STEFAN MISZEWSKI

On 11 September 1947 in Warsaw, Appellate Investigating Judge Jan Sehn, member of the Main Commission for the Investigation of German Crimes in Poland, acting at the written request of the First Prosecutor of the Supreme National Tribunal, this dated 25 April 1947 (Ref. no. NTN 719/47), in accordance with the provisions of and procedure provided for under the Decree of 10 November 1945 (Journal of Laws of the Republic of Poland No. 51, item 293), and in connection with art. 107 and 115 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, interviewed as a witness the person specified below, a former prisoner of the Auschwitz concentration camp, who testified as follows:


Name and surname Stefan Miszewski
Age 42
Religious affiliation Roman Catholic
Citizenship and nationality Polish
Occupation electrical fitter
Place of residence Warsaw, Praga, Stanisławowska Street 79, flat 29

I was interned at the Auschwitz camp between 19 August 1942 and 27 October 1944. My prison number was 60073. During the first three months of my imprisonment, I worked with the reaping kommando [work detail]. This kommando employed 300 prisoners. We stayed at the main camp and went to labor outside the camp, to locations situated up to a dozen or so kilometers from the camp. Among other places, we would go to Budy and Monowitz.

After three months, thanks to the help of my friends, whom I had known already before my imprisonment, I was assigned to the electricians’ unit at the Bauleitung [construction management]. Our unit was housed in block 15. This block was visited by, among others, SS-Unterscharführer Kurt Müller, who, among other functions, served as the Blockführer. Additionally, he was supervisor of working kommandos. He caught me and a friend of mine, Jan Krawiec, an electrician from Sieradz, in the act of roasting potatoes during our work on the factory floor in the Union building, where we were setting up the electrical installation. Müller hit me in the face straight away, and additionally, for our offense, he submitted a penal report concerning myself and Krawiec, as a result of which Rapportführer [report leader] Hertwig, acting as Lagerführer [camp leader], read out the sentence to us. We were both given ten nights in the standing bunker and five Sundays of penal labor under supervision. Those sentenced to the standing bunker were driven by the block elder to block 11, and in the event of the convict’s late arrival, an interpreter from block 11 would go pick him up. The sentence was carried out in brick-built cells at the basement of block 11. There were four of these, each 80 by 80 cm. Their height was not more than two meters, so there was very little space above my head. The bunker could be accessed by a very small door, as if to a doghouse. During the first two days, there were five of us serving the sentence in one cell.

For the remainder of our sentence, there were four of us. We stayed in this cell after the evening roll-call, that is from 5.00 or 6.00 p.m. until the morning roll-call, until 5.00 a.m. I was doing time during a warm period; it was, I believe, in late spring or in summer 1943. The space in the bunker was so tight that none of the convicts could sit. We spent entire nights standing. After the first couple of minutes, the cell would become so stuffy and hot that we took our clothes off and we stood naked. Sweat was dripping down our bodies. We gasped for breath and swallowed the air through artificial slits in the bunker door. It was a wooden door, tightly sealed from the outside. They would let us out for the morning roll-call, and then we had to work as usual, like other prisoners. After the ten days of this sentence, I was completely drained and I contracted pneumonia. On the Sundays that fell in the period of my time in the standing bunker, I worked between 7.00 a.m. and 3.00 or 4.00 p.m. at the timber yard, logging trees. Müller was a silent fox outside and reported back on the prisoners for the slightest misdemeanor. He did not excessively torture prisoners publicly himself at the camp, but he filed lots of penal reports, which resulted in very harsh penalties: doing time in the standing bunker, assignment to the penal company, and flogging.

On my arrival at the camp, the function of Schutzhaftlagerführer [camp leader] was fulfilled by SS-Hauptsturmführer Aumeier. Because he was very short, we called him “Łokietek” [elbow-high]. He transferred out of Auschwitz in summer 1943. He was a cruel man. He tortured prisoners and clenched a revolver wherever he went. I remember when he got into a frenzy, frisking the kommandos returning from labor. He carried out the search by the kitchen. He beat the prisoners in the process. If he found any prohibited items, he beat the prisoners straight away or dispensed other kinds of punishment. During his time, the number of executions by hanging was the highest. Among others, 12 engineers from the Vermessung [measuring detail] were hanged. Aumeier was present on that occasion.

The report was read out. At this point the interview and the report were concluded.