Oświęcim, 10 and 11 May 1945. District Investigating Judge Jan Sehn from Kraków, a member of the Commission for the Investigation of German and Nazi Crimes in Oświęcim, at the request and in the presence of a member of that Commission, Deputy Prosecutor of the District Court in Kraków Edward Pęchalski, with the participation of a court expert, Dr. Jan Zygmunt Robel, in accordance with section 254 in connection with Articles 107 and 115 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, interviewed former prisoner no. 80359 of the concentration camp in Auschwitz as a witness, who testified as follows:
| Name and surname | Szlama Dragon |
| Date and place of birth | 19 March 1920, Żeromin, Sierpc District |
| Parents’ names | Daniel and Małka Beckermann (both deceased) |
| Marital status | single |
| Occupation | tailor |
| Religious affiliation | Jewish |
| Citizenship and nationality | Polish |
| Place of residence before the arrest | Bieżuńska Street 16, Żeromin (now I will probably be living in Żeromin at Mławska Street 10) |
I was brought to Auschwitz by train with a transport of 2,500 Jews of both sexes and different ages from the Mława ghetto on 7 December 1942. The transport was received at the station by Lagerführer Plagge, Rapportführer Palitzsch, and camp doctor Mengele. Being there already, they performed a selection, placing the women and children in one group, and the men in another. 400 people were selected from the men’s group. I was also selected. The 400 of us were escorted to the Birkenau camp on foot. The rest, that is, all the women and children, and the men not included in our group, were transported by trucks in an unknown direction, but outside the camp.
Our group was placed in block 3 of that section of the camp, which was later on turned into the women’s camp. Then, I was transferred to block 22, the old bathhouse, and afterwards to block 14 of the same camp section.
On 9 December 1942 in the evening, Moll, Plagge, Palitzsch, Siwy, and Arbeitseinsatz Mikus came to block 14. Moll said he would choose laborers for a rubber factory. Each of us approached him; Moll asked what our profession was and watched us carefully. If a prisoner was strong and healthy, Moll assigned him to the group, which – according to what they had told us – was supposed to go to work to the rubber factory. My brother and I said we were professional tailors, so we also joined the group which was being formed by Moll and his companions. The next morning, that is, on 10 December 1942, as soon as all kommandos left for work, Moll came to block 14 and ordered, “ Sonderkommandoraus.” This is how we learned that we belonged to some “ Sonderkommando” and not a unit designated to work in the rubber factory. We did not know what that Sonderkommando was because nobody explained it to us.
Ordered by Moll, we stepped outside the block, where SS men surrounded us and escorted us out of the camp in two groups of a hundred people. We were taken to a forest, where we saw a brick cottage covered with straw thatch. The windows were bricked up. On the door leading into the house, there was a tin sign with the inscription “Hochspannung – Lebensgefahr” [high voltage – danger of death]. About 30-40 meters from the cottage, there were two wooden barracks. On the other side of the house, there were four pits that were 30 meters long, 7 meters wide, and 3 meters deep. The edges of the pits were burned and covered in tar. We were lined up in front of the house. Then, Moll came and told us that our job would be to assist in cremating old people and those with lice, that we would receive food for ourselves, that we would be taken to the camp at night, and that we had to work because those who would not be willing to work would be beaten with a stick and bitten by dogs. The SS men who escorted us did indeed have dogs with them.
Then, Moll divided us into several groups. I was assigned, along with 11 others, to a group which, as it later turned out, had to take corpses out of the house. All 12 of us were given masks and taken to the house’s door. Moll opened the door, and we saw that inside there were naked bodies of people of different ages and both sexes. Moll instructed us to take the corpses outside, to the yard in front of the door. We started doing it – four of us carried one corpse. Moll got annoyed, rolled up his sleeves, and threw the corpses through the door into the yard. When we said that, despite the lesson he had given us, we could not do it, he told us to work in pairs.
When the corpses were already in the yard, a dentist, assisted by an SS man, extracted their teeth, while a barber, supervised by an SS man, cut their hair. Then, another group loaded the bodies onto carts (Rollwagen). The carts were situated on tracks that led to the edges of the pits. The tracks ran between two pits. A different group was busy preparing the pits for cremating the corpses. At the bottom, they first put thick pieces of wood, then finer ones crosswise, and finally dry branches. Another group took the bodies brought by the carts to the edge of the pits and threw them inside.
As soon as all the corpses from the house were transported to the pits, Moll poured kerosene in four corners of the pit, lit a piece of rubber and threw it on a spot covered with kerosene. A fire broke out and the corpses burned. While Moll was lighting the fire, we were standing in front of the house and watching him carefully.
After all the corpses were taken out of the house, we had to thoroughly clean it. We washed the floor with water, covered it with sawdust, and whitened the walls. The inside of the house was divided by transverse walls into four chambers. The first one could accommodate 1200 undressed people, the second one – 700, the third – 400, and the fourth – 200-250. The first chamber, the largest one, had two windows. The other three had one window each. The windows were closed with a wooden hatch. Each chamber had a separate entrance. On the entrance door, there was a plaque, as I mentioned earlier, with the inscription “Hochspannung – Lebensgefahr.” The inscription was visible only when the front door was closed. When the door was open, it was not visible, but you could see a different inscription: “Zum baden” [to the baths]. When the people destined to be gassed entered the chamber, they saw yet another inscription placed on the exit door from the chamber. It said “Zur Desinfektion” [to disinfection]. Of course, behind the door with the last inscription, no disinfection took place. It was just the exit door from the chamber, through which we pulled the corpses out to the yard. Each chamber had a separate exit door. Engineer Nosal from Oświęcim made an exact drawing of the chamber I have described based on my testimony. That chamber was called bunker 2. Apart from that chamber, there was also another one, about half a kilometer away, marked as bunker 1. It was also a brick house, but it consisted of only two chambers, which together could fit less than two thousand undressed people. Each of the chambers had only a front door and a window. Near bunker 1, there was a small barn and two barracks. The pits were located very far away and the tracks for the carts led to them.
In the evening of the first day, we were escorted after work back to the camp. However, we were not put in block 14, from where we had left for work, but in block 2. A different group, which – as it turned out – worked in bunker 1 that day, was also placed in that block. It was a closed block, surrounded – unlike the others – by a wall. We were not allowed to communicate with prisoners from the other blocks.
They did not need the entire kommando for gassing people. Usually, the gassing took place at night. About 20 prisoners were then chosen from our kommando to assist with the job. Actually, the gassing itself was carried out by SS men. It was done in the following way. The people were taken by trucks to the barracks. Those of us who were assigned to the job helped the sick get out of the trucks and undress in the barracks. All the people had to undress in there. The barracks, as well as the space between them and the chamber, were surrounded by SS men with dogs. As soon as they undressed, the people walked naked from the barracks to the chamber. The SS men at the front door encouraged them with truncheons. When the chamber was full, the SS men closed the door, and Mengele instructed his aide, Rotenführer Scheinmetz, to begin the gassing. He said, “Scheinmetz, mach da fertig.” Then, Scheinmetz took out a can of gas, a hammer and a special knife from a Red Cross truck, which followed every transport of prisoners headed to the gas chambers. He put on a mask, opened the can with the knife and hammer, and poured its contents through a window into the chamber. Then, he closed the window and took the can, hammer, knife, and mask back to the car. The Germans called the truck “Sanker.” I myself heard Mengele many times asking his aide, “Ist der Sanker da?” As soon as they finished, Mengele and his aide left in the ambulance, and we were escorted to the block.
I do not know how it was at the beginning, but later on, following such a night gassing, SS guards stayed at the bunker, and especially at the barracks, because sometimes when the bunker was left unguarded until the morning, boxes with gold teeth, along with other items of the gassed people that were stored in the barracks, were stolen. The gassed corpses stayed in the bunker until the morning, until the arrival of the kommando who burned them.
The cremation process was the same as the one I have described before, which took place on the first day of my work at bunker 2.
The following day, the things left by the people gassed in the barracks were taken away by a special kommando who sorted and transported them to the Effektenkammer [personal effects warehouse] in Auschwitz. The pits were cleared of ashes usually about 48 hours after the cremation. In the ashes, there were remains of bones. You could see skulls, knees, and long bones. We tossed the ashes out of the pit with shovels. Then, trucks arrived and the ashes were loaded on and taken to the Soła River.
We also unloaded the ashes from trucks into the Soła River. Of course, we were supervised by SS men. We had to cover the space between the car and the water with tarps so that no ashes would fall on the ground. The SS men instructed us to throw the ashes into the water in such a way that they would flow with the current and not go down. As soon as we unloaded the truck, we threw the ashes off the tarps into the water and thoroughly swept the entire place with brooms.
When we opened the chamber, the bodies of the gassed people were usually in a lying position. If there were many of them in one spot, they lay on and supported each other. Sometimes they were in a standing position with the torso bent forward. In many cases, I saw white foam on their lips. When you opened the chamber, it was very hot inside and you could smell the gas – it was suffocating, and it gave you a sweet and pleasant sensation in your mouth. The gas cans were metal with a yellow sticker. The same as the ones used later on in the crematorium. Most of the people that were gassed in the two locations had been transported from Poland, but there were also Lithuanians, French people, and Jews from Berlin among them.
Bunker 1 was entirely demolished in 1943. When crematorium II was built in Birkenau, the barracks near bunker 2 were also demolished and the pits were filled up. However, the bunker remained until the end and, after a long break, it was opened again and used for gassing Hungarian Jews. Then, new barracks were built and the pits were excavated. At that time, we worked in the bunker in two shifts, that is, day and night. I also worked there, I believe, for two days. During that time, we took the corpses out of the bunker shortly after the gassing, and that is why sometimes when we entered the chamber, we could still hear moaning, especially when we took the corpses by the hands and pulled them out of the chamber. Once, we found a living child in the chamber. It was all wrapped in a pillow, including its head. When we unfolded the pillow, it turned out that the child’s eyes were open and it seemed alive. We took the child with the pillow to Moll and reported that the child was alive. Moll took it from us, carried it to the edge of a pit, put it on the ground, stepped on its neck with his heel, and then threw it into the fire. I saw the whole scene with my own eyes and I noticed that when Moll stepped on the child’s neck, it moved its hands. The child did not scream through the whole time. I cannot say if the child was breathing because I did not check it, but in any case, it struck us that the child did not look dead.
Bunkers 1 and 2 could fit about 4000 people. All the chambers in bunker 2 together could accommodate over 2000 people at a time, and bunker 1 – less than 2000.
In 1943, we were transferred from the women’s camp to the BIId camp and placed first in block 13, and then in block 11. Around autumn of the same year, I was employed again in the Sonderkommando. In between the days when I worked at the bunkers, I was part of the Abbruchkommando [demolition unit]. I worked at crematorium V. Until May 1944, we worked there in the garden, chopping wood, and transporting coke, because the furnaces in crematorium V were not operating yet. The crematorium was opened only in May 1944, when the transports of Hungarian Jews began to arrive.
The work in the crematorium was supervised by Moll. His orders were executed by Kommandoführer Gorger, and another Kommandoführer, Eckhardt. We were guarded, among others, by SS men Kurzschlus and Gustas. The crematorium was built in the same way as crematorium IV. The two crematoria had four furnaces on both sides. Each furnace could fit three corpses. The undressing room and the gas chambers (bunkers) were located above the ground. The gassing in those crematoria was performed in the same way as in bunkers 1 and 2.
People were transported to the crematoria by trucks, and later on, after a railway siding to Birkenau was opened, they were also driven on foot to crematoria IV and V from the train ramp. As soon as they arrived, they entered the undressing room and Gorger would rush them saying, “Do it faster because the food and coffee will get cold.” The people were asking for water. Gorger told them that the water was cold and they could not drink it, but they should hurry up because when they left the bathhouse, they would get some tea that had been prepared for them. When everyone was in the undressing room, Moll stepped on a bench and spoke to the gathered people. He told them they had arrived at a camp where the healthy would go to work and the sick and the women would remain in the blocks. He pointed at the buildings in Birkenau and said that before going to the camp, everyone had to take a bath because otherwise the camp authorities would not let them in. As soon as they all got undressed, they were herded naked into a gas chamber. Initially, there were three chambers and later on a fourth one was built. The first chamber could fit 1500 people, the second – 800, the third – 600, and the fourth – 150.
From the undressing room, the people went through a narrow corridor to the chambers. Inside, there were signs that said „Zur Desinfektion.” When a chamber got full, SS guards closed the door, although usually Moll did it himself. Then, Mengele gave Scheinmetz an order, and he – just like at the bunkers – went to the truck with the Red Cross sign, took out a gas can, opened it, and threw its content through a sidewall window into the chamber. The window was situated quite high, so he had to use a ladder to reach it. And here as well, just like at the bunkers, he did it wearing a mask.
After some time, Mengele announced that the people were already dead, saying, “Es ist schon fertig,” and he left with Scheinmetz in the Red Cross vehicle. Then, Moll opened the door of the gas chamber. We put on masks and dragged the corpses from individual chambers through the corridor to the undressing room, and then through the undressing room and another corridor to the furnaces. In the first corridor, located by the front door, barbers cut the corpses’ hair, and in another corridor, dentists pulled out their teeth.
We laid the corpses in front of the furnaces on an iron stretcher, which we then slipped inside on rolls mounted at the furnace door. We placed the corpses on the stretcher in such a way that when the head of one body was pointed forwards, we placed the other one with its head backwards. We would put three bodies into each oven. When we were putting a third corpse inside, the ones that were in the furnace were already burning. I saw that the corpses’ hands, and then its legs, went up. Anyway, we were in a hurry and I was not able to watch the whole cremation process.
We had to hurry up because when the limbs of the corpses that were already burning went too high, it was difficult to slip a third corpse into the furnace. As for the stretcher, two prisoners lifted it by the end situated away from the furnace, and one prisoner grabbed it by the end that went first into the furnace. When we slipped the stretcher inside, one of the prisoners held the corpse down with a long iron poker, which we called a hoe, forked at the end, while the two others pulled the stretcher out from under the corpse. As soon as the furnace was loaded, we closed the door and loaded another one. The burning took 15-20 minutes. After that time, we opened the furnace doors and slipped more corpses inside.
In the period when the Hungarian transports were arriving, we worked in crematorium V in two shifts. The day shift lasted from 6.30 a.m. to 6.30 p.m., and the night shift – from 6.30 p.m. to 6.30 a.m. the next day. We worked like that for about three months. However, since the crematoria were less efficient, pits were dug next to crematorium V and were used for burning the Hungarians. There were three larger and two smaller pits. Bodies were burned in the pits by crematorium V in the same way as in the pits by bunkers 1 and 2. The person who lit the fire was also Moll. The ashes from the pits were taken out in the same way as in the bunkers. They were mashed in special pestles and then taken to the Soła River. Initially, the ashes from crematorium furnaces were buried in specially dug ditches. Later on, however, when the Russians launched their offensive, Hoß gave an order to dig up the ashes from the pits and transfer them to the Soła River.
Due to administrative obstacles, the witness’s interview was discontinued on 11 May 1945 at 5.00 p.m.
After the report was read out, the interview was concluded.
17 May 1945, Oświęcim. Witness Szlama Dragon (known from the case) continues his testimony as follows:
The chambers in crematorium V that were used for gassing were about two and a half meters high. In any case, I could not reach the ceiling with my hand. From the top of the door to the ceiling, there were still about 70 cm. An adult man of an average height could reach with his hand the bottom edge of the window opening through which the contents of the Zyklon B cans were poured into the chamber. Scheinmetz, however, had a special ladder which he climbed to pour the Zyklon B into the chamber.
In different periods, that activity was performed also by other SS men whose names I do not know. I know Scheinmetz’s surname because initially he was the Kommandoführer of our Sonderkommando. I do not know his first name. He is a man of an average height, shorter than I, blonde, and probably about 26 years old. He always employed girls from Slovakia. I do not know if he talked to them in Slovak or in German.
The head of crematoria IV and V, as well as bunker 2, was Hauptscharführer Moll. He was stout and of medium height, and had blonde hair which he parted in the middle. His left eye was artificial. I think he was about 37 years old. His wife and two children (the son was about ten years old and the daughter was younger – about seven) lived in Auschwitz.
Lagerarzt [camp doctor] Mengele usually assisted the gassing of people. He was a dark- haired man of my height, I think, about 40 years old. He always arrived by the ambulance which transported the Zyklon B. Other prisoners employed in the Sonderkommando and I saw that when people were being gassed, he was standing by the door leading to the gas chamber. The door had a window. When the gassing was over, the gas chamber was opened by order of Mengele. When we were taking the gassed people out of the chamber, Mengele was no longer present in the crematorium because he would leave immediately after making sure that the victims had been gassed and after giving an order to open the door of the gas chamber. He left in the same ambulance. I never saw Mengele examine people destined for the gas chambers or their corpses.
At the beginning of May 1944, we began gassing and cremating transports of Hungarian Jews in crematorium V. The corpses of gassed people from the first few transports were burned in crematorium IV because the chimneys of crematorium V were broken at that time. Until the end, Hungarian Jews were burned in pits dug for that purpose next to crematorium V. There were five pits which were 25 meters long, 6 meters wide, and about 3 meters deep. About 500 people were burned in the pits every day. However, since more Hungarian Jews were transported to the camp, bunker 2 was reopened and those people were also gassed and burned in there. I do not know how many people per day were burned in the bunker because when Hungarian Jews were being burned there, I was not working at bunker 2.
Both the Sonderkommando working at crematorium V, as well as the Sonderkommando employed at bunker 2, worked in two shifts: day and night. We did the job in May and June 1944. I estimate, based on my observations, that about 300 thousand Hungarian Jews were burned in crematorium V within the two months. Those people were herded to crematorium V on foot straight from the unloading ramp at Birkenau. They were men, women and children of different ages. When such a transport was to arrive at the crematorium area, we were locked up in two small rooms specially designed for this purpose. We were not allowed to talk to those people or tell them what would happen to them. However, sometimes they fainted on the way. We had to carry such a sick person, under the escort of an SS man, to the crematorium. In such situations, we often talked to the sick we carried. Most of them did not know they were going to die, and when we told them they were going to a crematorium, they did not believe us.
I remember that in 1943, 70 thousand Greek Jews were burned in crematoria II-V. I remember this number because before those transports arrived, the Kommandoführer of crematoria II and III, Kelar, threatened us that the good times were over for us because a transport consisting of 70 thousand people would soon arrive from Greece. He told us this because before those people from the Greek transports were gassed, we had had a break from work in the crematoria and we did not work hard.
As for other nationalities, I do not know any numbers and I cannot say how many people from individual countries and nations were gassed in the crematoria of the Auschwitz camp. I believe that the number of people gassed in both bunkers and the four crematoria was over four million. Other prisoners employed in the Sonderkommando thought the same.
The Schreiber [clerk] of our kommando, Zalman Gradowski from Grodno, made notes in which he recorded, based on information provided by prisoners working in all the crematoria, the number of people gassed and burned in individual crematoria, as well as all the experiences of Sonderkommando prisoners. Gradowski was shot in October 1944 during the rebellion. Five hundred prisoners from the Sonderkommando, which at that time consisted of 700 prisoners, were shot. A hundred of them slept in crematorium II, another hundred in crematorium III, and 500 in crematorium IV. I dug up Gradowski’s manuscripts, which were buried in the area of crematorium II surrounded by barbed wire, and handed them over to the Soviet Commission. There was a notebook and a letter addressed to whoever should find it. At the request of the Soviet Commission, all the documents, which had been written in Hebrew, were translated into Russian by prisoner doctor Gordon. The Soviet Commission took those documents with them. I know that there are more documents and notes buried in the area of crematorium II, as well as pits, filled in with earth, containing ashes of corpses burned in the crematorium. These items can be found in front of the crematorium furnaces. I cannot indicate an exact location because after the crematorium was demolished, it all changed there. The area was leveled when the German were still there, so I lost my sense of direction. I did not work gassing or burning people in crematoria II and III. Zisner and Mandelbaum were employed there. Tauber worked with me and, before he was transferred to the crematoria in Birkenau, he also worked at crematorium I in Auschwitz.
Before I was assigned to a newly created Sonderkommando in December 1942, the Sonderkommando that handled both bunkers consisted mostly of Slovaks. All members of that Sonderkommando were gassed in crematorium I in Auschwitz. As I already mentioned before, the Sonderkommando that I was assigned to consisted of 200 prisoners. That number was soon raised to 400. Then, 200 prisoners from that Sonderkommando were sent to Lublin, while 20 Russians arrived from that city and joined us. The Russians told us that those 200 sent to Lublin were executed there by shooting. In 1943, 200 Greeks were assigned to our Sonderkommando; in 1944 – 500 Hungarians. In October 1944, 500 prisoners were shot: 400 in the yard of crematorium IV, and a hundred in a field next to crematorium II. In the same month, about 200 prisoners from the Sonderkommando were selected and escorted to Auschwitz. As we were informed later on by prisoners employed in Canada [the warehouses with prisoners’ belongings], they had been gassed in a chamber that was essentially used for gassing things stored in Canada. In November 1944, a hundred prisoners from the Sonderkommando were sent to Groß-Rosen. At least that is what we were told. In any case, they left with a penal transport. Following all those reductions, there were over a hundred prisoners left in the Sonderkommando. Crematorium V was open until the last days of the Germans’ stay in the camp. They blew it up with dynamite before they escaped. It was on 20 January 1945. In the final period, only prisoners who died or were killed in the camp were burned in that crematorium. People were no longer gassed. At that time, 30 prisoners from the Sonderkommando worked in the crematorium, while the rest were employed at the demolition site of crematoria II and III. I worked at the demolition site.
At the end of May 1944, I was transferred with the entire Sonderkommando from block 11 of the BIId section to crematorium IV, where I lived until October 1944. As I testified before, about 700 prisoners from the Sonderkommando lived in that crematorium in October 1944. Since at that time the crematoria did not need so many people, we were afraid we would also be gassed and that is why we decided to organize a revolt. We had planned it for a long time, we had contact and connections with the outside world, we made grenades, we had weapons and a camera, and we were waiting for the third Soviet offensive to begin because we thought that our operation could be successful only in the event of an offensive. In October, our situation seemed dangerous, and that is why we decided not to delay the revolt and took action. I do not remember the exact date, but it was on a Saturday, when we attacked SS guards, injuring 12 SS men. Reportedly, some of them were killed. The prisoners from the Sonderkommando who lived in crematorium II carried out their operation at the same time. The Sonderkommando from crematorium III did not have enough time to start their operation. SS reinforcements immediately arrived at the area of our crematorium and several companies surrounded the whole area. About 500 prisoners were shot dead. The rest hid and managed to save their lives. I hid under a pile of wood and Tauber in the chimney of crematorium V. All survivors were transferred and accommodated in crematorium III. We were kept alive because an investigation was being carried out at that time to uncover our entire organization. However, it was not successful, despite very frequent personal searches in the quarters, because after the collapse of the revolt we had buried all the tools, especially the grenades, and ceased all underground activities.
I lived in crematorium III until November 1944. Then, the entire Sonderkommando was transferred to the BIId camp. I was placed in block 3. From October 1944, that is, since the revolt I have described, I worked at the demolition site of the crematoria, in particular of crematorium IV. It had burned down during the revolt, so we only demolished the walls. Iron parts of the crematorium furnaces were transported to Auschwitz, where they are still stored in the Bauhof [construction depot]. At that time, other prisoners from the Sonderkommando worked at the demolition site of crematoria II and III. The dismantling of those crematoria began in November 1944 and we were told they were to be transported to Groß-Rosen. Iron parts of the furnaces from those crematoria, doors – ventilation devices, benches, stairs, and other parts – have been stored to this day in the Bauhof.
I would like to point out that the doors and window hatches in bunkers 1 and 2 and in crematoria IV and V were of the same type. They were made of thick wood, were heavy, with rabbets and with joints sealed with felt. The door was closed with double large handles, which were sealed with screws. The bunker doors had no peepholes. The doors leading to the gas chambers in all the crematoria (II-IV) were equipped with peepholes. There were no wooden shutters in crematoria II and III because Zyklon B was poured into the gas chambers in those crematoria through openings in the roof. The openings were covered with concrete slabs.
I am submitting schematic drawings of bunkers 1 and 2, and crematorium V. The structure of crematorium IV was identical and was located symmetrically opposite crematorium V. Could the Tribunal please attach the submitted sketches to this report so that my testimony is clearer and properly understandable?
I stayed in block 13 of the BIId camp until the beginning of January 1945. Then, I was transferred, with the whole Sonderkommando, to block 16, from where I was sent with a transport to the Reich on 18 January. We went on foot and I managed to escape from the transport with Tauber near Pszczyna. The whole Sonderkommando, that is, over a hundred people, left Auschwitz with me. I do not know which prisoners survived. Mosiek Van Kleib, a Dutchman, has recently returned straight to his homeland. The Sonderkommando prisoners who left Auschwitz on that day were, among others: Zawek Chrzan from Gostynin, Samuel – a Frenchman, Leibel from Grodno, Lemko from Czerwony Bór, Dawid Hencel from Rypin, Moszek and Jankel Weingarten from Poland, Sender from Berlin, Moryc from Greece, Abram Dragon from Żuromin, Serge – a Frenchman (Blokälteste), Abo from Grodno, Becker Berek from Luza, a cousin from Radom, and others whose names I do not remember.
I am going to settle in Żeromin, where I will start working in my profession. I suppose my brother will also return and we will work together. I expect I will be drafted into the army. Following my camp experiences, my nerves are completely exhausted, I want to return to a normal life, get away from the camp atmosphere, and forget about everything I experienced in Auschwitz.
The report was read out. At this point, the interview and the present report were concluded.
Sketch of bunker 1
(Annex to the report of the hearing of witness Szlama Dragon of 10 and 11 May 1945)
[drawing – sketch with key]
(This sketch was made by Investigating Judge Jan Sehn, in the presence of Prosecutor Edward Pęchalski, based on a direct on-site inspection, as well as explanations provided during the inspection and interrogation by witness Szlama Dragon.)
Investigating Judge
Jan Sehn
Sketch of bunker 2
(Annex to the report of the hearing of witness Szlama Dragon of 10 and 11 May 1945)
(This sketch was made by Investigating Judge Jan Sehn, in the presence of Prosecutor Edward Pęchalski, based on a direct on-site inspection, as well as explanations provided during the inspection and interrogation by witness Szlama Dragon.)
Investigating Judge
Jan Sehn
[drawing – sketch with key]
Sketch of the location of bunker 2
(Annex to the report of the hearing of witness Szlama Dragon of 10 and 11 May 1945)
[drawing – sketch]
(This sketch was made by Investigating Judge Jan Sehn, in the presence of Prosecutor Edward Pęchalski, based on a direct on-site inspection, as well as explanations provided during the inspection and interrogation by witness Szlama Dragon.)
Investigating Judge
Jan Sehn
Sketch of crematorium V
(Annex to the report of the hearing of witness Szlama Dragon of 10 and 11 May 1945)
[drawing – sketch with key]
(This sketch was made by Investigating Judge Jan Sehn, in the presence of Prosecutor Edward Pęchalski, based on a direct on-site inspection, as well as explanations provided during the inspection and interrogation by witness Szlama Dragon.)
Investigating Judge
Jan Sehn