – we did not doubt for even one second – that he would never betray us or stand in our way. But – let me say his again – these were exceptions.
The goals of the system – imposed and carefully planned by the command or camp authorities – were consciously pursued by other Germans who employed methods designed to annihilate all that was Polish and especially all that could hurt them intellectually. Thus, exterminated in the first place – and relentlessly at that – was the Polish intelligentsia. The intellectuals were put on the hardest tasks, and these people had never in their lives done physical jobs, so they were the first to perish during manual labor.
Thousands of people died at the camp from starvation. Because food rations were insufficient given hard physical labor, the prisoners swelled from hunger. Norbert Barlicki, my friend, died of starvation. I was at his deathbed until the end. It was in August 1941, when patients from the hospital were selected for the first trial gassing at block 11 – it was around 700 prisoners, most of them Soviet army officers. Norbert Barlicki was in my presence when he was selected by an SS doctor for this first gassing. But he was fortunate to die before that, at 5 p.m. Although he was my best friend, it was hard to save him due to the lack of food and medications. For that reason, his body was one big swollen mass. His legs, which I touched, were as if clay you could plunge your fingers into. Perfectly lucid, he fell asleep, and he never woke up again.
Similar cases of death from starvation occurred a few dozen times daily. For example, one evening they brought a so-called Muselmann after the evening roll call, and in the morning he was already lying by the wall, expelled from the hospital block. They would send 160 or 180 prisoners daily, and in the morning, lying on the floor, covered with blankets, were 25 or 30 people who did not make it until the SS doctor’s morning round. And out of those patients that were still alive – some 20 or 30 people a day – half were earmarked for a phenol injection. Others, who were still sort of in shape, were sent to the hospital for treatment.
All this was systemic, these were not isolated incidents. For if you did not feed a man and ordered him to work physically for 12 or 14 hours a day, he would have enough energy to work for a week or two, and then he died. Everybody realized that. This was precisely a deliberate system of destroying a man, of destroying the Polish nation.
We classified the phenomena which I have discussed and informed the outside world about them so that people would know that Poles were not whimsical or unfavorably disposed toward Germans and ended up in jails or camps for some crimes, but that completely innocent people were affected, who often had nothing to do with politics or underground activities, who were rounded up in streets, pulled from trams, and taken straight to Auschwitz, where they were sentenced to death. “What for?”, people would ask. Just for being Polish. It was a deliberate system, imposed from the top, not just by the Hitlerite regime: if the German people knew about it – and they must have known how the neighboring Polish nation was being exterminated – and did nothing, did not stand up to it, then it was not just Hitler, Himmler, or Höß, who is sitting here today, that were responsible, but the whole nation is responsible for allowing this, for letting hundreds of thousands or millions of people be murdered this way at the Auschwitz camp. For that reason, I believe that my testimony, a testimony of an Auschwitz prisoner of four years, is historically significant because I was not evacuated to the West in January 1945 but I remained and immediately gave account of all our camp experiences. And the most compelling evidence of how profound an impression it had on those who heard me is the fact that even my friends did not believe me at first and thought that Kuryłowicz had lost his marbles. I spent whole nights speaking to my friends in Kraków about my camp experiences as a direct witness, I revealed all this, and they would say, “Kuryłowicz has lost it, because what he’s saying is impossible, it is impossible that men can inflict such tortures on men”. And yet, it was possible. It is imperative that the world, thanks to this trial, learn what an animal was Höß, who is sitting here, and who was stone cold even when – during his time in Berlin, when he paid visits to his wife, who was still living at Auschwitz with their children (we know that thanks to our organization) – Mrs. Höß implored him, when the offensive was progressing from the east and the frontline was drawing closer, to come and take her away because she was scared to remain in this environment. He asked, “What are you scared of?”, and she said, “I am scared that the enemy troops will come and capture me”, and he said, “They won’t come here, and if they do, take the gun and blow your brains out, and the children’s”. There will be witnesses testifying here who worked at Höß’s house and were the servants of this lord of life and death.
If speaking about all this I am getting too emotional, this is not because I think it is worth studying this human beast and judging it. I believe it is necessary to speak about the methods which the German nation countenanced during an occupation period of a few years, and which were oriented at exterminating millions of Polish citizens in such a heinous fashion. Such a nation does not deserve to call itself a nation, it has no right to be part of the global family of nations. First, this whole generation, which perpetrated this horrible crime, should be removed, and only the new generation should be allowed to be involved in international cohabitation and cooperation in the global family of nations.
This is why I insist I do not want to talk about us, the people who survived the camp. Your Honors may even think it strange that we have survived and are now talking about our experiences, while others are dead. If someone asked me, “Why have you survived?”, I would answer, “I don’t know, it was a coincidence, a stroke of luck”. But it needs to be emphasized that those who died, who sacrificed their lives to defend our right to live, a human right to live, are the heroes that we should be talking about. They are the sacrifices who gave their lives for the entire Polish nation, who gave their lives so the world could see all those experiences of ours more clearly. Thanks to their blood, their sacrifice, and their death, we can now speak about our suffering and struggles in the camps and in the prisons.
Presiding Judge: Can you give us the names of the Poles who were particularly active in the organization, who participated in its establishment, and also tell us how the organization’s members intended to put up resistance?
Witness: As I said at the beginning, when I arrived at the camp the organization was already in existence. It was headed by Norbert Barlicki, Stanisław Dubois, Kazimierz Czapiński, Wacław Szymański, and doctors Władysław Fejkiel and Rudolf Diem. These seven people established the underground organization.
How did the organization expand? As I said, it was very difficult to forge ties between strangers, for the groups from Kraków and Warsaw were soon joined by transports from Wiśnicz, then the Kielce and Zamość regions, and finally from Lublin. Among these people were individuals whom we trusted and whom we immediately recruited for the organization.
When I arrived at the camp and got in touch with a cell of the underground movement, I found that everybody was optimistic that we would be able to set up our own secret organization, which would allow us to survive this short period of incarceration – short, because in 1941, when I arrived, there was a general conviction that Hitlerism would be defeated in 1942 at the latest. I suspect that this misconception might have been spread deliberately by certain individuals so as to lift the spirits of our suffering comrades.
This was a rather difficult job. We stayed in touch with the outside world through the Landmessers unit and used them to send out information, especially to the people living in the vicinity of the camp. Furthermore, operating in Kraków was the organization’s central branch, to which we also sent messages through the local residents of the Auschwitz area. In 1942, these local residents were exterminated and the situation became more difficult. Then, we became reliant on the escapes of individual in order to maintain communication with the organization outside.
Presiding Judge: While establishing contacts and expanding the organization, did you try to recruit people of other nationalities as well?
Witness: In 1942, in October, inmates were granted permission to receive parcels – initially weighing half a kilo, and thereafter up to five kilos – from their families. Some time later, we were also allowed to receive parcels from the International Red Cross. Acting with a prisoner’s consent, we sent out his prison number and name so that the International Red Cross could send parcels addressed directly to him. We typically sent out the names and numbers of prisoners who did not receive any aid from their families, or from our organization in the country. We also wanted to establish communication and remain in touch with the International Red Cross so that we could relay information about our experiences and suffering in the camp. We were successful in our efforts, because our organization managed to contact the International Red Cross.
Presiding Judge: The organization surely had its leading members, the ones who acted as the driving force. Also, there must have been some meetings of its members.
Witness: From time to time, there were top secret meetings that even the prisoners did not know about. These conferences were held from time to time between two or three people. I did not consider larger meetings a good idea. From 1942 until the end, the cell’s leader was Józef Cyrankiewicz, our present Prime Minister.
Prosecutor Cyprian: During yesterday’s hearings witness Dubiel testified that when he worked as a gardener for defendant Höß, he heard Himmler tell Höß that he must go because London radio mentioned Auschwitz all too often. Can you tell us how the information about the camp reached London?
Witness: Before it was taken down, there was, for a short time, a small transmitting station at the camp, and this is how we communicated with the outside. Fearing that the Germans could discover it using the technical means at their disposal, we decided to take it down. But for a while information was sent out via this channel.
Prosecutor Cyprian: Could you tell us more about this transmitting station? This is very interesting: how could it have continued in operation at such a heavily guarded camp?
Witness: But there were top specialists among the prisoners. We had specialists from every field of science and art. We had brilliant technicians, engineers, and professors, who lent us their expertise.
Prosecutor Cyprian: But as regards the location of this transmitting station, how was it hidden?
Witness: I admit that I do not know the details, because it was really top secret.
Prosecutor Cyprian: Does the witness know whether this station was in direct contact with London?
Witness: It was.
Prosecutor Cyprian: Was the organization that you mentioned, namely those seven people, the main cell, as I would imagine it to be? I mean, was it an organization that had subunits and was hierarchically structured, or were its activities only loosely coordinated?
Witness: At that point, in 1942, clandestine cooperation was based on a system of twos, or pairs. The identities of the seven were known, they were the high command, and each of the seven made contact with individual persons, without revealing to them who else was in the network. So in 1942 we had a thriving organization, however a major transport to Buchenwald impaired its functioning. Cooperation, as I said, was based on a system of twos.
Prosecutor Cyprian: I have two less significant questions. You mentioned the name Dering. Could you tell us a little bit about his activities?
Witness: The period in question preceded my arrival at the camp. I cannot say anything about that period as a witness, rather those who were actually there when these things happened could tell you something specific. All I can say when speaking about Dering from 1942 on was that he could have been more humane than he in fact was. Dering was very curt and indeed inhuman, and he had a bad reputation.
Prosecutor Cyprian: There was also another doctor, Zenkteler.
Witness: As regards Zenkteler, I will mention one particular situation. In 1942, when the first transport of Soviet POWs arrived, they were not disinfected at the camp – as reported by the press – but two kilometers away. There they were told to undress, and all the doctors examined them to determine if perhaps they were sick. These prisoners were bathed in cold water, in October, and not given any clothes or underwear, only driven on naked. They were halted at the camp gate, where they had to stand for about two hours, and this allowed me to take a closer look at them. I remember watching them, together with Zbyszek Sawan: a whole unit of naked guys standing at the gate, shivering in the freezing cold.
Naked, they were driven on to block 9, which was unheated, and it was not until three days later that they received their own underwear and clothes following disinfection. Hundreds of people died within the first three days, and a few months later, that is as of March 1942, only a small group remained – all the others perished. Why am I talking about this? Because one of the doctors who were present when these prisoners were being accepted was Zenkteler. Some of the doctors were freezing by the pool in which the POWs were being bathed, while others did paperwork in the barracks, so they all agreed that they would swap every few hours. During evening roll-call, when they were already at the block, a long discussion ensued between the doctors and Zenkteler, whom everybody slammed for spending the whole day in the warmth while his colleagues froze outside. Zenkteler then said, “What do I care about you? It’s a fight for survival and I don’t care if somebody freezes or not”. I then exploded at Zenkteler, and he threatened me, saying, “We’ll meet again, you and I, and you won’t like it”. For I had told him that it was inhuman for a Pole to treat other Poles that way, and then speak like he did. Later, when Zenkteler was moved to the newly established Gypsy camp at Auschwitz, he was very harsh towards the inmates. He was in charge of the first-aid station, where he examined the sick. He gave diagnoses and reported them to an SS doctor. Later, he was transferred to the camp in Birkenau, where he reportedly became a butcher, beating patients in front of other patients. If someone could not stand on his own two feet, he treated him like a dead man, believing that such a person had to be eventually sentenced to death. If this is what he reported to an SS-man, the latter obviously did not think twice and immediately send the prisoner for liquidation. I was not at Birkenau, so I cannot say anything more.
Defense attorney Umbreit: Did you have any direct contact with the defendant? If so, how would you comment on his behavior?
Witness: In 1941, I was selected for labor at the Buna sub-camp because at that time the construction of a factory producing synthetic petrol, rubber, and carbide began. I was not feeling strong enough to get up at 4 or 3:30 a.m. and depart for Buna on a train, so I reported to the hospital. The next day, I did not report for work. Those who stayed as patients were brought before the authorities. Then, both Mr. Höß and his Lagerführer fell on us. He said that he would take us to an SS doctor, but before he did both the SS-men and Mr. Höß, all of them, beat us and kicked us. This event has stuck in my memory.
I came across Mr. Höß at the almost exact same spot, when the block 11 prisoners, that is the penal company, began the construction of block 14. They laid deep foundations, but the Soła river was running nearby and it kept flooding them. It was impossible to prevent it. These people were thrown into the water and ordered to remove it with buckets. But how do you shift the Soła? It was physically impossible, even if they had used electrical pumps. The whole entourage barged in on the scene, shouting that this was a sabotage because the water could have been removed a long time ago and the foundations could have been laid. And so, this whole entourage watching, these Kapo and Unterkapo thugs hit the prisoners on their heads with shovels, and if someone fell into the water, they pressed him down with the shovel, and then a dead body surfaced. These masters who were in attendance had a good laugh. All this happened in front of their eyes.
These are the two occasions when I saw Mr. Höß. I tried not to look at these masters because I derived no pleasure from seeing them.
Presiding judge: I have no further questions. The witness is excused.