Warsaw, 30 January 1946. Judge Stanisław Rybiński, acting Head of the District Commission for the Investigation of German Crimes in Warsaw, interviewed the person named below as a witness. Having advised the witness of the criminal liability for making false declarations and the obligation to speak the truth, the Judge took an oath, following which the witness testified:
| Name and surname | Andrzej Strudziński |
| Date of birth | 30 November 1903 |
| Parents’ names | Jan, Maria |
| Occupation | engineer electrician |
| Religious affiliation | Roman Catholic |
| Place of residence | Warsaw, 3 Maja Avenue 34, flat 10 |
| Criminal record | None |
Throughout the German occupation, starting in 1939 until the outbreak of the Warsaw Uprising in August 1944, I was living in Warsaw and working at my profession. On 7 September 1944, obeying German orders, I, my wife and my stepson left our apartment on Wilcza 30, because the Germans were already on Śniadeckich Street and the whole district was being heavily bombarded. We left carrying a white flag and the Germans directed us to Pruszków. There, they separated men and women. I had to part with my wife, Maria Strudzińska (who now lives with me). My stepson, Eugeniusz Dagajew, stayed with me, he is presently 22 and residing in a sanatory in Rudka, undergoing treatment. I and my stepson were taken to Wrocław, to a transit camp. After a week, we were sent near Berlin to another camp, and to railway works near Berlin straight from there. We stayed there until the beginning of December, but we ran away because of the difficult working conditions. A couple of days later we were both captured in Oleśnica. We were arrested and driven back to prison in Wrocław. There, the Gestapo conducted a thorough investigation connected to our escape and made the decision to detain us in the Gross-Rosen camp. After several days, we were packed into prisoner transport vehicles along with other prisoners intended to go there. Inside the cars there were isolation booths for each prisoner, so tight that you could only stand in it. Even before we set out to Wrocław, my attention was caught by one of our companions in misery, who looked like an 80-year-old. When we expressed our surprise, it turned out he wasn’t as old as he looked. He was 45 and his appearance was the result of having spent two years in jail. He was in Gross- Rosen. The SS men beat him so badly that he developed a hunch and went gray. That man had a red cross painted on the back of his uniform, which was the sign of the camp. That same cross was on all our backs later, when we arrived in Gross-Rosen. And that prisoner was an escapee who had run away from the camp. When we reached our destination, the SS man who received us took note of him. He called one of the kapos, notable for his athletic build, and told him to finish the man off. The kapo started to slaughter the man wit his fists, striking blows in his chest, kicking him and punching him in the neck. Despite surviving the beating, the prisoner died soon after when they ripped his clothes off, poured freezing water over him, and threw him into a concrete bunker in the cold, December weather. He was a Pole, but what his name was and where he came from, I did not learn. The SS men handled us in the same brutal way. Only the strongest and the luckiest could survive.
Among the many perpetrators I especially remember the kapo of my unit. He was a Silesian named Gajko (I don’t know his first name). I was employed in Gross-Rosen in the construction of a barbed wire fence. I had to deal with Gajko until the final period of my stay, when the works were brought to a halt in the face of the Soviet army’s approach. At that point, I was deported along with other prisoners. I didn’t see him for the following ten days or so, and I don’t know where he stayed. Gajko handled us brutally – he would beat and slaughter us if we put our hats on before hearing the command. When we were busy dismantling a transformer and the work slowed down, Gajko beat us with a baton recklessly, usually on the head. Other kapos, SS men, block seniors and sztubowi were no better. They used to beat us on every occasion.
We were fed very poorly. For dinner, they gave us a liter of soup from herbs, a 200-gram piece of bread for supper occasionally with margarine, cheese and – rarely – 20 grams of sausage.
In the face of the Soviet army’s approach to Gross-Rosen, the camp was liquidated and the prisoners were deported. The Germans took some of them to Hersbruck near Nuremberg by train, including me and my two lager colleagues: Roman Zawadzki – a bookkeeper from Warsaw, from Kawcza Street; and Władysław Szczeciński – the personal tailor to president Mościcki.
We left Gross-Rosen on 8 or 9 February 1945 and travelled for five days. We were transported in open, uncovered coal wagons, wearing prison uniforms and covered with single blankets. Throughout that whole time, they didn’t give us anything to eat or drink. They had only given us solid portions before the departure – around 1 kilo of bread and a tin of meat. Those who had eaten this before the journey didn’t have anything after, and as a matter of fact we left a day after we had been handed these rations due to lack of trains. Around 30% of prisoners died on the way, from starvation, cold, exhaustion and thirst.
After arriving in Hersbruch, the vast majority of those who made it there were exterminated, as the way they handled us was far more brutal than in Gross-Rosen. SS men, kapos, and even brigadiers, murdered the prisoners, beating them to death with sticks. Zawadzki died there, supposedly he was finished off by someone. I wasn’t present when he died. The rations were slightly better than in Gross-Rosen, but they demanded very hard work, which many of us couldn’t cope with, as we wouldn’t be allowed to sleep after the night shifts. Instead, we were hustled to do chores in the block’s premises or to the bathhouses, roll calls and exercises.
A few prisoners from our transport, including me, were taken to Dachau at the end of March or at the beginning of April, where we were aided by the International Red Cross and where the discipline was less rigid.
On 29 April 1945, the Americans arrived in Dachau and thanks to their meticulous care, they saved most of the survivors. We encountered many priests in Dachau, who complained that they had been dealt with in a very cruel way, being treated worse than others. Szczeciński stayed in Dachau’s rewir, since he was ill. I don’t know where he is now.
I also met one other Pole in Hersbruck – his name was Michał Kuźmiński, born in Skwarzawa Stara, Żółkiew district. We were together in the convalescents’ rewir in Dachau and then in Wildflecken. Kuźmiński stayed there, as he was still ill.
I don’t know if Szczeciński and Kuźmiński are still alive.
I came back to Warsaw on 11 October. My wife came after that, and my stepson a couple days before my return. He had been separated from me earlier, in Wrocław. My wife returned with a broken hand and knocked out teeth, and my stepson was ill with tuberculosis.
The report was read out.