On 27 January 1947 in Oświęcim, a member of the Kraków District Commission for the Investigation of German Crimes in Poland, Municipal Judge Dr. Henryk Gawacki, upon written request of the first prosecutor of the Supreme National Tribunal, this dated 25 April 1947 (file 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), in connection with Art. 254, 107, 115 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, interviewed the former Auschwitz concentration camp prisoner specified below as a witness, who testified as follows:
Name and surname: Wilibald Pająk (known in the criminal case against Rudolf Höß, Vol 4, p. 82)
To complete my testimony given in the course of the criminal investigation against Rudolf Höß, with regards to the conduct and behavior of other former members of the SS armed crew at Auschwitz, I would like to state the following:
When I worked at the Political Department (Politische Abteilung) recording the prisoners’ deaths, my direct supervisors were: Sturmscharführer Lorenz Carstensen, Unterscharführer Schmidt (I no longer remember his first name), Unterscharführer Hoffmann (I don’t know his first name either) and Scharführer August Bogusch.
The first of them, Carstensen, was an older man who did not exhibit any brutal behavior towards prisoners. In the winter of 1942, Carstensen once saw that my legs were swollen and asked why I did not go to the hospital. I replied that I had been to the hospital, but the help I received was insufficient. The following day or several days later, Carstensen brought me two pills. I didn’t know what medicine it was and he didn’t tell me. I felt some relief after taking the pills. I never asked Carstensen for help again, and he did not offer it to me. In the autumn of 1943, I worked with another prisoner, Feliks Myłyk, transporting the rations of apples, pears, and plums for Carstensen from the SS kitchen to his office. In addition to the rations for Carstensen, prisoners from the kitchen warehouse gave us a sack filled with fruit. While delivering Carstensen’s rations, we managed to transport the sack to our camp. Carstensen realized that apart from rations for him we were transporting fruit for ourselves, but he did not object or punish us in any way.
I frequently encountered Aumeier at Auschwitz I, both on the camp premises and outside [during work]. His behavior and treatment of prisoners gave me the impression that he was a quick-tempered and impulsive man who would look for an excuse to hit random prisoners with his hand, a stick, or anything that was within reach. Unbuttoned clothing or failure to immediately take off one’s hat when walking past him was enough. He often searched prisoners or watched them being searched when labor details were returning to the camp from work.
I distinctly remember the gassing of 15,000 Jews transported to Auschwitz–Birkenau from Theresienstadt ghetto. This occurred one night in February or March 1944, when Artur Liebehenschel was the camp commandant. As I mentioned, I worked in the Political Department at that time. In the evening, together with two of my colleagues – Gembski, who is now deceased, and Feliks Myłyk, residing in Gliwice, I was ordered to go to work after the evening roll call. At work we were told that we would soon be assigned a task. After some time, a messenger from the camp in Birkenau brought a list of prisoner identification numbers with the annotation “Gu” – meaning Gesonderte Untergebracht [placed separately] – and the calendar date which I no longer remember. That night the messenger came several times, bringing us lists with about 15,000 prisoner identification numbers in total. I knew from experience that the annotation meant that the prisoners had been gassed in Birkenau. Besides, a few days later the whole camp knew that the Jews from Theresienstadt ghetto had been gassed. Our administrative task was to find and take the prison files concerning prisoner identification numbers, then tie these files together and place them along with the list of the numbers brought by the messenger in the cellar which served as the archive.
When I worked compiling the list of the deceased prisoners, I had access to prison files of individual prisoners. One prisoner, Piotr Datko, residing in Tarnowskie Góry, was to be released from the camp on the orders of German authorities outside the camp, so the camp command was required to evaluate the prisoner. On the basis of the prison files, I established that Hoffmann, who was Schutzhaftlagerführer [camp leader] at the time, gave a positive assessment. This was not long after Liebehenschel took command of the camp at the end of 1943. On this document, Liebehenschel wrote a directive, ordering the prisoner to report to him in person. Later, Liebehenschel objected to the release of this prisoner because “he is a political prisoner, and in the current political situation around the world, the German nation has to act with more caution and guard itself against such elements”.
When I worked in the Political Department, I had no face-to-face contact with the head of this department, Grabner. I recall only one incident. At the beginning of the summer of 1942, Grabner came to our office, assembled all prisoners who worked there and ordered us to keep everything that was going on in the department secret under the penalty of death. I worked in the Political Department in 1942 and 1943. The office in which I worked was located in the building on the premises of camp I, near the crematorium. The crematorium was fenced off by tall trees, which made it impossible to see what was going on behind the fence. On my way to or from the office in 1942 and more frequently in 1943, I would see one, sometimes two or three trucks covered with a tarpaulin, going there once, often twice a week, escorted by soldiers from the SD [Sicherheitsdienst – Security Service]. They reported to Grabner, who then went to the crematorium with Quakernack, head of the register office at the time. At the same time, the trucks drove up to the crematorium, behind the fence. I do not know what happened there. I learned from Leon Krupka, a prisoner who worked in the register office but has since passed away, that the SD soldiers told him in secret that they were escorting mentally ill prisoners to the gas chambers.
Suspect Hans Hoffmann in the photograph I was presented with is not identical with Unterscharführer Hoffmann of the Political Department from the period of time when I worked there. Scharführer Bogusch was assigned to the Political Department shortly before I left, so I cannot say anything about his conduct apart from the fact that he treated prisoners very harshly and crudely.
The report was read out. At this the hearing and the following report were concluded.