On 30 June 1947 in Poznań, a member of the District Commission for the Investigation of German Crimes in Poznań, in the person of Judge St. Lehmann, interviewed the person specified below as an unsworn witness. Having been advised of the criminal liability for making false declarations, the witness testified as follows:
| Name and surname | Irena Piasecka, née Redigioni |
| Date and place of birth | 1 March 1895, Warszawa |
| Parents’ names | Antoni and Józefa |
| Place of residence | Poznań, Chełmońskiego Street 8, flat 4 |
| Occupation | office clerk at the Western Institute in Poznań |
| Criminal record | none |
| Relationship to the parties | none |
Due to clandestine activities in Warsaw, and especially the underground newspaper “Walka” [The Fight] being exposed by the Gestapo in Warsaw, my husband Antoni Jarosław was arrested on 3 December 1940. Two days later I was arrested as well. I was detained in Pawiak prison for 11 months, then transported to the concentration camp in Ravensbrück with a group numbering about 280 Polish women, in the first special transport from Warsaw. Groups of Polish women from Pomerania and Poznań regions were already in the camp when we got there. At the time, Koegel was the camp commandant, Meyer was his assistant, Langefeld was the head overseer, so-called Oberaufseherin of the women’s camp, and the SS doctor, Sonntag, was the camp physician.
Koegel was a very harsh commandant, he would torment the prisoners whom he had punished by a detention in the bunker. The prisoners must have been tortured there, since one could hear them not screaming, but constantly wailing. Koegel abused especially the Bible Students (the so-called Bibelforschers). When he was in command, the first transport of prisoners who were ill and unfit for work was sent to the Buchenwald camp and killed in gas chambers. I learned about this in the camp, from the SS male guards who sometimes confided in some trusted prisoners. I also know that the families of the people who had been killed in the gas chambers had been notified that the deaths were allegedly caused by various diseases, which was obviously fabricated. We had been told officially that these people were to be released. I would like to add that this first transport consisted only of Polish women who had arrived in our transport or in the transport from Lublin.
Meyer was no less brutal. During an hour of rest after work, when we were allowed to walk on the camp road, he would appear all of a sudden and punish a prisoner [whom he has just seized] by detention in the bunker.
Out of all the doctors that I have observed in the camp, Dr. Sonntag was the worst. He abused the ill in a very brutal way. He often got drunk and when he went into a frenzy, he threw the ill women out of the sick rooms, beat them, kicked, dragged them by the hair around the corridors, poured water over them, put them in detention. Sometimes an ill prisoner would die in the bunker. These attacks were inexplicable. He was most likely a sadist.
A special kind of abuse in the camp involved having to stand for many hours during roll calls. The prisoners were harassed by being told to stand longer, especially during bad weather, or as punishment – sometimes as punishment (for an escape, for instance) blocks had to stand for 24 hours during roll call. The prisoners were often taken from work and punished by standing to attention, while facing the bunker. They were supervised by an Aufseherin – an overseer from [illegible]. Sometimes during my stay in the camp (this happened for the first time about a year after my arrival), some Polish women were led in groups beyond the wall (next to a piggery) and shot there. During the evening roll call, we would hear a salvo followed by individual shots matching the number of the prisoners who had been taken. In the first groups, only Poles were executed in this way. At the end, prisoners of other nationalities were shot as well.
When Koegel and Langefeld were in command, I did not observe any particular abuse of the prisoners at work, during the day or at night, as far as the camp premises and the so-called Betriebe [workshop] were concerned.
The abuse started under Redwitz, as Koegel’s successor, and Mandl, as Langefeld’s successor. At that time, SS men were assigned to supervise prisoners during work. They tormented the prisoners. A short break or failure to carry out the assigned workload resulted in the guilty prisoner being beaten senseless.
I saw Mandl simply raging around the camp. During roll calls, she would walk along the front of the blocks and find excuses to abuse the prisoners. For example, during spring frosts she gave an order to walk barefoot. Some prisoners made themselves pieces of cardboard to stand on, since the roll calls took place at 3.00–3.30 a.m. When Mandl noticed – that, or a hair parting, or any other detail – she hit [the prisoner] in the face with a rubber baton or her hand; similarly, turning one’s head, wearing a sweater, or many, many other things were punished by beatings and insults. These incidents occurred daily. Mandl had help in finding reasons for harassing prisoners in the person of a German policewoman Leo, who was a prisoner.
Among Mandl’s victims was a Polish woman, Maria Plater, who had her hair parted. The parting occurred on its own, due to a previous haircut. For this offence, Mandl dragged her to the front, kicked her, shaved her head and ordered her to wear a sign with insults on her back. On top of that, she drove her with that sign in front of all the blocks and made her stand for many hours. Maria Plater was subjected to surgical experiments, but she returned from both of them.
When Mandl saw that a prisoner was wearing a sweater underneath a dress, she would strip her naked in the freezing cold, beat her up and take the sweater away. We were officially allowed to own a sweater.
The person with the most detailed knowledge about life in the Ravensbrück camp is Marta Baranowska from Bydgoszcz, a school inspector who was a block leader and had contact with camp offices and authorities. She behaved in an exemplary way, saving the lives of many prisoners.
I stayed in the camp in Ravensbrück uninterruptedly until 25 April 1945, that is, until my departure to Sweden, so I was never detained in the Auschwitz camp.
I do not know the names Kock, Baden and Danz. However, if confronted with them, perhaps I could recognize them as overseers.
The report was read before signing and concluded.