On 16 September 1947 in Chełm, the Municipal Court in Chełm, with Judge Stefan Azarewicz presiding and with the participation of reporter Maria Tuszewska, interviewed the person specified below as a witness. Having advised the witness of the criminal liability for making false declarations and of the significance of the oath, the Judge administered the oath. The witness then testified as follows:
| Name and surname | Antoni Materkowski |
| Date of birth | 14 June 1899 |
| Parents’ names | Aleksander and Marianna |
| Place of residence | Chełm, Ogrodowa Street 24 |
| Occupation | deputy governor of the Chełm district |
| Criminal record | none, but from 1 November 1939 to 20 July 1945 he was detained in the Lublin prison and Nazi concentration camps in Auschwitz, Mauthausen, Gusen and Dachau |
| Relationship to the parties | none |
I met SS-Hauptsturmführer Hans Aumeier in May 1942, when he was hearing the reports from Rapportführer [report leader] Palitzsch in the roll call square, having succeeded Fritzsch in carrying out this function. I knew him by name. We called him “ Łokietek” [elbow high], because he was very short and had a noisy, squeaky voice. He held the post of Schutzhaftlagerführer [camp leader] at Auschwitz. He was camp commandant Rudolf Höß’s right-hand man, and had power over life and death of the prisoners at the Auschwitz camp. A dozen or so of my colleagues from the Lublin region were shot on his orders in block 11, in May or June 1942. Before leaving for work in the morning, they were halted in the camp. When we came back, they were already dead. Their corpses were burnt in the crematorium. One of them was named Krukowski, he was from Lublin. I can’t remember the names of the others. In May or June 1942 I saw colleague Malawski – an electrical engineer from Chełm, who had been shot and was lying in the gutter in agony while music was playing. Malawski was placed in the gutter on purpose, so that we would see him while we were going to work. Aumeier stood nearby, enjoying this view and observing us.
On several occasions I saw Aumeier beat prisoners in the face. In his presence, the SS men kicked and beat prisoners. They did so with his knowledge. A transport of French Jews, which included women and children, arrived in May or June 1942. The majority of it was not let inside the camp, but sent to the gas chamber next to Führerheim [hostel for SS officers]. I saw male, female and children’s clothing, feeding bottles, suitcases and so on – piles of these objects were placed next to the stables in jüdische Friedhof zwei [second Jewish cemetery]. Some of the food brought in by these Jews was distributed among us. I saw young and old women, mostly Jewish women from Slovakia, who transported soil in wheelbarrows next to the SS-Küche [kitchen for the SS] during rain and terrible weather. SS women and German female kapos pushed them to work faster by hitting them with sticks. Their hair had been cut; they wore Soviet trousers and prisoner uniforms. They had clogs on their bare feet. Every day several dozen female prisoners were carried back from work. They were dead or dying, exhausted by the hard labor, hunger, and beatings. Aumeier would stand with his retinue consisting of officers and non-commissioned officers by the main gate to the camp with the sign “Arbeit macht frei” [work sets you free], and observe this large procession with pleasure.
We were always hungry. Dogs were set on us and we were beaten during work. We were exhausted by the hard labor lasting usually about 11 hours a day. Lice were always there. The poor souls from 11th, the so-called penal company, were beaten in the most brutal way. The company also had the highest mortality rate. They worked even on Sundays. If someone escaped, we were made to stand for hours during roll call, with no food, on Aumeier’s orders. The crematorium was functioning day and night.
On 7 July 1942, Aumeier sent me in a transport of 750 prisoners to the quarries in Mauthausen-Gusen (Austria), where after four weeks I weighed about 40 kilograms, while most of my colleagues were dead.
I met SS-Untersturmführer Max Grabner on 14 October 1940 in Auschwitz. I saw him and learned his name when a report was being given in the roll call square at Auschwitz. He held the position of head of the Political Department. Many people in the camp said that he was a Gestapo officer. He terrorized the camp. Grabner’s frequent visitations in the camp indicated some new trouble for us (executions, gassings, transport etc.). He was the most eager functionary at the camp. I learned from fellow prisoners that Grabner was the one who passed all sentences involving shooting, gassing, flogging, “post”, standing bunkers, penal company and so on.
I would like to mention these specific criminal acts:
1) Deputy commissioner of the prison guards Stanisław Karczmarek was brutally beaten in the roll call square. As a result of the beating, he died on 19 November 1940, having lived in the camp for a month and five days.
2) Senior constable Adamczyk was beaten and lived for about two and a half months.
3) Stanisław Tabor, a bookkeeper from Kraków, was assigned to the penal company for stealing food and died there.
4) On 30 October 1940 we were punished for one prisoner’s escape by standing in the roll call square for several hours in the rain and cold. As a result of this standing punishment, about 160 prisoners died from exhaustion or were carried to Krankenbau [hospital]. I stood with no hat, socks and coat.
5) For two weeks we were subjected to exercises in the roll call square for 11 hours a day. I was brutally beaten there. People collapsed from exhaustion.
6) Until 6 December 1940, we worked in the Industriehof [industrial zone] II or I, demolishing buildings, unloading various materials from the wagons, and so on. This work lasted about 11 hours a day. We were beaten during work; hunger and hard labor caused people to die. Dogs were set on us. We had no coats. Each day we would carry several dozen dead and dying colleagues back from work. On our way from work to dinner and in the evening we had to carry five bricks each. Those who didn’t were beaten by the SS officers. Grabner participated in the beating as well.
7) I worked using cart no. 8 – transporting gravel to the cement mixer, disposing of the waste, and transporting coal and coke to the crematorium. I was a workhorse and a worker. Poorly clothed and fed during frost, I fell ill with pneumonia. When I went to the hospital in block 28, I was wrapped in a sheet soaked in water and ice and told to stay in bed. This was the treatment. This was on 10 December 1940, and nine days later I was back at work by cart no. 8 in the field and frost.
8) My colleague Tokarczuk was gassed together with those who had lung diseases, even though he himself didn’t have any. Student Marian Skórka was gassed as well.
9) Floggings in the roll call square occurred very often and were attended by Grabner.
10) Colleagues were hanged on posts for the most trivial offences.
11) We were terribly bitten by lice. I counted 117 of them in my underwear once.
12) Boys under the age of seventeen from block 5 and later 13 were kept in the square throughout the entire winter. Many of them died from the cold. I remember that one of these boys – a student from Kraków, went insane.
13) In the evening, when we were tired, coming from work, “lice picking” commenced and then we had to sing in German.
14) We slept on dirty pallets crammed on the floor with hardly any room to move.
15) Several dozen people were shot a few times a week.
16) In January 1941, the handicapped were signing up for light work. My colleague from Chełm, Mikołaj Gordziejczyk, who had a limp his entire life (he was otherwise healthy), signed up. He walked out of the camp on his feet in July 1941, and in the same month, his wife in Chełm received a notification from Auschwitz stating that he was dead. He was sent to “light work” in the gas chamber.
17) In the winter of 1940/41, about 40 civilians were transported from around Kraków. They were marched into Kiesgrube [gravel-pit] opposite the crematorium and shot there. I saw blood and bullets fired from a machine gun on that spot. I can show you where it was.
18) A prisoner was missing during roll call once. The search began, the man was found in one of the barracks and shot there.
19) Following the escape of a prisoner, groups of prisoners numbering 20, then 15 or 10, were taken to block 11 and shot. This is how two of my colleagues died: Marian Domino, a former administrator of the Staw commune, district of Chełm, and Śliwowski from the Turka commune, district of Chełm.
20) In 1941 or 1942, a dozen or so prisoners from Silesia were taken away and shot. A young boy – Bielecki from Katowice, an only child of a widow, died among them. The exterminated prisoners were mostly those who took part in the uprising in Upper Silesia and the young prisoners who refused to become Volksdeutschers.
21) In January 1942, about 11,000 Russian prisoners of war were transported to Auschwitz. They slept naked, several men in each bed. They were starved and beaten. Three months later, a few dozen were still alive. I saw the sick being thrown off the carts and killed. This was done by German kapos supervised by the SS men. Grabner watched this happen.
22) German kapos with green triangles searched for priests in order to subject them to a special kind of abuse. This was in “Buna”, in the winter of 1941/1942. We were hiding a monk in our group – father Jacek, I think his surname was Turzaniecki.
23) We were demolishing houses at Legionów Street in Auschwitz. We were told to put all furniture, religious paintings and such on a pile in Industriehof II, where everything was burnt.
24) When we were coming back from work in “Buna”, from Monowitz or Dwory, walking the distance of six to eight kilometers to the camp in the winter of 1941/1942 we had to sing German songs all the way there.
25) In February 1942, I was punished by five nights in the standing bunker for attempting to smoke a cigarette stub. Seven people and a bucket were placed in a 80 x 90 cm2 bunker next to block 11. After 12 hours spent in the standing bunker, I would go to work for 12 hours.
26) In the second half of February 1942, 11 people were detained in this bunker. Due to the lack of air, they killed themselves with knives. Colleague Grabowski, a surveyor from the Kutno region, died in this manner.
27) Within the span of a couple of weeks, the following people died in the penal company in block 11: a mortgage clerk from Chełm – Ziemski, his teenage son – a secondary school student, and his son-in-law Krukowski. They received no medical assistance when they were sick. They worked in Kiesgrube until they died.
28) The following people died in the penal company in Rajsko: junior school inspector from Łuck – Władek Ostrowski, lieutenant of the Legions’ 7th Infantry Regiment, Dziedzic from Chełm, and surveyor Stefanek from Zamość. They were punished for providing medicine for the sick colleagues in the camp. The head of a kapo Kawecki from Silesia was supposedly placed on top of the gate.
29) When prisoners were working, SS man “Perełka” [little pearl] set his Alsatian on them, and it tore their flesh.
30) I saw clothes, dresses, underwear, shoes, suitcases, and feeding bottles that belonged to the French Jews who never got inside the camp but went from the wagons straight to the gas chamber. During that time, I also saw SS men with gas masks next to the gas chamber.
31) On 23 April 1942 during work at a concrete plant in Buna, I fell ill with severe pneumonia and contracted tuberculosis.
32) When I had tuberculosis, Grabner sent me to the quarries in Mauthausen-Gusen camp on 7 July 1942. Within four months there, I lost health and strength, and weighed about 40 kilograms. From the transport numbering 750 people, very few survived. Among those are colleague Putek, the current minister of posts and telegraphs, and Wincenty Brzozowski, a teacher in Tomaszów Lubelski.
33) Grabner did not let Leon Nafalski’s cousin (prisoner number 14444) join the transport to Mauthausen on 7 July 1942, even though he had been selected to join it. In September or October 1942, he was shot in the group of 250 prisoners in block 11.
I was detained in the Auschwitz concentration camp as political prisoner number 6015, from 14 October 1940 to 7 July 1942, working for an extended period of time in the following kommandos: Industriehof II (later Bauleitung [construction work administration]) Industriehof I, cart no. 8, Kartoffelschäler SS-Küche [peeling potatoes at the kitchen for the SS] and Buna. I know Kommandoführers [squad leaders] and guards by sight, and I know their crimes, but presently I do not recall their names. If I saw them shaved and wearing SS uniforms, I suspect that I would recognize some of them, especially those from the attached list who have the following numbers: 2, 4, 5, 8, 16, 17, 21, 23, 26, 30, 32, 40, 46, 51, 52, 55, 57, 61, 64, 65, 67, 72, 73, 83, 84, 85, 88, 89. Michał Denkiewicz, who had been detained in the Auschwitz concentration camp from the second half of July 1942, resides at Lubelska (Pilichonki) Street in Chełm.