On 29 September 1947 in Kraków, a member of the Kraków District Commission for the Investigation of German Crimes in Poland, Magistrate Dr Henryk Gawacki, on the written application of the First Prosecutor of the Supreme National Tribunal 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 conjunction with article 254, 107, 115 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, heard as a witness the below mentioned former prisoner of the Auschwitz concentration camp, who testified as follows:
| Name and surname | Józef Gorzkowski |
| Age | 62 |
| Citizenship and nationality | Polish |
| Religious affiliation | Roman Catholic |
| Occupation | chemist |
| Place of residence | Kraków, [...] |
| The witness testifies without hindrance. |
One day in September 1942 – I no longer remember the exact date – I was imprisoned in the Auschwitz camp as a Polish political prisoner with no. 57330 and there I stayed until September or October 1944, when I was transferred to the camp in Oranienburg, then to Sachsenhausen, and finally to Ravensbrück.
In the Auschwitz camp I initially worked in various kommandos, then, after some six months, I got sick from exhaustion, so I was in the hospital, block 28. I also stayed there after my recuperation and I was employed as a nurse’s assistant, and then I was assigned to sort out the things from “Canada” on block 28, where we worked in the attic. After some time, we were moved from the attic of block 28 to the attic of the building located behind the entrance gate to the camp, where the SS men’s hospital was. After some time – how long it lasted, I don’t remember – I was transferred to the pharmacy and worked there until the end of my stay in the Auschwitz camp.
When I was working sorting the stuff in the attic of block 28, and this was in the second year of my stay in the Auschwitz camp, in the summer time, around noon, a so-called Blocksperre [curfew] was ordered and, peeping through the attic window, I saw the heads of prisoners standing in front of the so-called death wall. The wall separating the courtyard of block 11 blocked the rest of the view. After the shots I heard, these heads disappeared. From this I concluded that the prisoners whose heads I had seen had fallen to the ground. Before the order was issued for the Blocksperre, I saw and recall well that Aumeier, in the company of Palitzsch, entered block 11. Aumeier is easily recognized in the photograph I have been shown. One of the Ukrainians – the Banderites – whom I came across in the camp, told me beforehand that some Poles from Warsaw were staying in block 11. On the day of this “shoot-out” I just described, during my morning walk near block 9, I heard some voices singing from block 11. I heard “U drzwi Twoich stoję Panie” [“Lord, I am standing at your door” – a Polish religious song]. This event stuck in my memory the most.
At this the report was concluded, read out and signed.