On 20 August 1947 in Mysłowice, Municipal Court in Mysłowice, Fifth Branch, in the person of the Municipal Judge A. Wajda (MA), with the participation of reporter S. Gosiąrowa, interviewed the person specified below as a witness. Having been advised of the criminal liability for making false declarations and of the significance of the oath, the witness testified as follows:
| Name and surname | Józef Piasecki |
| Age | 54 |
| Parents’ names | Wiktor and Maria, née Lewitowicz |
| Occupation | school principal |
| Place of residence | Giszowiec, 1 Maja Street 15 |
| Criminal record | none |
| Relationship to the parties |
Being imprisoned in the camp in Auschwitz from 15 [month illegible] 1940 until 25 October 1944, I came into contact with the following suspects:
1. Hans Aumeier, who was the head of the central camp from February 1942 until the end of August 1943, holding the rank of Hauptsturmführer,
2. Maximilian Grabner, who as Untersturmführer held the post of the head of the political department from the time unknown to me until the autumn of 1943, 3. Arthur Liebehenschel, who was the camp commandant from the autumn of 1943 until the end of April 1944, holding the rank of Obersturmbannführer.
I knew the names of these suspects, who commanded the camp, and saw them every day. I also recognize them on the photographs that were presented to me. Suspects Aumeier and Grabner, who held their posts at the camp at the same time, were the main abusers in the camp, for they determined the conduct of the SS men and other camp supervisors. They both not only tolerated the most terrible ways in which prisoners were harassed and murdered, but also personally committed such atrocities or ordered them to be carried out.
At that time, Rudolf Höß was the camp commandant and this was when the prisoners were treated the worst. Executions, often carried out on a mass scale, were performed by means of most atrocious methods, such as lethal injections, shots to the back of the head, poisoning by gas in the gas chambers, exhausting labor, torture, starvation, exposure to infectious diseases – these occurred especially at that time on a daily basis, undoubtedly on the orders and with the knowledge of suspects Aumeier and Grabner. The suspects also administered punishments, that is, various tortures for the slightest, often imagined offences. These tortures included: flogging, standing in the frost at night, additional labor, being denied sleep, a dark cell and so on. Aumeier and Grabner even passed death sentences. On their orders, several dozen thousands of prisoners were murdered in the camp.
I will present the most glaring instances of cruelty from the time under Aumeier and Grabner:
While performing my duties as a nurse in the camp hospital, I saw an SS man Klehr, Oberscharführer, giving lethal injections to several hundreds of people who died shortly after. This was in August 1942. In the evening of the same day, as I was walking to the block, I saw a pile of corpses. One of the prisoners crushed under the corpses of others was still showing signs of life, so I wanted to approach him, but an SS guard scared me away by firing his rifle.
In July 1943, three prisoners from the so-called Messtruppkommando [testing team] escaped from the camp. As punishment, the remaining 24 were killed in the following way: 12 of them were sent to the so-called bunker [in block 11], that is “death block”, and the other 12 were publicly hanged in the camp. Aumeier and Grabner were of course present during the execution.
Block 11 contained the so-called bunker that I have mentioned, which was organized by suspect Grabner. It was meant for executing prisoners amid tortures. Since the tortures were severe, prisoners hardly ever survived them.
I saw people who were transported to the camp and sent without registration to the “death block” from which they never came back. I often heard shots coming from inside. Mothers with infants were sent there too.
Medical examinations and experiments were carried out on prisoners in the camp. Block 10 housed about 400 women who were being used as subjects. Various operations were carried out: castration, infecting with diseases, testing new injections, surgeries and so on. I am aware of an incident in which a healthy prisoner’s gall bladder was removed for experiments. The worst atrocities of this kind were committed by the camp physician, Entress.
In the autumn of 1941, Aumeier’s predecessor Fritzsch along with Grabner organized a camp for the Soviet prisoners of war on the premises of the Auschwitz camp. 18,000 POWs were detained there. Almost all of them were executed within three months.
Suspect Grabner relied on various provokers. One of them was a certain Ołpiński, known for the Polish broadcast “Isn’t it strange” on a German radio. With the help of such provokers, Grabner would seek out famous people and send them to death. This is how Woźniakowski – a lawyer from Kraków, Jan Mosdorf – a publicist from Warsaw, Colonel Karcz and many others died.
Aumeier and Grabner acquired large amounts of personal effects and money of great value. They took these riches to the Reich. Very often I saw them personally beating and kicking prisoners.
In the autumn of 1943, suspect Liebehenschel took over the position of camp commandant after Höß. He most likely got new instructions from higher authorities, since from that time the treatment of prisoners improved considerably. In particular, the punishment by flogging was eliminated, the food improved, the system of labor became less harsh, the camp hospital was made more available to prisoners. Liebehenschel himself seemed more considerate than Höß, seeing as he allowed prisoners to submit complaints directly to him, which was previously out of the question even for lower ranking SS men. Despite the approach of the administration being clearly loosened, the block where the experiments took place and the gas chambers for people of Jewish descent were still in use.
In April 1944, suspect Liebehenschel was dismissed from the camp. The talk in the camp was that this happened because he had refused to kill the Jews from Hungary in gas chambers. Höß came back to the camp and took over from Liebehenschel. When he was in command, the execution of the Hungarian Jews in gas chambers was carried out.
I never saw suspect Liebehenschel hit a prisoner. It was quite the opposite – no SS man dared to do so in his presence, fearing the consequences that Liebehenschel threatened them with. Of particular note is the fact that suspect Liebehenschel caused the especially cruel SS men, such as Grabner and Boger, to be removed from the Auschwitz camp. Liebehenschel sent the most ruthless kapos to other camps and had them replaced by the Poles. It must be said that when suspect Liebehenschel was in command, the relations in the camp improved considerably and prisoners felt a lot better. Suffice it to say that the death rate in the camp which under Aumeier used to be 300 and 400 prisoners a day, decreased when suspect Liebehenschel was camp commandant even to five deaths a day.
The following former prisoners of the camp at Auschwitz can provide information about the suspects’ conduct:
1. Antoni Gargul, residing in Bochnia, św. Kingi Street 5,
2. Józef Kropiński, residing in Cieplice-Zdrój, 3 Maja Street 4,
3. Stefan Gąsiorowski, residing in Międzylesie, Kolejowa Street 36,
4. Adam Kopciński, residing in Kraków, Batorego Street 20,
5. Mieczysław Krzyński, residing in Warszawa, Mokotowska Street 51, flat 53, 6. Prof. Olbrycht, residing in Kraków, forensic medicine department.
The report was read out.