LUDWIK RAJEWSKI

The second day of the trial, 12 March 1947.

(After a break.)

With the same persons present as on the first day of the trial.

Presiding judge: I am resuming the trial by the Supreme National Tribunal.

Please call the witnesses.

(Witnesses entering the courtroom: Dr. Oskar Tadeusz Stuhr, Tadeusz Kahl and Ludwik Rajewski.)

Presiding judge: I remind the witnesses that they are testifying in the case of defendant Höß and that they are obliged to tell the whole truth under pain of legal consequences for making false declarations. For now, only witness Rajewski will remain in the courtroom. Witnesses Stuhr and Kahl may leave.

(Witnesses Stuhr and Kahl leave the courtroom.)

The witness provided his personal data: Ludwik Rajewski, 45 years old, head of the Department of Museums and Monuments of Polish Martyrdom at the Ministry of Culture and Art, divorced, Roman Catholic, no relationship to the parties.

Presiding judge: Do the parties have any motions as to the swearing in of the witness by the Tribunal?

Prosecutor Siewierski: The prosecution asks for the witness to be exempted from taking the oath.

Attorney Umbreit: So does the defense.

Presiding judge: The Tribunal has decided that the witness will testify without oath, as requested by the parties.

Prosecutor Siewierski: Your Honor, since we know that witness Rajewski is ill, please make an exception and allow him to sit while testifying.

Presiding judge: The Tribunal allows the witness to sit while testifying on account of his health conditions.

Will the witness please tell us when he was brought to Auschwitz and in what circumstances?

Witness: Will the Supreme Tribunal please allow me to use my notes? I will need them because I have to present a lot of information during my testimony.

Presiding judge: Yes, go ahead.

Witness: I was arrested on 10 May 1940 for celebrating the 3 of May as a former principal of the Ludwik Lorentz Middle and High School in Warsaw. At 2.30 a.m., we were instructed to report at Daniłowiczowska Street, from where we were sent to Pawiak prison. There were 12 of us – principals and heads of Warsaw schools. Of the 12 of us, two were released, one died in Pawiak prison, two – that is my friend Zawadzki and I – survived Auschwitz, while the rest died there. One of us, Chyczewski, died as a guinea pig. He was gassed in Dresden, where he was transferred with the so-called Dresden transport, which included all patients with tuberculosis from Auschwitz.

I was imprisoned in Pawiak from 10 May 1940 to 22 October 1940, when I was sent to Auschwitz. I arrived at Auschwitz on the evening of 22 October 1940 and I stayed there until October 1944, working in various work units. The last work unit I was in was quite tough, but at that time it was one of the most important ones to me – I worked in the so-called Buna, a synthetic fuel factory. Our task was to level the ground. It was hard work. From Buna, I was transferred, completely by chance, to another work unit. It was also by chance that I survived the camp, just as in the case of my colleagues in Auschwitz or other concentration camps. I was assigned to the Admissions Office, the so-called Aufnahmestube Politische Abteilung, that is, the Political Department. At that time, we heard that the camp authorities were looking for people who spoke Russian. Since I speak this language, I was employed – thanks to my colleagues who worked in the camp prisoners’ office, in the so-called Schreibstube – in the Aufnahmestube Admissions Office, specially organized for the purpose of admitting Soviet prisoners of war. Initially, I worked in the admissions office that was only for Russian prisoners. Later on, after about five months, I worked in the admissions office that operated in the camp until the end, that is, until 25 October 1944. That day, I was sent with a mass transport of Poles and Russians from Auschwitz to Oranienburg-Sachsenhausen. I spent the last months in a branch of the Ravensbrück camp. From 22 October 1940 to 25 October 1944, I was in Auschwitz. From October 1941, I worked in the admissions office, meaning under a roof – the biggest dream of every prisoner in Auschwitz. At that time, I worked in an underground organization. Of course, initially we did not do this in Auschwitz in an organized manner. It was just casual work, which consisted simply in sacrificial patriotic efforts by people of good will, individuals or, later on, groups. One of the most important of these was a military group, where I worked with Barlicki and Dubois. Finally, there were the actual underground activities organized by Cyrankiewicz and Kuryłowicz. This allowed us to look at what was happening in the camp from a certain distance, as if from a bird’s-eye view.

I was not particularly abused and I was not afraid that I would be hit with a club or kicked at any moment. These two factors, as I have already mentioned, allowed me to understand the entirety of the problem which was represented and symbolized by the Auschwitz camp.

We knew from the very beginning that Auschwitz had actually been built to exterminate all of us. Initially, we still deluded ourselves that it was not like that, but the events that followed convinced us fully that far more serious issues were at stake. It was no longer about us, prisoners behind the wires who all had to die, but it was also about the entire Polish nation. I will return to this problem later on.

The horrible abuse which we witnessed and experienced on our own skin from the very beginning, as well as the murderous attitude of our SS “supervisors,” made us realize that there had to be an idea, a concept, which made those people act in this way. Although a number of documents passed through our hands – including mine – I never saw an order of such a type. It was not until a few days ago that a friend of mine accidentally brought me such an order. If I may, I will present it to the Supreme Tribunal. It concerns the treatment of camp prisoners in general. This order comes from the Dachau files, but it certainly applies also to Auschwitz because the comments included here clearly indicate so. It is a statement [Erklärung] by Fritz Burhardt [?] of 22 January 1940, regarding the behavior towards concentration camp prisoners.

(The witness reads the order in German, interpreting it into Polish:)

First of all, all prisoners kept in concentration camps are the worst enemies of the state.

Secondly, since we are dealing here with enemies of the state and criminals who have been eliminated from the society, it is forbidden to make any kind of contact with prisoners. Prisoners cannot be taken to work if not properly guarded. It is forbidden to show any interest in prisoners, for example, to give them food, drink, or cigarettes.

Last but not least: SS men are thoroughly familiar with the orders of the SS and must act accordingly. If they show any human emotions towards prisoners, they will be taken before an SS court.

Your Honor, this document confirms only our fears. In practice it was even worse. It was only in 1943 or 1944 that our situation in the camp changed, as a result of a shift in the general atmosphere in Auschwitz. Due to the arrival of transports of Jews, the so-called RSHA [Reichssicherheitshauptamt] transports – I will explain this later on – prisoners found themselves in a slightly better situation because the SS, people indoctrinated by the system, seeing the vast amounts of valuables taken away from Jews, started to change. They started stealing and encouraging prisoners to do the same. Of course, compared to the huge amount of precious items, it was only a small percentage. Nevertheless, the SS started to show their other side and engage in private conversations, so we became more and more convinced that not only Ekrlärungs, but probably also other things must have influenced the people – who ruled us and were leading us clearly and directly to our deaths – to adopt such an attitude. Colleagues of mine found out directly from the SS that there were special schools where people were trained to kill, physically and morally. There was a school of this type in the Dachau concentration camp. The SS whom we saw in Auschwitz had probably been educated in a school like that, a school of physical killing. They knew how to beat and they did it to all prisoners: they punched them in the face, stomach, kicked them, and trampled their swollen, phlegmon-affected legs. There were hundreds of sick prisoners standing on the street near the hospital blocks. From 1940, that is, in the worst period, we witnessed such scenes every day. I think it will be enough if I briefly describe examples of Auschwitz crimes because this problem has been thoroughly and comprehensively presented in a variety of significant works. All these problems have been adequately and comprehensively exposed in our literature, not to mention foreign works, but nevertheless, as I said, it was about breaking our bodies and minds. That is why I am making an accusation which persists in the minds of all of us, people who underwent this enormous inner transformation in the camp.

Until 1939, that is, until the outbreak of the war, we felt we were real humans – we could think, we could act and do, and we emphasized primarily the spiritual side and moral aspects of things, as something fundamental – but the concentration camp changed us completely. It made us lose faith in humanity. It seemed incomprehensible to us that a man could behave as the Germans did, as the SS men in Auschwitz did – all those people who acted as instructed by the system, aiming at exterminating and destroying us all.

The psychosis that we experienced, this internal decomposition – so to speak – from which we have been unable to recover until today, constitutes a serious accusation against a representative of that system, the commandant of Auschwitz, Rudolf Höß. It is a serious accusation not only against him, but also against the whole German nation. After all, it was the German nation – a nation with a very long tradition of bloodlust and a desire to kill, as we know from Tacitus – who, due to megalomania, reached the pinnacle of their crimes through camps, through the system that was fully and “perfectly” expressed in Auschwitz.

As for the physical breaking down of prisoners, regardless of the efforts by the SS, everything that I am going to say right now concerns not only all the inmates imprisoned behind Auschwitz’s wires – it also concerns myself. Until October 1944, I also could not avoid being beaten and kicked, so I can say that I have to bear the consequences of those factual events even today, in the form of my diseases.

I would say that another example of such physical breaking down was the punishment of flogging, but the most terrible thing we witnessed was the breaking of our morals. After all, people wanted to live. That internal decomposition, those changes for the worse, the exposing of the worst human traits was manifested among prisoners in the fact that everyone wanted to survive at the expense of others. If a colleague who had arrived in July or August received money from home, he could buy some cigarettes. If he arrived in September and he was not able to communicate with his family, he would exchange his bread for cigarettes. This is an example of that decomposition, that psychosis, which began to spread in the prison community, as a result of the approach adopted by the enemy, who, above all, wanted to exterminate us.

Before I turn to the characteristics of the system itself, I would like to present to the Supreme Tribunal what I myself saw and what I worked on in the admissions office. This will prove that the camp authorities committed mass crimes and did not take account of anyone or anything.

First of all, I would like to raise the issue of the Soviet prisoners of war because I mentioned it at the beginning of the hearing.

In October 1941, Soviet prisoners of war began arriving at Auschwitz. As soon as they arrived, they had to undress and they were herded naked in large groups to the camp. Then, we were instructed to register them like that. The entire registration process was very short. Their files were blue and stiff and they contained the prisoners’ personal data: surname, date and place of birth, occupation, description of their physical appearance, and date of imprisonment. There was also another column in the files: the cause of death. Additionally, we filled in green files in three copies, also containing personal data, but the fourth, perforated part of a green file was a postcard. Every Soviet prisoner had to sign such a postcard. It said, “I’m well, I’m in prison. Greetings.”

After they arrived at Auschwitz, they had to wait naked for three days until their belongings were disinfected. The weather was not pleasant – it was already cold and it rained. One night, we went to the block because we had to check and clarify the personal data of a certain prisoner, but he was not there. It turned out that, hiding from the cold, three prisoners had slept on one straw mattress. Within seven months, we registered about 11 thousand people. Six months later, only 150 were left of those 11 thousand.

As soon as they got dressed, the prisoners went to work. The work was typical for that period, as it was in 1940 – it was characterized by the Laufschritt, which meant they had to work running, and were beaten and exterminated, absolutely and ruthlessly. Every day, 200–300 dying people were carried out of Auschwitz on carts.

Some of the witnesses remember the cellars in block 3 which were filled with the bodies of unfortunate Soviet soldiers up to the first floor. The camp was indeed macabre and it made a terrible impression on us, although we were already hardened a bit.

Nevertheless, the system simply made all those prisoners continue their work. As soon as they undressed, they were deprived of documents and divided into three groups. Group A consisted of fanaticken Komunisten – fanatical communists. About 1500 of them were selected and shot by Unterscharführer Seidler or gassed (500) – it was the first gassing test in block 11. Group B consisted of harmless prisoners, while group C – of capable ones fit for work.

As I said, they were only about 100 or 110 of them left, or 150, as sometimes reported – this group was sent to Birkenau because at that time a second camp, a branch of the main camp, was being built there. It was soon to become the place where the largest genocide in Auschwitz took place. The prisoners were assigned to a special POW camp for KGL prisoners – Kriegsgefangenenlager.

As for the deceased, the procedure was the following: fake death reports were issued.

The political department in Auschwitz consisted of the following branches: first of all, the headquarters headed by Untersturmführer Grabner, who had his office in the Kommandantur. He had two prisoners at his disposal: one of them is already dead, but the other one is alive and will be able to present to the Supreme Tribunal how exactly the headquarters operated. Then, there was the Aufnahmekommando [admissions office] at the entrance to the camp. That was just one part of it – the other was located within the camp and that was where I worked. That part knew the least about certain matters, such as all prohibitions, but prisoners would eventually find out about them, even though they were “geheim” – top secret, known only to the SS. Besides this, there was the Standesamt – the registry office which issued death certificates in a completely fanciful manner, according to predetermined templates and patterns. Cause of death was included, but of course it did not correspond with reality. The pattern included several causes of death, such as heart disease, lung disease, etc. They put those diseases next to prisoners one to ten, and then they started again. The most unpleasant thing is that after prisoners died, the green files were sent to their families residing in the area that had been incorporated following the first of Hitler’s victories in the Soviet territory.

As regards Soviet prisoners of war, that is all.

The second group, which I managed directly, was a group of Gypsies, the Zigeunerlager. Since the individual admissions offices in Birkenau – where they had been set up by themselves – were not able to handle the job, as they simply did not know how to fill in the questionnaires, clerks from the main camp were from time to time called over to be consulted or to correct all the data. Based on what I saw in the documents – the Unterlagen – the case of Gypsies was as follows. The operation covered all Gypsies because the highest authorities of the Third Reich came to the conclusion that Gypsy tribes lived an immoral life, had something immoral in their blood, and so the tribes were to be subject to complete extermination. About 30,000 Gypsies were brought to Auschwitz. In a very short time, they were exterminated in the same way as the Soviet prisoners of war, mainly due to the lack of food, and then in gas chambers. Only a few groups, only the ones where some relationship could be found to the Germanic tribe, were transferred to the main camp in Auschwitz, and then to Ravensbrück. They all died.

For about two or three weeks, I also had direct contact with the women’s camp in connection with the setting up of an admissions office in that section of the camp. Women were supposed to work there. I can only repeat what I mentioned at the beginning. I cannot imagine anything more hideous, any treatment more inhumane towards women: they were naked, tortured, absolutely for no reason, beaten by SS men and women. This is how women were received in Auschwitz.

I suppose the Supreme Tribunal knows what the women’s camp in Auschwitz looked like. One just has to have a look at the blocks where the women were kept to immediately realize that the conditions in which they had to live were worse than the conditions in which animals are kept. Even dogs had it better in Auschwitz; they got better food, which we ourselves saw. Today, we also know that there were special lawns near their kennels. In short, it is hard to imagine anything more inhumane than the rooms where women were to live. And finally, one more thing that I would like to mention, and I believe it is necessary because testimonies and evidence are crucial. In Auschwitz, there was block 10, the vivisection block, where illicit procedures were carried out on women from the Netherlands and other countries.

I visited that block several times in the first period when women were being registered. I have never seen anything more inhumane.

We knew – because they were immediately taken for experiments – that something horrible was happening there, that an unspeakable harm was being done to them. The windows in the block were closed, so it was always dark inside, and they were covered with wooden shutters.

So much for the general character and, so to speak, the pathology of the problem. One might ask who is responsible for it, and I already have the answer: the creators of the RSHA system. I have described it in the book Oświęcim w systemie RSHA (Auschwitz in the RSHA system).

Why did I write this book? At some point – as I have already mentioned – we experienced a tremendous shock, when cards with numbers were introduced in the camp’s admissions office. In the questionnaire used by the admissions office, in addition to the usual schematic personal details, there was a field named “Grund” – cause of arrest. Usually, the reason for arrest was a secret because, as we know, people who were sent to Auschwitz were political prisoners, criminals, Bible Students, homosexuals, or finally criminals who were accused of avoiding work. So there were several groups. The cause of arrest was entered in the fields and it was the only way prisoners could find out why exactly they had been arrested.

As for mass transports, we did not use individual questionnaires, but only lists of entire transports. Later on, there were also cards with names, where we could enter the reason for arrest. As I said, we were shocked when we received those cards with the inscriptions. We realized then that there was practically no hope, that what was happening was not a manifestation of the criminal nature of a single person, but of the entire regime of the Third Reich. They had decided to radically exterminate first Jews and then Poles.

Once the RSHA transports started arriving in March 1942, and the office would have had too much work registering those groups individually, we were instructed to make a stamp and mark all sheets with numerical data, which I will now present to the Supreme Tribunal. The sheets were marked as follows:
– RSHA, IV B 4a 3233/41g/1085, and then: Juden aus Frankreich, Belgien, Holland. – IV B 4a 2093/43g/3913, Juden aus Deutschland.
– IV B 4a 2927/42g/1148, Juden aus Griechenland.
– IV B 4a 2013/42g/1310, Juden aus Kroatien, Juden aus Protectorate, Juden aus Thersgienstadt, Juden aus Rumänien, Juden aus Ungarn, Juden aus Italien. Then: IV B 4a 2093/42g/39, Juden aus GG Und Bialystok.
And finally – I could not believe my own eyes – there was the following note: Poles, IV B 4a 3666/42g/1505 Polen – Arien. I personally saw those words on the files regarding transports from Zamość because they passed through Auschwitz.

Your Honor, if we consider all the RSHA transports, it is difficult to imagine that small Aufnahme, that is, the admissions office in Auschwitz, accommodating them all. The registration simply took place in the fields – we would set up tables there and register prisoners. In Auschwitz, various offices registered prisoners; there were lots of such offices.

The German authorities wanted full transparency regarding the arrestees because, no matter which office, whether the prisoners’ office, or hospitals in the blocks, prisoners were registered where they got undressed or where they received striped uniforms. This list clearly concerns the so-called Amt IV Gegner – Euforschung, including groups A, B, C, D, E, and F. Group A consisted of opponents and saboteurs. Group B, of political prisoners, members of sects, and Jews. As we can see, the cases of RSHA 4 from A to D were handled by Amt IV b and no distinction was made here between Poles and Jews. First, they wanted to find some Lebensraum [living space] for themselves; then, they wanted to plunder, destroy Jews, and then destroy Poles. In 1942, it was clear and obvious.

When it comes to the system, which I have been very interested in, the system of the RSHA, the Reich Main Security Office, headed by Himmler – it simply made the decisions about the whole operation. What we observed later on made us think that there was another office, which also decided about those matters, that, in fact, the camp was just a place where human material was ground and processed, first only for the purpose of killing people, and then to use them in a different way, namely for work. When difficulties on the front arose, work became necessary, so they had to exploit prisoners as much as possible. And here the new SS Wirtschaftshauptamt office [Main Economic Office] had a voice. That office, supervised by Obergruppenführer Pohl and the RSHA, decided, based on individual departments, how many people should be sent to Auschwitz.

It is difficult for me to say how many people died in the Auschwitz gas chambers. As for those who had been registered, there were more or less 408 thousand people, because 202,499 people passed through the main camp. There were also women, Gypsies, prisoners of war, Jews from groups A to D, and women from group A, as well as the Erzienhungs, who had been sent to Auschwitz to be educated and trained, and who had to stay there for the maximum of three months. Up to 300,000 of them must have died.

As for the RSHA transports, our underground organization counted them in the initial period when it was possible to obtain such data; later on it was very difficult to access full files. We would receive full lists from Belgium or Greece, and the SS would mark with a red pencil who should stay. A colleague of mine, Czardybon, who worked in the so-called Canada, will talk more specifically about the goods that were sent to Germany. For six months, our calculations were as accurate as they could be, considering the conditions in Auschwitz.

Already in the initial period, the number of victims reached 2 million, so we, as political prisoners, believe that estimates for 3.5–4 million are not exaggerated.

If we consider the Aufnahme building, the new one which was almost entirely completed in Auschwitz and which still exists there, and its monstrous dimensions – the basement of that building could easily accommodate Zugangs [new arrivals] – the scale of Auschwitz’s development becomes evident and it is clear that, after Jews and Poles, also other nations would probably end up in the gas chambers.

To end my testimony, I would like to emphasize that I see commandant Rudolf Höß as a representative of this system, who, driven by megalomania and a false philosophy, strived to create a master race, the Herrenvolk, and was convinced that he could do anything, because the Slavenvolk were not people.

Speaking of Höß, I must stress that, as an executor, he is absolutely responsible for everything that happened there. Of course, he must have considered the orders he received to be more important than ethics, but if we assume that he had to carry out all those orders, then we must also say that he was a part of that system of assassins and murderers. He was the most active member of the society which had given rise to Rosenberg. In 1918, Rosenberg wrote his doctoral thesis on crematoria, which is clearly indicated in a book by Findler from 1938 called Alfred Rosenberg, which is his biography.

Therefore, taking this perspective into account, it is for the Supreme Tribunal to decide whether the fact that Höß carried out orders by the authorities is his best defense or his greatest crime.

Presiding judge: Will the witness please tell us what nationalities were the prisoners in that camp? We have heard about Belgians, the Dutch, the French, Greeks.

Witness: There were people from almost all European countries: France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Czechoslovakia, Germany, the Protectorate, Russia and its republics, Poland. There was even a Chinese man – we registered him, so I remember him very well. There were Greeks, Hungarians, and Czechs.

Presiding judge: Were there any Englishmen?

Witness: I do not remember exactly.

Presiding judge: Did the witness hear anything about any Englishmen or Americans in the camp?

Witness: I did not hear much about Americans.

Some of the transports were received in Birkenau; we only gave them numbers, so since we did not handle them, it is, of course, difficult to remember.

Presiding judge: Could the witness say, based on the data he has at his disposal, more or less, how many prisoners passed through the Auschwitz camp?

Witness: We officially registered 202,499 men destined for the gas chambers, about 90 thousand women, 30 thousand Gypsies, and nearly 12 thousand Soviet prisoners of war. On top of this, 20 thousand Jewish men from series A and 17 thousand from series B; 27 thousand women from series A; and 11 thousand correctional prisoners. Apart from these, there were also prisoners called PH – Polizei-Häftling. Those prisoners were kept in block 11 and were usually brought in from Silesia through the so-called Stapoleitstelle-Katowitz. Prisoners could be placed in block 11 for even the smallest offenses. The SS came there every now and then, interrogated 200–300 people in one day and sentenced some of them to death. We registered a total of 408,499 people.

Presiding judge: Those were people registered only in Auschwitz or also in the subcamps?

Witness: This number also includes the subcamps.

Presiding judge: Were there any prisoners who were not registered?

Witness: Those who went directly to the gas chambers.

Presiding judge: Could the witness please tell us if there were many children in the camp? Both registered and not.

Witness: As regards children, I would have to mention the family camp, the Russian camp, and then the children from the Zamość region. Some of them survived.

In the initial period, if a woman gave birth to a child, she lost that child because it was killed. I know about cases where women managed to keep their children and have lived with them to this day, but that happened in 1944 or later.

Generally, it is difficult to estimate the number of children, but I think about 100 thousand children must have been gassed in Auschwitz.

Presiding judge: Did the witness know that people were poisoned in Auschwitz?

Witness: Of course. Soviet prisoners of war were killed with phenol injections. Phenol was the most frequently used substance.

Presiding judge: How would the witness explain that some people were sent to the crematoria, while others were killed with injections? What was the criterion for choosing a given method?

Witness: I think that as far as the Auschwitz camp is concerned, we have to remember it was a two-track system. Some matters were dealt with schematically, for example, in the case of RSHA transports, people were directly sent to the gas chambers; but there were also other matters, including those concerning registered prisoners. Those prisoners were subject to the normal camp procedure, so they had to go through all the stages, ending in a crematorium. Fritzsch himself, when receiving transports, told prisoners that they had not come to a sanatorium, but to a camp, and that they had the right to live for only three months. So it was about extermination. If a prisoner was emaciated – Soviet prisoners of war were subject to the same procedures as the rest of us – he was sent to a crematorium. About 20 prisoners who had recovered from typhus suffered the same fate because the camp had to be “cleansed” of typhoid germs. Those poor people were taken to the gas chambers in Birkenau.

Presiding judge: So there were selections, and all prisoners were subject to them, regardless of nationality?

Witness: Yes, all registered prisoners were subject to selections because the sick had to go to the hospital.

Presiding judge: The defendant said that, generally, only Jews were gassed and burned in crematoria.

Witness: A friend of mine, who had been sentenced in the same case as myself, suffered this fate. This was Jarzębowski, the headmaster of a school.

Presiding judge: The witness has mentioned transports from the Zamość region: how many children were brought to the Auschwitz camp?

Witness: I do not know the exact answer because transports with children were sent directly to Birkenau. We knew about some transports from our own observations in Birkenau, from our colleagues who had contacts there, or from conversations overheard between SS men.

Presiding judge: Could the witness tell us why children were sent to Auschwitz?

Witness: I believe that when it comes to the Zamość region, this was the area that was specially “cleansed” to become Lebensraum for the Germans. That area was turned into a German colony in order to reduce the territory of Poland, so it was also a plan made by the RSHA. It was an operation planned in advance.

Presiding judge: Are there any more questions for the witness?

Judge Tarczewski: I have a question for the witness. Could the witness tell us how many Germans there were in the camp?

Witness: Several thousand.

Judge Tarczewski: And what kind of people were they?

Witness: I find this issue quite complicated. I will rather share my personal experiences, as I do not want to generalize.

First of all, there were criminals. On 14 May 1940, thirty kapos from Sachsenhausen were transferred to Auschwitz. These were people who had survived by discarding any human traits. They had become totally brutalized as a result of the training system initiated in Dachau. They killed all traces of humanity in themselves and turned into mere animals. Auschwitz was ruled by such degenerates. As for the camp’s offices, first of all, there were SS authorities, with a Gestapo branch in the Political Department, and secondly, there were the authorities of the camp itself, that is Alteste – prisoners, and Blockalteste – senior prisoners. Prisoners were ruled over by those degenerate criminals who believed they would maintain their position and survive the camp by trampling over their fellow human beings and by slaying other inmates. They hoped that someday they would be released. I witnessed a certain kapo from block 11 maintain his position in this horrible way. In the first kommando, there were 300 people. They worked at the Bauhof, where they had to level the land. I also worked there at first. After a month, only 60 prisoners were alive from that kommando – 240 died and the prisoner I have mentioned was released. But generally, the criminals with green badges did not leave the camp. It was only later that they were released (but not all of them) because they were drafted into Dirlewanger’s partisan units. That group was the worst. Apart from them, there were also Asoziale and Arbeitsscheu Germans, with black badges, lazy and unwilling to work. Some of them were let go.

As for German political prisoners, I have to stress that in 1940 their attitude towards us was extremely negative. It is enough to mention Bloody Alojzy, a butcher. Over time, their attitude changed and they adopted a more humane approach, having understood that a man should stand for something. We met such people among communists, political prisoners from Austria. They were always shoulder to shoulder with us, which they proved while working in the organized underground group in Auschwitz.

As for the Germans, it would be difficult to call them people. When the situation changed, in the Stalingrad period, those Verbrechers [criminals] started saying that we were actually human beings and we also wanted to live.

Judge Tarczewski: How did the camp command treat German prisoners? Was their attitude towards them the same as towards Poles, or was it different?

Witness: The command’s attitude towards such prisoners was extremely positive. They were treated as their own kind. Nevertheless, if they failed to properly carry out their duties, were not zealous enough or, especially in the first period, for example, they had vodka (block leaders took money intended for prisoners and got themselves some vodka through SS men), they were severely punished. If a kapo did not carry out orders with enough zeal, he was punished. In my opinion, and in the opinion of others who observed it, this was just a continuation of that system.

Judge Tarczewski: Were the Germans who were sick and unable to work removed?

Witness: Of course.

Prosecutor Siewierski: Will the witness please characterize, based on his knowledge, the participation of defendant Höß in this system, particularly the role he played? Was he just a nominal commandant or did he supervise all the details? Was it possible to feel his presence in the camp and, particularly, what was his attitude towards both the prisoners and the Auschwitz personnel?

Witness: I think I have already characterized it. Actually, I would like to accuse him in two ways: first of all, taking into the account the system, and secondly, as a human. This man was the commandant of Auschwitz, and therefore he was the highest-ranked person. Your Honor, defendant Rudolf Höß was like a god in Auschwitz and an ordinary Häftling was afraid to raise his eyes and look at him. As a commandant, the defendant was exceptionally active. We saw him everywhere all the time. He was present when kommandos marched off to work and when they returned to the camp. This is the best proof that he was interested in the camp’s affairs and that he directly participated in its development. As for certain orders he gave and for his involvement in the killing of people, I can only say, based on statements by our colleagues who had access to such files, that the documents were signed by commandant Rudolf Höß. I myself did not see these documents.

I believe that the name of the person who can testify that the defendant signed certain orders, which resulted in people’s deaths, is included in the witness list.

Prosecutor Siewierski: Does the witness know whether Höß ever personally abused anyone? Did he ever do it by himself?

Witness: I do not know the answer because, generally, our work unit never went outside. Höß was rather like a sovereign. He behaved as if he had the supreme authority, which made us all tremble.

Prosecutor Siewierski: As for his attitude towards the German personnel – were they afraid of him? Was he an authority figure for them?

Witness: He was a great authority figure and they were very much afraid of him. Even those who were quite bold.

Prosecutor Siewierski: The witness has said that newly arrived prisoners were told they were allowed to live in Auschwitz for three months at the most. My question is who gave those speeches, in what circumstances, and whether the intention to exterminate people was kept secret from prisoners or, on the contrary, if it was constantly repeated to break the prisoners’ spirit.

Witness: I think that all the examples I have mentioned provide the answer. As for the statements that prisoners had the right to live for three months at most, we heard it from Lagerführer Fritzsch. He was the one who instructed all new prisoners how they should behave in the camp, and he stressed that you only had the right to live for three months. As for “our authorities,” they were convinced that if a prisoner lived longer, he was simply dishonest. Prisoners had no right to live longer and it was openly stated that it was a crime.

Prosecutor Siewierski: One last question. Will the witness explain to us what it exactly meant to work running?

Witness: In 1940, we were not allowed to work at a normal pace. We had to work at a gallop; we had to run. For example, if you handled packages, you were of course unable to run that fast if the wheelbarrows were loaded, but in any case, you had to run as fast as you could with those wheelbarrows. When we passed through the roll-call square, we were also not allowed to do it in a normal way, but we had to stand at attention, fix our arms at our sides, and run. This kind of work was, of course, impossible. And so was the life of a man who got assigned to a unit like that, where the SS and kapos made sure that the prisoners who did not keep up with the pace were finished off. I also got out of the work unit where I worked in the first month by accident because, on the first day, I received a shovel and was ordered to dig. Then, the kapo, who was a terrible person, beat up my colleagues and me. On the same day, the SS man who supervised our work called me over and asked me what my profession was. I said I was a teacher. I told him I taught Latin, although I taught Polish. He started showing off and declaiming Ovid. I praised him and he was very proud. If a prisoner got the attention of a kapo, he was no longer abused, because the kapo would remember him and ask what had happened to him. So I had to work fast, but I was no longer beaten.

Prosecutor Cyprian: The witness has mentioned that the transports destined for the gas chambers were numbered in a special and clear way. Of course, there were different numbering systems for Jewish, Gypsy, and finally for Polish transports.

Witness: I meant Jewish and Polish transports. Gypsy transports were marked in a completely different way.

Prosecutor: Did Polish transports destined for the gas chambers without being registered always have the same numbering system as Jewish transports?

Witness: Yes, they did.

Prosecutor: Did it apply only to the Zamość region or also to other transports?

Witness: Not only. Because normally the transports from the General Government were sent by those authorities, while the transports I have mentioned were rather RSHA transports. The first Aryan transport of this kind arrived as early as 1942 from France. It was marked as RSHA, but those Frenchmen were not sent to the gas chambers – they died due to the bad conditions in Birkenau. But they were already marked as RSHA.

Prosecutor: Were Polish transports marked as RSHA sent to the gas chambers?

Witness: As for the Zamość region, yes, they were.

Prosecutor: And what about transports from Warsaw?

Witness: Those from Warsaw were not. They were immediately sent further into the Reich.

Attorney Umbreit: The witness testified that there were cases when even kapos or SS men were punished. Were those incidents a result of insubordination towards their superiors or were they caused by improper behavior towards the prisoners?

Witness: It happened only due to insubordination towards the authorities, due to a failure to properly execute their orders. Kapos behaved properly towards the authorities. It was all just a special drill, they always stood at attention, which clearly indicated that those people had been trained and knew they might fall into disgrace just by a single dirty look from an SS man, and that they might be degraded to an ordinary prisoner.

Attorney Umbreit: I asked specifically about this because the defendant has tried to defend himself saying that whenever he found out about improper behavior towards prisoners, the SS man or kapo responsible suffered the consequences of their actions. Does the witness know of any such incidents?

Witness: I cannot imagine anyone in Auschwitz making a complaint about an SS man or a kapo. Such a person would have been killed on spot.

Presiding judge: The witness is free to go.

I order a five-minute break.