War Crimes Branch Judge Advocate Section European Theater of Operations
15 March 1945
MEMORANDUM for the War Crimes Branch Judge Advocate Section, Headquarters, European Theater of Operations APO 887 US Army
Concerning: interview conducted by Capt. Robert SIEBURTH, MIS, 0-916996 on D/S with PM, Seine Section, with 10 Polish women (ATS) in the building of the Polish Red Cross, Rue Crallon, Paris, France, 13 March 1945, at 4.00 p.m.
WITNESSES:
Harris, chaplain, first lieutenant, assigned to the barracks for refugees, former curate at the Holy Trinity Church in Boston,
Captain Kowalski of the Polish Military Mission, 25 Quai D’Orsay, Paris (telephone INV 5804), Hanusz, first lieutenant of the Polish Women’s Auxiliary Service, currently Donai near Lille.
I heard from my acquaintance of the Military Mission in Paris that 19 young women, former prisoners of the German concentration camp in Auschwitz in Silesia were staying in the Red Cross camp for refugees in Paris. Because these girls were to join the Polish Women’s Auxiliary Service soon, I turned to Capt. Kowarski of the Polish Military Mission to inquire about this infamous concentration camp with chambers meant for killing political prisoners, Jews and Gypsies from all countries occupied by the Nazis. Around 1944, the Germans took 500 young Polish women from the Auschwitz camp to the ammunition factory in Lorraine. As the Allies moved forward, the women had to be evacuated. Nineteen of them managed to escape and hide from the SS guards.
They ultimately found themselves in the care of the military authorities of the Allies, and were transported to the Polish Red Cross in Paris. The girls are now between the ages of 19 and 25.
Each has a number tattooed on her left forearm. Most of them were captured in large cities such as Warsaw, Kraków, Lwów in 1940. They were arrested either for helping the Polish underground, distributing banned newspapers, sabotaging the German war effort or simply as a result of manhunts, the sealing off of all city districts, or the detaining of all people who might have been involved in the underground movement. At the moment of their capture, the girls were very young. I saw ten of them after they were provided with nourishment and excellent care for a year and a half. They were in good physical condition.
These are the facts I was presented with during the interview:
The camp at Auschwitz could hold about 90,000 people. The number of the prisoners was constantly changing, although it is known that not many people came out alive. The prisoners had their numbers tattooed on their bodies. They lost their names and identities. Even though the capacity of the camp was 90,000, I saw numbers way over 100,000 tattooed on people’s forearms. Those who were sent to the camp to be exterminated were not given numbers. One of the girls, a former student, was assigned to work in one of the camp offices and familiarized herself with the system of numbering prisoners.
She was also assigned to prepare the prisoners’ death certificates which usually stated the cause of death as “heart disease” or “poor health condition”. Clearly, this was done to hinder potential investigations. Some girls worked at a sewing room, others worked as nurses or assistants in the crematorium, but most of them worked with a pickaxe and a shovel in the field. I saw that one girl’s hands had been completely frostbitten, because gloves were not issued in winter months.
Pregnant women and prisoners who were so sick that they had a high fever were put on the list of those meant for extermination. Since there was a severe shortage of food, typhus and diarrhea took a heavy toll on the prisoners. Most girls whom I interviewed had suffered from typhus at some point. They all had had diarrhea and lost up to 40 pounds of weight. It would be an understatement to say that they were treated with cruelty, since they were supervised by very young SS men who relished beating the prisoners. I was presented with facts which show that many prisoners were almost killed for failing to give a low bow while walking past an SS guard.
Then, I asked whether there were any guards who showed mercy for the victims or tried to lighten their load. The response was negative and conveyed the exact opposite – guards enjoyed being exceptionally cruel. A dozen or so girls told me that in the winter, when the camp was overcrowded, the prisoners had to stand completely naked in a field for a long period of time. Those who did not fall seriously ill proved that they were suitable for various kinds of work, and the rest went through the process of extermination. Extermination in this camp involved opening the trapdoor in the crematorium to burn the bodies or burning the victims once they had been gassed.
This is what I managed to find out about the death chambers. Right next to the Auschwitz train station was a clean brick factory building with a spacious waiting area where the newcomers were brought. These people were mostly Jews who had been arrested all over Europe and transported to various places of extermination. Upon arrival, they did not suspect that they were going to die. They would usually brighten up once they were allowed to leave the overcrowded, revolting stock car, and Jewish children were fascinated by the thick smoke coming out of the crematorium chimneys. Next to the waiting area were five rooms with a capacity to contain a hundred people standing closely next to each other. Before the victims were lead to the chamber, they had to undress, men and women together, and go in the shower which made their skin more susceptible to the gas. People who could not stand straight were beaten with sticks which often broke in the process. Then the room was tightly shut and the gas faucets were opened. This lasted until most victims lost consciousness. Then the floor of the chamber designed like a trapdoor would open and the bodies would fall into the fire below. The SS men killed those who were not dead yet with hand grenades. In order to make the burning process more efficient, the bodies were arranged into piles in such a way that thinner male bodies and bodies of children were layered between the female bodies which contain more fats. After the bodies were burned in this manner, the ashes were transported to a field and used as fertilizer. The girls whom I interviewed were the ones who transported the ashes. The white ashes often still contained tiny pieces of the bones. The girls estimated the highest production output of this death factory at 10–20,000 victims a day.
One girl testified that right next to the place where she stayed in the camp, which was located by the fence, she could hear the screams of the victims who were being burned in open-air pits, with no prior gassing. They were mostly elders and small children who could not stand in the gas chambers. During this process, the prisoners could smell the burning bodies.
Interestingly, the Nazis assigned managing positions to their future victims. They would keep 10 percent of the transport that had arrived and use those people to carry out the necessary work in the death chambers – to light the fire, arrange the bodies into piles, transport the bodies and maintain order in general. Having worked for a while, they thought they would be spared. They were eliminated with the arrival of the next transport and replaced by the newcomers selected from it. There was, however, a number of people – mainly Jews who arrived once the camp was established – who were functionaries in charge of various types of work in the camp administration and belonged to the Headquarters of the Camp Management, which kept them alive, at least for the time being.
The facts presented above are the result of an hour and a half long conversation. It was impossible to write down all the details in such a short time. Captain Kowarski of the Polish Military Mission has offered the assistance of his organization in conducting further interviews with the people who worked at the concentration camp in Auschwitz.
NOTE: The name of the camp is AUSCHWITZ not OSCHWITZ, and the camp is located near Kraków.