WANDA KULCZYK

Warsaw, 20 October 1945. Investigating judge Mikołaj Halfter interviewed the person specified below as a witness. Witness Wanda Maria Kulczyk, known in the case, testified as follows:

When I arrived at Ravensbrück, I was given number 7821, but at that time there were only some 4,000 prisoners at the camp because many women had been sent to work in factories. The staff of the camp kitchen told me that around March–April 1945 there were approximately 32,000 women at the camp.

On 28 July 1942, I was taken to the camp hospital (I was fit), where I received two injections: one was intravenous and the other was intramuscular. Before these injections, I had had my legs shaved. I received both injections at the same time, around 9 a.m. I remained at the hospital until 4 p.m. and was then told to return to the block. Both these injections consisted of a colorless translucent liquid. One injection was regular, meaning one or two cubic centimeters – this one was administered intravenously. The other one was significant: I was injected with some liquid from a syringe which was around 8 cm long. These injections were not particularly painful. About ten minutes after the injections, I felt certain inertness and I could also feel my temperature rising (let me add that I underwent these procedures after a night shift). Around 1 p.m., I was wheeled toward the operating theater. Outside the operating theater, I saw a man slouched in a wheelchair, covered up to his neck with a bed cloth. He was conscious (I know that because when they wheeled me past him he turned his head and looked at me). When we reached the door of the operating theater, a doctor rushed out and started to shout at the nurse, saying that she should not have brought me at that time, when they were operating on men (he said it in German and I could understand because I used to learn German at school). So, they took me back to the patients’ room. I remained there until 4 p.m. Then, they told me to return to the block. A comrade walked me out who had come to see the dentist. After I returned to the block, there was a roll-call at 6 p.m., during which it was announced I was released from night duty. The next day, I felt weak and the following night I was supposed to go to work, but I did not work. On 1 August, I was again taken to the hospital, where I received the same injections as previously, and after an hour I was put in a wheelchair and given another injection, outside the operating theater, after which I passed out. My comrades told me that my surgery had lasted ten minutes. I came round on a bed in the general patients’ room. Before the injections on 28 July, I got a full shower at the hospital, while before the surgery on 1 August 1942 I washed my legs up to the groin.

When I came to, I determined that my right leg was in a plaster cast up to the knee, I experienced pain on the outside of the right crus, and it felt wet there. I had a high fever, upward of 40 degrees Celsius (I know that because later I saw my temperature chart). The next day, they collected a blood sample from my finger and some urine for an examination. For three days, I had a fever of around 40 degrees. For three weeks, I received morphine injections – as the doctor said at that time – and was administered liquid morphine. Other than that, I was given no medications, in any form. Every three days, they changed my dressings. I did not see this procedure on the first five occasions because they would cover my head with a bedsheet.

The girls who worked at the hospital told me that my surgery had been performed by Dr. Gebhardt, who also changed my dressing himself on the first occasion. Later, it was done by Dr. Fischer, Gebhardt’s assistant. When they were changing my dressing on the sixth occasion, they did not cover my head with a bedsheet anymore and then I could see my leg for the first time. The wound was located on the outside of the crus, ran from the knee toward the ankle, and was around 10 cm long, up to 5 cm deep, and very suppurated. The pus was greenish-yellow in color. Changing my dressing on that occasion was Oberheuser; she was a local doctor. The procedure consisted in cleaning the wound with a liquid, which I believe – based on what the girls working at the hospital as orderlies told me – was Burow’s solution. After cleaning the wound, the doctor removed the pus and collected it in a bowl. The evacuation was very painful. Then, the doctor applied a yellow ointment, which I believe was Vaseline, and on other occasions when this happened the wound was also powdered. After the surgery, I only spent three weeks at the hospital, and after that I was resting at the block, exempt from work and visiting the hospital periodically to have my dressings changed. Five weeks after the surgery, the wound on my leg scarred up and soon healed.

On 15 September 1942, I was summoned to the hospital again. There, Dr. Oberheuser examined my leg and put a salt-water dressing on the leg which had already been operated upon. I knew about the character of this dressing from the girls whom Oberheuser had ordered to prepare the water. Then, the doctor applied the gauze drenched in salty water on the place which was previously operated upon and bandaged it. The dressing was wet for the entire night. I stayed at the hospital overnight and the next day, around noon, I was given two injections, like in the case of the first surgery I have described. Then, I was taken to the operating theater, outside of which I was given an intravenous injection, which I believe was an anesthetic because I passed out immediately. Other girls told me that the second surgery also lasted ten minutes, like the first one. I woke up in the same bed and in the same room as previously. My leg was bandaged up to the knee and the bandages were bloodstained, and I felt very severe pain in the same place where the wound from the first surgery was located. I had a very high fever, around 41 degrees, my head and throat hurt, and I was feeling very sick. The leg above the knee, all the way up to the groin, and the glands on the groin were very swollen. I noticed blood on the bandages so I suspected that in the course of the surgery they had again incised my leg. After the surgery, I was given a morphine injection to relieve the pain, as the doctor explained to me. On the fourth day after the surgery, I was taken to the operating theater again, where, having received an anesthetic injection, I had my dressing changed. Over the four days between the surgery and the dressing change, I had a 40-degree fever and was so weak that I could not even move to clean myself or get my hair in order, and I was attended to by my comrades.

When I had the dressing changed for the first time, I do not know what the procedure involved because, as I said, I was under anesthesia. My comrades told me that the procedure took some five minutes. After three days, I had my dressing changed again, this time with no anesthesia administered, and on that occasion my face was covered with a bedsheet. I could feel that they removed the sutures used to stitch up the three incisions on my wound. At that time, I had not seen the wound since the surgery and it was only after my dressing was changed for the fourth time, when they did not cover my face with a bedsheet again, that I found three incisions on my leg. During the fourth dressing change, I saw that the pus around the wound was completely green and resembled frog spawn. The doctor collected it in a bowl.

The girls working at the hospital told me that the pus was examined through a magnifying glass by the local doctors, that is Rosenthal, Schiedlausky, and Oberheuser.

Ten days after the surgery, my temperature started to drop and I felt slightly better. At no point after the second surgery was I given any injections, aside from morphine, to relieve the pain, I believe. With regard to medications, they gave me the so-called Schmerztabletten, that is white round pills roughly the size of a 1 grosz coin. Throughout the whole time when I had high fever, I felt acute pain radiating from the knee down to the foot, where I felt strong sensations. The pain was dull and I felt it upon movement.

After a month, the pain was less intense and I started to stand up. Three weeks after the surgery, I was carried on a stretcher to the block, where I rested for another week. Then, I started to learn to walk. First, I walked on my toes, and then I tried to put the whole foot down. As a result of what I have described above, I cannot twist my right foot the way I can the left. Presently, I can walk unassisted and I do not limp but when I wear flat shoes, I need to pull up my leg. Also, I cannot walk much or very fast. When I walk for an extended period, my right leg swells – the entire crus, from the knee to the ankle – and I feel a dull pain around the scar.

After the second surgery, I was exempt from working and attending roll-calls for a few months. When I did not have a fever, I received the same food rations as everybody else at the camp. The dressings for surgeries were prepared by prisoners suffering from venereal diseases and dysentery, and these dressings were not asepticized. I know this from the girls who worked at the hospital.

Working as a dentist at the camp hospital was my friend Eugenia Biega from Mława, whose address I do not presently know, but I will try to find out and I will send it to you, Your Honor. Ms. Biega worked at the hospital from the beginning of 1942 until 1945, that is until the evacuation of the camp.

Eugenia Biega told me that the hospital’s operating theater witnessed surgeries – performed, as we believed, for experimental purposes – which consisted in removing sections of healthy people’s scapular bones, skulls, legs, or spines. A Gestapo man would take the amputated parts in a bundle to Berlin and Hohenlychen. Eugenia Biega and the rest of us believed that these bundles were taken to Berlin based on what someone heard from a Gestapo man whom I did not know, while we knew about the Hohenlychen part from our fellow prisoners who worked at a police school located there and who saw an SS man coming in a car with a bundle, which Eugenia Biega saw herself. Our friend Wanda Bakuniewicz from Lublin used to work in Hohenlychen for some time, but unfortunately I do not know her current place of residence. Eugenia Biega also told me about two particular cases which I described above.

In spring 1944, a German prisoner, an ordinary healthy woman, was summoned to the hospital. Ms. Biega did not know her name, or at least I do not recall her ever mentioning it. I can only describe her by saying that she was a member of the Bibelforscher religious sect. All members of this sect wore a purple triangle on their sleeves. They were interned at the camp for their religious beliefs. This German was taken to the operating theater and she never got out of there. Instead, an SS man came out of there after a while, carrying a parcel. The door of the operating theater were locked at that time. One of the girls working at the hospital with Eugenia Biega snuck inside, having opened the door somehow, and saw a coffin, in which the German lay – dead and without her legs. The SS man got in a car and left for Berlin or Hohenlychen, as we suspected.

Another case I have heard about was as follows. In spring 1944, a Russian was summoned to the hospital. Eugenia Biega, who related this incident to me, did not know her name. The Russian did not get out of the operating theater, and instead an SS man emerged carrying a bundle, who then left in a car. Some girls got inside secretly and saw the dead Russian in a coffin – without an arm. Eugenia Biega will provide a more detailed account of these incidents.

Let me say that after the surgeries neither myself nor the other girls were placed in the general patients’ room but in solitary cells and the prisoners working at the hospital as orderlies were not allowed to see us.

In March 1945, selections started to be carried out at the camp. The way it was done was that all the prisoners were ordered out of the blocks, like they were during roll-calls, in the presence of the camp commandant’s adjutant, whose name I do not know, Oberin [Oberaufseherin – senior overseer] Binz, the aufseherinnen [overseers] whose names I do not know, Pflaum from the Arbeitseinsatz [work deployment office], an Aufseherin from the Arbeitseinsatz, that is an SS woman, and one more SS woman, who carried a 40-cm cane capped with a silver arch. Each prisoner, half naked, walked barefoot past the above persons at a fast pace. Those with swollen legs, grey hair, or saggy skin were put aside. The group thus formed was taken to different blocks and then to the so-called Jugendlager [youth camp], from which they were periodically picked up by vans and taken to be executed.

Selections took place twice a week, and then once a week. With regard to the physical description of the persons in charge of selections, the camp commandant’s adjutant was a tall brunet with olive complexion, rather stout and well-built, and had a grim look in his eyes. Binz was a slim blonde of medium height with fair complexion. Pflaum was a dark blond of medium height, with a round, fat face and churlish looks. Also present during the selections was a doctor, whose name I do not know, a tall, dark-haired man. During the selections from among five hundred people, around two hundred were taken to the Jugendlager. Also subject to selections were the women from Warsaw who were evacuated during the uprising of 1944 and afterwards.

As regards the doctors participating in experimental surgeries, I can describe their conduct as follows: Prof. Gebhardt and Dr. Fischer treated the patients fairly and in a doctor-like manner, but Dr. Rosenthal and Dr. Schiedlausky were characterized by great brutality. Dr. Oberheuser treated our group decently.

Among the camp staff, the following persons stood out in terms of their brutality and ill treatment of prisoners: SS woman Kungler, from the Betrieb working barrack, who beat the prisoners. During selections, everybody who had authority was cruel and brutal. Then, SS woman Kowa, responsible for preserving order at the camp, was also very brutal, as was Oberin Mandel, the SS women supervisor at the camp, and Aufseherin Kopa from our block, number 24 (most recently). When she was in charge, the block was designated 15. Only Oberin Langefeld treated prisoners humanely and thanks to her, our roll-calls were shorter. She worked there for a year, between 1943 and 1944, and was then arrested. Among the SS men, Opitz stood out in terms of brutality; he was in charge of all Betriebe, Reichslo, who oversaw the prisoners working in Schneiderei zwei [the second tailoring workshop], Picz, who oversaw the sewing of coats, as well as SS woman Schwarz, working in similar capacity, and SS man Graff, who oversaw the warehouses.

The following persons were operated upon with me: Aniela Okoniewska, whose present address I do not know; Rozalia Gutek, executed in fall 1944; Maria Gnaś, executed in fall 1943; Maria Zielonka, executed together with Gutek; Wanda Wojtasik, currently residing in Kraków, a university student, I do not know her exact address.

During the second surgery, the following persons were operated upon with me: Róża Gutek, Maria Zielonka, Jadwiga Kamińska, who is presently in Sweden, Władysława Karolewska, currently residing in Warsaw, Urszula Karwacka, currently residing in Bydgoszcz, I do not know her exact address.

The report was read out.