To the President of the Supreme National
Tribunal of the Republic of Poland
in Warsaw
Testimony
| Name and surname | Stefan Maliszewski |
| Date and place of birth | 23 May 1912 in Warsaw |
| Place of residence | Rynek Street 12 in Błonie |
| In the case of the accused | Lagerführer [head] of the Auschwitz concentration camp, |
Hauptsturmführer Aumeier and RapportführerUnterscharführer Oswald Kaduk, [regarding the period from] 1941 to November 1944 [I testify as follows].
In 1940 I was arrested by the Gestapo and deported to Pawiak. In January 1941, I was transported to the Auschwitz concentration camp. The Lagerführer at that time was Fritzsch, and Kaduk was a Blockführer. The transport in which I rode contained 630 people – men, mostly employees of the Warsaw City Tram Directorate, some of whom I know by name, [including] Pieracki, the deceased minister’s brother, whom Kaduk especially tormented along with some other SS men and who, not able to withstand the torture [inflicted] by the aforementioned, ended his life in the punitive unit within two weeks.
After Fritzsch’s transfer to Flossenbürg, Aumeier was appointed in his place, and then the real Gehenna began for the Poles in the camp, because Aumeier instigated public hangings. Before one of the executions, he meted out 25 lashes for each of the condemned, and began to kick them when they were already hanging. It was in 1942, the summer season, when two Häftlings [prisoners] fled from the punitive unit of Birkenau. On the given day, I was commanded to work as a sheet metal worker in the kitchen building, from where I could see the entire courtyard where the punitive unit was located. In the courtyard, a company of over 200 people were lined up – everyone sat in the so-called Kniebeuge [squatting position]. They were all tortured and herded to the block, then released singly or in twos back into the courtyard, and there Kaduk and Aumeier personally shot them in the back of the head. The whole unit was shot on this day. A few days after the execution, the fugitives were captured and hanged, [as described above]. The shooting was a punishment for the escape of two fellow-prisoners [from the unit].
On 2 September 1943, in the morning, I was working in block 10, which was connected to the courtyard of block 11. In the window in the corner of block 10, where the panes were painted black, a piece of glass had been deliberately broken, so that everything was clearly visible and could be heard, because the distance to the “screen [wall] of death” was only approx. 1.5 m. On this day, a group of civilians (mostly women with small children) were shot. Using compressed air machine guns, Kaduk and Palitzsch did the shooting, while Lagerführer Aumeier and the head of the Political Department Grabner watched. A young mother was brought up with a child aged five. After the child was shot before her eyes, [the woman] knelt before the “screen of death” and began to pray aloud, which, when the SS men saw this, made them laugh. The accused Kaduk, who knows Polish, said: “Módl się do swego Boga, ja poczekam, niech przyjdzie” [“Pray to your God, I will wait, let him come”]. The prayer lasted a few minutes, and then Kaduk put the rifle to her head and fired.
My testimony is consistent with my conscience, and I am ready to submit [it] under oath.
Błonie, 6 June 1947