On 9 May 1945 in Oświęcim, Regional Investigating Judge Jan Sehn, member of the Commission for the Investigation of German Nazi Crimes in Oświęcim, on the motion, in the presence, and with the participation of Dr. Wincenty Jarosiński, deputy prosecutor of the Regional Court, in accordance with art. 254 and 107 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, interviewed as a witness Rudolf Ehrlich, a former prisoner of the Auschwitz concentration camp, prisoner number 13 511, who testified as follows:
| Name and surname | Rudolf Ehrlich |
| Date and place of birth | 15 June 1902 in Stale u Túbora, Czechoslovakia |
| Names of parents | Adolf and Josefa née Hermanower |
| Religious affiliation | Jewish |
| Occupation | doctor of law, attorney |
| Nationality and citizenship | Czechoslovak |
| Place of residence before the arrest | Chocerady nad Sázavou |
| Current place of residence | Auschwitz camp |
Between 1 June 1943 and 18 October 1944, I was interned in a Jewish camp in Theresienstadt. On 18 October 1944, I was transferred to the Auschwitz-Birkenau camp in a transport of 1,500 people. At the camp, immediately after our arrival, we were sent to the bathhouse, and then, after we had put on underwear and camp uniforms and had prison numbers tattooed, we were sent to block 22. I only spent two days at Birkenau. After that, I was transported along with another 138 people in vans to Fürstengrube near Mysłowice. Fürstengrube is two train stations away from Mysłowice (Kosztowy station). The Fürstengrube camp was set up in a similar manner to Auschwitz: it had a number of blocks built of brick and a dozen or so wooden ones, and it was surrounded with a high- voltage fence.
The management of the camp and the supervision of labor were organized in the same fashion as at the Auschwitz camp. Immediately after our arrival, we were sent to blocks. I ended up in block 7, where the block senior was a Jew, the late Engel.
After the arrival of our transport, the population of the camp was 1,130 prisoners. We worked in the coal mine. Only a small number of prisoners worked outside. They were mostly bricklayers and workers tasked with building the chimney. The purpose of erecting the chimney was unknown to us until the very last moment, but we had suspected it would be part of a crematorium. We worked three shifts in the mine: morning, afternoon, and night. Each shift was around 350 people. The work was very hard. We had to constantly load coal onto little minecarts. Then, these carts had to be pulled and pushed to the elevator, which would take the coal up. Loading the coal was also the prisoners’ responsibility. The work was supervised by the Oberhauer [chief head worker] and the Hauers under his command. They were not prisoners but people from outside the camp, Germans wearing civilian clothes. Aside from these, others hired for this job were the Oberkapo [head Kapo], Kapo, and Vorarbeiter [foreman]. Each Hauer supervised one coal chamber. Since the prisoners worked very hard and were fed very poorly, they would faint and colapse. Then, the Kapo and the Hauers beat them mercilessly and indiscriminately. This kind of torture perpetrated against prisoners also happened for no reason at all.
Once, accidentally, I was trapped between two carts pulled by prisoners, [illegible] one [illegible], and the other filled with coal. As a result of being crushed by the passing carts, I injured my ribs and right arm. Since I could no longer work or pick myself up, the Vorarbeiter came and ordered me to go back to work; when I did not get up, because I was not able to, he put a lantern so close to my face that he burned my eyebrows. Then, a Hauer came, saw me lying on the ground, and started to kick me and beat me to force me back to work. Both the Hauer and the Oberhauer, who arrived next, thought I was faking, which is why the Oberhauer started to beat me with a rod. In general, all those who passed out during work were accused of faking. Only in the evening, after work, were my two comrades allowed to help me go back up. This took place in December 1944. I only stayed in the hospital where they took me for 31 days, although I could not move my arm at all.
After I was discharged, I was assigned to “lighter” work, to the so-called Holzkommando, which worked on the grounds. It consisted of 15 people and was tasked with unloading logs from carts and taking them to another location at the camp. I was at that time completely unsuited to this job, because I could not move my right arm, and that is why I asked to be transferred back to the mine. My request for the transfer was also motivated by the fact that the winter was harsh and it was much colder on the grounds than in the mine. In the mine, I was assigned to rolling carts, so I could handle this task despite my injured arm.
I continued to work like that until 18 January 1945. On that day, I was supposed to work the afternoon shift. Every day before the afternoon shift, at 11 o’clock, we would first go pick up the lanterns, then at 11:30 we would put on working apparel, eat lunch at 12, and form the rows at 12:45 to march to the mine. That day, after lunch, before we formed rows, the Lagerführer came to us and ordered us to take the lanterns back and put the camp uniforms on over the working apparel because we were going to depart on a transport. Complete chaos broke out at the camp then. Block seniors told us we could take whatever we wanted from the food and clothing storerooms. Around 6 p.m., the Lagerführer announced that he did not know when the transport would depart and where to, and whether it would be today or in a few days, and then the next minute we were ordered to form rows for our departure.
Let me add that after we were transferred to Fürsgtengrube there was one more transport of prisoners, in which there were 162 people, so the camp’s head count as of 18 January 1945 was around 1,300 prisoners. On the Lagerführer’s orders, we formed groups of 35. These groups were led by Kapos, Blockführers, and Vorarbeiters, and supervised by SS men. I stood in the first column, and when the Lagerführer came, I told him that I was sick, had wounds on my legs, no shoes, and was unable to walk. The Lagerführer told me to go the hospital block. That day, at 8 p.m., the groups departed for an unknown destination, and only the sick remained in the camp, that is, about 250 people. All the guards and SS men had left, and we had been left with no supervision whatsoever, only surrounded by a high-voltage fence, so we could not leave the camp.
We had remained in the conditions described and with no supervision until 27 January 1945. Then, in the afternoon, 30 SS men arrived at the camp. They ordered everybody who could walk to gather in one wooden barrack. There were 137 such prisoners. The others were supposed to stay in beds, in the same wooden barracks where the hospitals were located.
I was among the prisoners who could walk, so I had to go with them to the appointed barrack. Then, the SS man in command ordered that the Aryans step forward. When more than 40 people stepped forward, he said it was too many and he told them to join us back in the barrack. We were all told to approach the two windows which were open. Anticipating that we would be shot at, we hunkered down at the other end of the barrack, where the windows were closed. Then, the SS men started to shoot at us from the outside and threw grenades through the open windows. After this first onslaught, they checked if any of the prisoners in the barrack were still alive, and if someone was still moving, they shot at him. Then, they brought a dozen or so mattresses, put them in the corners of the block, and set them on fire, with the entire barrack catching fire as a result. During the shooting, a grenade explosion had hurt my right leg – because of which I still cannot walk – and I pretended I was dead. At one point, the barrack’s wooden roof collapsed and one of the beams fell down and pinned me. I lay like that for quite a while. When I felt that the fire was getting near, I tried to get up. Then, one of the SS men, who happened to be peeping inside through a window, shot at me, hitting my right arm. I pretended I was dead, but when I felt I could no longer remain in this position and saw that the SS men had moved around the corner of the barrack, I crawled out and hid behind a pillar which was part of the barrack’s frame. Then I heard one of my comrades calling for help, and as soon as I moved, a shot was fired, hitting my right arm again.
From my current position, I could see that the SS men were going toward the barracks where the bed-ridden prisoners were staying. After a while, I spotted ten patients who came out of these barracks and headed for the kitchen. They later told me that they had left the barracks on the SS men’s orders. They were Aryans. Then, I saw the SS man bring mattresses again, place them by the wooden hospital barracks where the sick were staying, and set these barracks on fire. Not one patient got out, all of them were burned.
As regards my group, only 14 prisoners survived, and all of them were injured. Having set fire to all hospital barracks, the SS men remained in the camp for another two hours, until the barracks had burned down, and then left the camp.
Only then did I and the remaining survivors gather in the room which used to serve as a shoemaker’s workshop. We remained in that room for three days, and one of the less severely injured, a shoemaker by trade, brought us four potatoes each on the first day.
On the third day, our comrades from the kitchen brought us some soup. On the same day, a Pole from the mine came to the camp and told us that the Germans had left and that he had notified the authorities and the people that we were at the camp. As a result, on 3 February 1945 the Polish militia transported us in a van to a hospital in Mysłowice. I remained in that hospital until 7 April 1945, and on 9 April I arrived at the Auschwitz camp, where I have remained since.
At this the report was concluded and after being read out was signed as a faithful record of witness Rudolf Ehrlich’s testimony.