On 17 September 1947 in Ruda Śląska, Municipal Judge in Ruda Śląska, Z. Skąpski (MA), with the participation of a reporter, clerk R. Geilke, interviewed the person named below as a witness. Having been advised of the criminal liability for making false declarations and of the provisions of Article 107 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, the witness testified as follows:
In the years 1942–1944 I was detained in the concentration camp in Auschwitz, and I can provide information about the following members of the camp staff:
1) Hans Aumeier – Hauptsturmführer. Lagerführer [camp leader], he was very brutal towards
prisoners. He beat and kicked them. He also hit me in the face. When drunk, he fired a gun, untroubled by the possibility of shooting someone. He even aimed at prisoners. I saw him shoot a prisoner in the left arm.
2) Max Grabner – Untersturmführer, head of the Political Department. Prisoners were very
scared of him. He was responsible for issuing death sentences which he then submitted to the camp commandant for signature. Prisoners from block 11 told me that Grabner personally carried out death sentences. He was present at the public execution of fourteen engineers who were killed with the aim of deterring other prisoners from attempting escape (the execution was carried out in connection with the escape of some prisoners).
3) Heinrich Josten – Obersturmführer. In charge of the so-called Luftschutz [air raid
defense], he sometimes substituted for Aumeier whom I have mentioned above. Since he was very strict in performing his duties, he used various ways of harassing prisoners.
4) Johann Kremer – Obersturmführer. I was told that he had taken part in gassing prisoners.
Besides, I saw him carrying out selections of healthy and ill prisoners. The condition of those whom he indicated was such that they were loaded into cars and taken to the crematoria.
5) Arthur Liebehenschel – he succeeded Höß as the camp commandant. Upon his arrival, the treatment prisoners were given changed for the better. I heard that he had abolished the so-called death wall.
I wish to point out that prisoners usually didn’t know the names of the SS men who made up the camp staff, but they would have no difficulty in recognizing them in photographs or during the confrontation.