KAZIMIERZ KOBUS

Warsaw, 25 August 1947. Judge Halina Wereńko, a member of the District Commission for the Investigation of German Crimes in Warsaw, interviewed the person named below as a witness, without administering an oath. Having been advised of the criminal liability for making false statements and of the obligation to tell the truth, the witness testified as follows:


Name and surname Kazimierz Stanisław Kobus
Parents’ names Stanisław and Emilia, née Gontarska
Date of birth 2 March 1907, Węgrów
Religious affiliation Evangelical-Reformed
Place of residence Żoliborz district of Warsaw, Suzina Street 3, flat 189
Education Secondary
Occupation head of the Transport and Liaison Department at the “Czytelnik” Publishing Cooperative

From 17 January 1943 to 8 April 1944 I was imprisoned in the concentration camp in Majdanek, and was then sent to the concentration camp in Gross-Rosen. Muhsfeldt, whom I recognize in the photograph, was head of the crematorium in the camp in Majdanek. (The witness was shown a photograph labelled “Erich Muhsfeldt”, which had been attached to a note from the District Commission for the Investigation of German Crimes in Kraków, dated 7 August 1947, no. 779/47).

I can’t determine the time of Muhsfeldt’s stay in the concentration camp. After I was sent from Majdanek to Gross-Rosen, I heard that Muhsfeldt had been transferred to Auschwitz.

From March 1943 to the moment of departure I worked in the Fahrbreischeft car workshop. Muhsfeldt often came there on his motorcycle, and the prisoners who worked there repaired it. He kicked me while I was repairing it, and this is why I remembered him so well. As head of the crematorium he was obligated to make sure that the corpses which had been delivered to him were burnt.

I never saw Muhsfeldt kill anyone or torment the prisoners because I never encountered him near the crematorium. It was commonly known among the prisoners that Muhsfeldt was a sadist and that during the burning of the corpses he personally murdered people, even though this wasn’t his duty. People said that Muhsfeldt enjoyed himself by throwing small, mostly Jewish children to the gas chamber.

I learnt from the French Jews from the Waldkommando [wood-chopping work detail] that Muhsfeldt actively participated in the executions in the Krępiec forest in May and June 1943, where Jews transported from the Warsaw ghetto were exterminated. The French Jews tasked with digging mass graves were later murdered as well.

In the spring of 1943, during the final liquidation of the Warsaw Ghetto I heard Muhsfeldt say to the head of a car workshop – Unterscharführer Fischer – that he had his hands full. I figured that he was talking about the liquidation of the Warsaw ghetto.

I don’t know the names of the prisoners who worked in the crematorium. More information on this subject and on the subject of Muhsfeldt can be provided by Eugeniusz Malanowski, owner of a jewelers and engraving studio in Warsaw, Poznańska Street 37

At this point the report was brought to a close and read out.