Twelfth day of the hearing, 6 December 1947
The session began at 9.20 a.m. due to a delay in the arrival of the defendants. Those present as on the previous day, and also the chief prosecutor of the Supreme National Tribunal, Kurowski.
Chief judge: I resume the session of the Supreme National Tribunal in the trial of the former Auschwitz crew.
Would the witness Irena Dubas please come forward.
I must warn the witness of the obligation to speak the truth pursuant to article 107 of the Code of Criminal Procedure. The submission of false testimony is punishable by imprisonment of up to five years. Do the parties submit any requests regarding how the witnesses should be interviewed?
Prosecutors: The witness should be heard without oath.
The defense: Agreed.
The witness Irena Dubas, aged 32, employed in the National Insurance Office, religious affiliation – Roman Catholic, relationship to the defendants – none.
Chief judge: Please may the witness give specific information about the defendants whom the witness knows, and about their behavior towards the prisoners.
The witness: I know all the accused women. As for the defendant Mandl, there is not much I can say about her. I can confirm that she took part in selections, assignment to the bunker and to the SK [Strafkompanie, punitive unit], the administration of standing punishment, and making women kneel on the gravel with raised hands.
The defendant Mandl gave beatings and once struck me so hard that for three weeks I couldn’t hear, although the defendant Liebehenschel said that the prisoners should not be beaten more than a teacher would at school. During the massive inspection in Rajsko, which lasted from 5.00 a.m. to 10.00 p.m., when all our things were taken away, Mandel hit my colleague Ułan so hard that she broke her jaw.
As for Orlowski, I know her from Rajsko. She was there for a very short period of time. Actually, she didn’t have any particular role. She came to the barracks and made inspections. One time after the roll call she came to the barracks and saw that one of the women was cooking some potatoes. She grabbed the pot and poured the boiling water over my friend’s head, burning her severely.
I know the defendant Danz from the camp in Malchow, where she was the commandant. When we arrived at the camp, we had all our warm clothes and blankets taken away from us, so that for several days we were lying without blankets. As for the food in Malchow, it was the worst of all the camps. We received a slice of bread a centimeter thick and soup – or perhaps I should say, water – with dry vegetables, or rather husks.
The prisoners were so starved that they couldn’t work. The camp was ravaged by typhus as a result of the starvation and the prisoners swelled up from hunger.
Danz redefined sadism. She hit prisoners with anything she had at hand, often beating the prisoners unconscious.
As for the defendant Lächert, I know her from Rajsko. I heard she was a nurse. The only thing she did was to “massage” the prisoners’ faces and take care of the packages.
As for other details that don’t directly concern the defendants, but are only an indication of the relationships within the camp, I will mention what kind of work women were used for. The defendant Liebehenschel expressed his opinion that the camp was a “sanatorium”. I will say what was a Wasserkommando, where 150 women worked on a daily basis. They went to the surrounding ponds every day and cut the grass there. If one of the prisoners paused for a moment through exhaustion, the Aufseherins set the dogs on them, who tugged them hard and the unfortunate victims would fall into a pond and drown there.
The second type of work for women was the demolition of houses after the people of Oświęcim had been evacuated. The work was heavy; the women had to work with the picks, and one time a wall collapsed, severely wounding the prisoners.
That would be all.
Chief judge: Are there any questions?
Prosecutor Szewczyk: The witness testified that Mandl was involved in the selection process. What did that involve?
The witness: What happened was that after the general roll call in 1943, in which Mandl participated, the prisoners were sent to the gas.
Prosecutor Szewczyk: What was she doing there?
The witness: She chose people. Anyone who stumbled.
Prosecutor Szewczyk: So she selected those who would be killed?
The witness: Yes.
Prosecutor Szewczyk: And the defendant Lächert, as the witness said, took care of the packages. How should we understand that?
The witness: It means that she picked out items from the packages that we got.
Prosecutor Szewczyk: Did she unpack the packages and browse through them?
The witness: When the packages came in, they were searched with Lächert present, and then we had a lot of things missing.
Prosecutor Szewczyk: Thank you.
Defense attorney Walas: Was this prisoner seriously injured when Orlowski covered her with the boiling water?
The witness: She was burnt in the camp in Rajsko.
Defense attorney Walas: And when it comes to Lächert, did she beat prisoners?
The witness: Lächert beat us severely.
Defense attorney Walas: And is it possible that someone else looked through these packages, apart from the defendant?
The witness: No, because she looked through them while we were there.
Defense attorney Walas: And when it comes to Danz, was she in charge of the allocation of food in Malchow?
The witness: The defendant, as the camp commander, was responsible for the allocation of food to prisoners, because at the same time when the prisoners were dying of hunger, in the warehouse next door were American packages for the prisoners.
Chief judge: Do the defendants want to make any statements?
Defendant Mandl: I would like to ask the Tribunal for permission to make a statement. The witness testified regarding the roll call that took place in the Birkenau women’s camp. In my time, when I arrived in Auschwitz, it was impossible that a proper roll call could be made. In every block there were sick women and healthy women. Every day people died in the blocks. At the morning roll call, it was impossible to gather all prisoners, as people looked for hiding places to avoid the roll call. We had to spend hours or even more searching for them before we found these people. In Rajsko there was also an inspection, on the order of the then commandant Kramer. One day a Polish woman ran from Rajsko and there was a roll call there. I was also there with Commandant Kramer and a number of overseers. I didn’t carry out the inspection myself, but the overseers who were there did so. It is not possible that the witness was beaten up by me. I want to state once again that I was responsible neither for the hospital nor the selection. The people who were chosen for selections and for the Sonderbehandlung [lit. special treatment] were in most cases chosen by the doctors. Maybe what she meant was choosing people to assign them to work.
Defendant Danz: I would like to ask the Tribunal for permission to make a statement regarding the witness’s testimony. As I mentioned earlier, I was in the Malchow camp, but not as the head of the camp, but the first overseer. The head of the camp was a certain Lotta. The prisoners were fed by the factories from Malchow. The manager of the prisoner’s food supply was Fritz Meyer. The whole issue of the food wasn’t really my job. We mostly received Red Cross packages, and the camp commandant took care of that.
Chief judge: Does the witness wish to maintain her testimony?
The witness: Yes.
Chief judge: The witness may stand down.