Brussels, 26 October 1945
Signed: police commissioner
City of Brussels
2nd Police Division
9th annex
Report no. 1827/5
11 October 1945
Central Office for War Crimes
File no. 3784
PRO JUSTITIA
On 24 October 1945 at 11.00 p.m., before me, Henryk Verstreken, a commissioner assigned to the police, delegated for this purpose by the commissioner of the 2nd Police Division to perform the present duties, there appeared Walentyna Zaslawsky, born on 20 September 1924 in Brussels, single, residing at rue des Tanneurs 37, who declares:
I give you the testimony in answer to your inquiries from yesterday. I fully confirm its content. I have no other information concerning the identity of Journée, Van Colle, Mengele and Wunsch, about whom I speak in my testimony.
I have signed the report after reading.
Brussels, October 1945.
During the night from 22 to 23 January 1944, I was arrested along with my parents. I became familiar with the methods used by the Nazis in the Dossin barracks in Malines [Mechelen], where from the moment of my arrival I was subjected to brutal treatment by one Journée, who supposedly lived in Molenbeek. I tried to hide a small ring of little value, a memento of my brother who had died the day before my arrest. I didn’t know that we were going to be searched so thoroughly that we would have to appear completely naked in front of these monsters whom I hated with all my heart. I hid the item well, but it was discovered anyway. Journée gave me a murderous look, and then jumped at me and started hitting me. My mother instinctively stood in front of me and she got hit for that twice in the face. I realized that the Boche (nickname for the Germans) were disgusting brutes, and that we were doomed.
Shortly afterwards, constable Van Colle from Antwerp forced me to stand for two hours, facing the wall, forbidding me to turn, because I did not assume the position at attention before him quickly enough, at least in his opinion. This was nothing compared to what awaited us in Auschwitz.
When I arrived at this hell, I was separated from my parents and I still don’t know what happened to them. We, the young, were privileged because we were not exterminated on the spot. On the first day, they tattooed a number on my left forearm and shaved our heads in order to completely demoralize us. We were then forced to put on striped clothing, concentration camp uniforms. We were placed in barracks, eight women in each bed which was two meters long. After ten days of quarantine, we began to work. We were outside all day from 6.00 a.m. to 6.00 p.m., but we had to get up at 4.15 a.m.
We worked carrying bricks, laying down the rails, building roads, pushing carts filled with sand. The overseers who supervised us would set their dogs on us – purely out of sadism. After three months I was assigned to a different kommando in which we sorted the clothes of those who had been burnt. We would work there for eight consecutive nights and then for eight days.
Roll call was twice a day and it lasted at least two hours during which we had to stand still, despite the rain, snow or wind. Daily food rations consisted of 125 grams of bread and a liter of soup which was made from swedes and served at noon.
Selections, that is choosing people for the gas chambers, occurred from time to time. A couple of injuries or a major weight loss could have gotten you killed. This work was carried out by Dr. Mengele. His one gesture determined a person’s life or death. There was one special block in Auschwitz, housing about 750 women and a second block with the same amount of men – they were all meant exclusively for experiments such as sterilization and so on.
In order to make fun of us and to satisfy their sadistic tendencies, these criminals organized satirical concerts, during which we had to be present.
We were supervised solely by the Germans or the Austrians. I don’t remember meeting any Belgian subjects. We obviously had no way of knowing all the names of the men and women who beat us. Prisoners were essentially only slaves reduced by these brutes to the state in which they were worth nothing. I recall that around 14 August 1944 I was brutally beaten by Unterscharführer Wunsch from Vienna, because I had thrown some bread crust through the fence to a man who looked like a skeleton.
Sanitary conditions were extremely poor. We had to fight to get some water to wash ourselves.
The conditions in the hospital were the same, no one took precautions against infectious diseases, which caused many epidemics. I was severely ill myself – suffering from pneumonia and otitis at the same time. There was no way I would go to the hospital where selections were carried out each week, sometimes even twice a week. Thanks to my friends’ help I continued to work despite the fever.
Evacuations carried out at night, during severe winter and with no food were the worst. We had to walk for kilometers before we got to another camp. In the winter we could eat snow, but in the spring we didn’t even have that.
These were a couple of observations regarding the camps of destruction created by the Nazis.
I only want one thing for myself, that is to avenge my parents who had been murdered by these monsters and to see these butchers brought to justice for the crimes they committed.
Above all, don’t be too lenient! These atrocities must be punished!!!