Extract from report no. 262
The hearing of a witness with regard to crimes committed by the Nazi occupants in Poland. Lublin, 22 March 1946. Judge of the District Court in Lublin, L. Policha, with the participation of a reporter, retired Judge Of the Court of Appeal Stanisław Poznański, acting as a member of the Lublin District and Municipal Commission for the Investigation of German Crimes in Poland, pursuant to article 4 of the decree of 10 November 1945 (Journal of Laws of the Republic of Poland No. 51, item 293), pursuant to article 107 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, heard [the person named below] as a witness, who having been advised of the criminal liability for making false declarations and of the wording of Article 106 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, testified as follows:
| Name and surname | Halina Roszkowska |
| Parents’ names | Józef and Zofia |
| Date and place of birth | 24 February 1911, Lublin |
| Religious affiliation | Roman Catholic |
| Nationality | Polish |
| Occupation | train driver |
| Place of residence | Lublin, Karmelicka Street 2, flat 5 |
Together with my sister and sister-in-law, I was deported in a group of 24 other women in sealed goods wagons to Auschwitz, where the transport arrived on 12 December. After completing the quarantine combined with the usual abuse and harassment of prisoners, all our personal belongings were taken away, our hair was cut off, we were dressed in striped uniforms and placed in block 7 under the name “Birkenau”.
On 8 March, my husband’s sister died, and on 16 March – my sister. The death of my sister- in-law was due to the fact that during a roll call, from 8.00 a.m. until 7.00 p.m., we had to stand only dressed in stripes in the freezing cold, because it was February 1943, which resulted in contracting galloping consumption. Probably she died as a result of her injection that the Germans applied to the seriously ill. My sister-in-law died of the so-called Durchfall – an illness caused by starvation.
On 18 March I fell ill with typhoid fever. I went to hospital on 10 April and somehow I recovered, despite the fact that apart from Lysol, no drugs were administered there, as a result of which the death toll was so great that in 1944, 400–500 women died each day. Before the disease I was employed in field work, and after the disease in the so-called “white effect” – a barrack in which the items that had been taken away from the prisoners or the dead were sorted. Although the work in this barrack was not too heavy, it was poisoned by the attitude of the overseers and kapos towards the prisoners, namely: [Maria] Mandl, [Margot] Drechsel, Antoni Taube, [Elizabeth] Hasse and kapo Zaul Muskelerka and Betti. All these women mistreated the prisoners in various highly elaborate ways – beating, setting the dogs on them, kicking. For example, SS woman Hasse, seeing me not at work, because I had fallen ill, and I was standing near the block and I couldn’t work, kicked me in the stomach and when I fell over, she beat me all over my body and they took me back to the block unconscious.
On 18 January 1945 we were herded from the camp and we walked for three days, then we were loaded onto coal wagons and brought to Ravensbrück. I stayed there for only two weeks, but in terrible conditions, in tents, without food, and in the beginning [illegible] in the snow. On the way, many women were killed by the SS escorts.
I was transported from Ravensbrück (about a thousand women in total) to Mecklenburg, to the city of Neustadt-Glewe. I was there until the liberation on 2 May by US troops. I note that after my arrest along with my family, our apartment was completely looted by the Germans.