BERNARD CZARDYBON

The fourth day of the trial, 15 March 1947.

The witness stated the following with regard to his person:

Bernard Czardybon, 45 years of age, Roman Catholic, married, union secretary, no relationship to the parties.

Presiding Judge: What are the motions of the parties as to how the witness should be heard?

Prosecutor Cyprian: We release the witness from taking an oath.

Attorney Umbreit: We release the witness from taking an oath.

Presiding Judge: By mutual agreement of the parties, the Tribunal has decided to examine the witness without him taking an oath. I advise the witness of the obligation to tell the truth and of the criminal liability for making false declarations.

What were the circumstances of the witness’ deportation to the camp?

Witness: I was arrested by the Gestapo on 16 June 1940 for alleged membership in the underground movement. The interrogation, which involved severe maltreatment by the SS men, was conducted in May, in the presence of Höss. After the interrogation about 25 percent of the arrestees were sent to the hospital, and some of them died before the evening.

In March I was present during the execution of 12 or 13 fighters of the Silesian Uprising – Ceglarski from Chorzów was among them. During the execution I saw the defendants Höss, Lagerführer Emerrich and others in front of block 24; they were ridiculing the prisoners and laughing. The prisoners were naked and had their hands tied with barbed wire. After roll-call they were shot dead. I did not see what happened next.

Later I worked in the “effects” [the Effektenkammer], in a kommando numbering 1,800 people; we worked two shifts, night and day. This department gathered the personal belongings of the Jews and Aryans deported to the camp from all over the world. Transports came in around the clock. On 28 March, a transport of 3,500 people arrived – a thousand of them went to work, while the rest were sent to the gas chamber. Defendant Höss was often present at the admission of transports, observing how the prisoners were treated – and they were summarily tormented, beaten and harassed.

This department was called “Canada”. It was a warehouse which received clothes from the gas chamber. Corpses of suffocated children were often discovered among the clothes and suitcases, for example that of a 12-year-old girl. Infants were buried on the spot. The girl was taken to the crematorium.

The work was carried out under very difficult conditions. People sorted the personal effects of the dead, or of those from newly-arrived transports. Inexact or sloppy work was punished with very harsh repressions. The treatment got even worse after defendant Höss inspected “Canada”. Among others, the following incident occurred during this inspection: one of the prisoners failed to understand what a task that they were set consisted in, and asked a colleague to translate the instruction. Defendant Höss immediately ordered that the inmate and the female prisoner be sent to the SK [Strafkompanie – Penal Company], where from what I heard they died the following day.

There was another incident – one day when prisoners were feverishly loading 23 wagons with clothes and underwear intended for the German Army, one of them collapsed. When the kommando was about to leave, this Jew was nowhere to be found. An order was issued to throw everything out of the wagons. He was found in a barrack, exhausted. Höss had him executed on the spot – an SS man killed him with a shot to the back of the head.

I recall that particularly severe repressions – and especially with respect to women – were applied in the wake of Höss’ inspections.

It became evident that prisoners just arriving at the camp had already learned what went on inside, for there was a period when valuables – watches, rings, and bracelets – arriving with the transports (and especially from Poland) already had their precious stones removed. Defendant Höss and the head of the economic division arrived at the warehouse department with the intention of shooting the prisoners who worked there. They were accused of stealing precious stones. But since the SS men would also have been liable for punishment due to their failure to exercise supervision, greater effort was put into the investigation and it was soon discovered that valuables locked in suitcases which had not yet been opened were already missing their precious stones. The execution was called off.

Misappropriations were commonplace during the shipping of underwear and clothing. There were complaints. The German policy became more severe in that women were ordered to undress completely in the presence of the SS men, who examined each and every part of their underwear, and even looked into their rectums with no concern for safety or hygiene. These inspections were carried out partly by the SS men and partly by the SS women, however always in the presence of the SS men, who ridiculed the female prisoners.

During one very severe typhus epidemic the clothing of those who had gone through the disease was infested with fistfuls of lice. The command ordered that women be bathed on the spot. These cold-water baths took place outdoors from summer until winter, regardless of weather conditions. The women were ordered to board a cart filled with water and Lysol, while those who resisted were thrown in by the SS men.

Varying numbers of transports would arrive in different periods. I remember a transport from Zagłębie Dąbrowskie with many of my civilian friends and acquaintances; the majority of them perished. 90,000 people arrived over three days and died shortly afterwards.

This is where clothes and valuables were loaded. Clothes, underwear, shoes and various items used in domestic or professional life, brought in on several hundred wagons, were collected in a very vast square – 300 meters long and 200 meters wide. Transports arrived from various locations, and I no longer remember in what order, but all contained plenty of valuables. The German authorities ordered that transports of Norwegians or Swedes should include large chests of expensive furs, among other things. These furs, just like the other goods, were then sent on to Berlin. Polish and Dutch transports, meanwhile, brought with them a lot of gold. At that time inmates were terribly emaciated, but even though quintals of food were rotting away right next to them, taking any of it was forbidden – theft was severely punished.

As a matter of fact, during this period – that is until mid-1944 and perhaps some time later – the quantity of stolen shoes alone amounted to some 15 – 16 million pairs. I mention this because such statistics can help establish the number of prisoners in the camp on the basis of the ledgers kept by individual warehouses, provided they will still be found.

The quantities that were there to be ferried away (as they were with unerring regularity) were so immense that the Germans were simply unable to take everything away, and even when the camp was being emptied, they left behind some 20 wagons with underwear, piles of shoes, and other items. This just illustrates how many people were deported to the camp. Underwear and clothing were also sent to Volksdeutschers in Volhynia and neighboring areas, to the NSV [Nationalsozialistische Volkswohlfahrt – National Socialists People’s Welfare], and to Belsen. Clothing in worse condition was sent to concentration camps, while destroyed underwear was passed on to the textile factories. On average, 8–10 wagons of good underwear and 4–8 of destroyed underwear were loaded daily. The best items and expensive furs were sent to Bad Berka. Silk underwear was dealt with uniquely – all of It was sent to Berlin, and during the period which I recall, 15 wagons were sent over 2 years. While I emphasize these numbers, they come from only one location. There was another such location in Birkenau, but I know nothing about it. The numbers which I have provided here are for only one period.

Within that period, 3 wagons of women’s hair were sent away, each loaded with 20 tons, which gives 60 tons in total. The hair had been cut from the heads of women who had just entered the camp, or from corpses, after gassing.

A part of the distributed underwear went to the SS men. When the wife of an SS man was about to give birth, defendant Höss would order that he be given underwear as a loan or a gift. I remember once when Lagerführer Aumeier himself ordered the distribution of a larger quantity of underwear.

At the time, the hunger caused a gold rush among the prisoners, which in turn made the SS men go rampant. They ordered inmates to steal for them, but then had them shot dead or sent to the gas chamber; every person who was forced to steal this or that – several Czechs whose surnames I do not recall, among others – was liquidated in a similar fashion. Even grosser abuses and misappropriations occurred in the course of this “work”, with the full knowledge of the camp command. Everyone engaged in this malpractice, directly or indirectly, would be body-searched, irrespective of the time of year. Such searches were conducted regardless of the location and the surroundings. Men were usually made to strip naked upon walking through the gate or in their workplace, in the presence of women and representatives of the authorities and the command. On 6 January 1943, the SS men launched a huge operation against the kommandos working in these divisions, that is in the so-called Effektenkammer, Bekleidungskammer, and others. When on 6 January the other commandos marched out into the freezing cold, these work groups, numbering some 300 people in total, were stopped and made to stand to attention, without caps and right next to the kitchen, for the entire day. A segregation took place in the evening, in the presence of Grabner, the Head of the Political Department, and, if I am not mistaken, defendant Höss. As a result, about 150 inmates were executed in stages. The segregation was as follows: several people returned to work, some were sent to other kommandos, others remained in the camp, while others still were allotted penal tasks. Some people were locked up on the spot and executed by the next day for undisclosed reasons. The prisoners who were left in the camp without work were shot dead within 14 days, while those who had been sent to perform penal labor were also shot within that period, but at intervals.

In 1942, several executions were carried out after an interrogation. Executions in the camp usually took place in the presence of defendant Höss. Verdicts would be read out before the killings. I know of one instance when the verdict was read out on the direct orders of the camp commandant, this because one of his subordinates, the Lagerführer, specifically desired the execution to deter other inmates from escaping and engaging in sabotage. I know that these repressions were solely intended to punish sabotage, and especially the escape attempts undertaken by Poles. Further, I know for a fact that Höss was present at these killings. There was also a German, one Kuduk [Kaduk], but I do not know his rank – he used to live near Maciejkowice before the War – who tormented the condemned prisoners, kicking them and hitting them across the face, even when they already had a noose around their necks. Höss, who was present, did not speak or object. This is how we knew that he tolerated such things. We all had this impression.

The first large execution, which claimed the lives of 170 people, took place around 12 June. The condemned were usually summoned to roll-call in the morning, at 5.00 a.m., and assigned numbers – they knew their end was coming and would say their farewells. On the morning of the abovementioned execution (or perhaps the day before), while I was working in the camp, I saw Höss and executioner Palitzsch enter the square in the yard of block 11. Exactly 172 people were killed in this execution, from whom I recall 18 residents of Chrzanów, including the famous lawyer Tempka, engineer Szczepański, and also others from all over Poland. During the second execution, in August or in mid-September, 280 people were killed. The camp looked terrible afterwards.

The next mass execution took place at the end of August, and its victims were the inmates of block 20. This was at the height of the typhus fever epidemic. I also fell ill at the time. The block was overcrowded, with two patients to a bed, and there were no doctors or means of treatment, for what doctors there were had no medication. Two-thirds of the people were already in quarantine, while one-third were completely healthy and were supposed to go to the camp in a day or two. One day – a Saturday, as I recall – trucks drove up and an order was given to leave the block (those unable to do so were carried out) and board the vehicles, which promptly sped away. My fever had just subsided. Initially, there had been some 1,200 of us; only 80 or 100 remained, the rest were sent to the gas chamber.

I remember these executions well. They were connected with the command, because an order given by the camp command was mentioned repeatedly in conversations.

The first gassings of typhus-stricken inmates were followed by mass killings by lethal injections. By chance, I was hospitalized in block 25, opposite block 20, and I remember that for several evenings Blocksperre [block arrest] was ordered, and sometimes 8–10 corpses of injection victims would be taken away. This is how it was done, more or less.

Coming back to the question concerning personal items, even the smallest transgression committed by those who worked in this division was punishable by death. If the offence occurred during the day, and by chance on the day of the defendant’s planned inspection, the execution would usually be carried out in the evening, upon our return from work. In this case, the prisoners had to bring their condemned companion back themselves. This is all that I remember.

Prosecutor Cyprian: I would like to ask about the details of “Canada”. Were only people’s personal effects, such as clothes, underwear, and boots, gathered there, or also household items?

Witness: While sorting through the underwear we found official letters signed by the boards of communes (these concerned prisoners of Jewish origin), which cited orders issued by the German authorities to bring along all and any materials, household appliances, and professional equipment in order to be able to resettle in an isolated location and have some means of livelihood. These letters stressed that Jews were to bring food and underwear for a specified number of days, while some documents even enumerated specific types of valuables. Many documents stipulated that deportees take household items and professional equipment with them.

Prosecutor Cyprian: What kind of professional equipment was brought in with the transports?

Witness: Whatever you would find useful, from the best medical instruments, of very high value, to tools for cobblers, blacksmiths and locksmiths, sewing machines, and dental instruments. There were chairs, X-ray machines of various sizes, enough medical equipment for several dozen hospitals. The equipment – usually in very good condition – was sent to German hospitals. On top of that, plenty of medications arrived with the transports and were sent to German hospitals and hospitals for the SS.

Prosecutor Cyprian: What about the valuables, in what quantities were they collected?

Witness: When the number of transports reached its peak, four chests the size of this table – perhaps bigger – were sent away daily. The chests were filled with valuables, gold bars, diamonds, dollars, and pounds sterling. There was everything.

Prosecutor Cyprian: Where the contents catalogued on the spot?

Witness: All the other items were recorded and counted: underwear, shoes etc., but valuables were not.

Prosecutor Cyprian: Where were they sent?

Witness: Valuables were first sent to the commandant’s office, but I do not know where next. According to the written information which we sometimes received, they were dispatched to the township of Bad Berka.

Prosecutor Cyprian: Did people apply to be allocated these items?

Witness: Yes, there were applications from a number of townships and private individuals from the heart of Germany and from the NSV. The majority of the articles were sent to the camp in Łódź. and also deep into Germany, to German refugees from Poland, as well as to the camps located at the time in Panewniki near Katowice.

Prosecutor Cyprian: Did these allocations also cover Jewish items of property?

Witness: They covered only Jewish items of property.

Prosecutor Cyprian: Did the applications indicate that their authors were aware of this fact?

Witness: Yes, I saw several applications – signed by Pohl – that referenced the Jewish operation. The applicants asked for prams and (mostly) underwear, as well as for kitchen appliances gathered during this action.

Prosecutor Cyprian: They asked for prams seized in the course of the Jewish operation?

Witness: Yes.

Prosecutor Cyprian: Where there any complaints about the items being stained with blood?

Witness: Very often. I remember that one factory – I do not remember from which township – sent back three suitcases of valuable goods, complaining that the prisoners had failed to do their job properly. Two complaints concerned the sloppy and unsanitary sorting of underwear, which was stained with excrement, but especially with blood. Then we had complaints from the Army. Many shipments were intended for the Army, because its soldiers had to be supplied with civilian clothes, coats and boots in first order. Following these complaints, the department and the entire kommando were subjected to very severe repressions.

Prosecutor Cyprian: Were there many prams?

Witness: Several thousand over the entire period. I must stress that children’s underwear accounted for one third of the whole volume of underwear, that is for about 35 percent.

At this point I would like to emphasize one fact. I remember when transports started arriving from Italy. I did not see these people, but during the sorting of personal effects I saw their identification cards. On the basis of these documents I figured they included both Aryans and non-Aryans, mostly members of the intelligentsia: doctors, journalists, ministerial officials and so on. This was the time when female prisoners from Italy started the first revolt at the crematorium. Several SS men were shot. Following the rebellion we received about two wagons – that is several truckloads – of underwear, clothing, and all those other things which people usually have on their person, valuable items included. We were told to pick out the latter – the rest, due to the amount of blood – it resembled putty, the clothes mixed with shreds of flesh and fingers, especially female fingers, ringed – since it stank horribly, for the weather was warm, it was all incinerated in the crematorium.

Prosecutor Siewierski: Perhaps the witness could clarify: the witness worked in “Canada” – the one located in the main camp. Were all the items from the crematoria, or rather from the gas chambers located in Birkenau, transported to your “Canada”?

Witness: Everything from all the transports was brought to us.

Prosecutor Siewierski: The witness has said that there was another “Canada” – located in Birkenau. How was that other “Canada” supplied?

Witness: There was a time when this work was divided between both “Canadas”, but later most of it was assigned to the second camp.

Prosecutor Siewierski: So the witness’ calculations pertain to the “Canada” located in the main camp, while certain quantities of goods were additionally stored in Birkenau.

Witness: That is correct.

Prosecutor Siewierski: Perhaps the witness could explain what exactly the segregation – or sorting – consisted in? For example: to what extent was underwear sorted? Furthermore: what happened, for instance, with dirty underwear that could be washed, and what specific actions were performed during segregation?

Witness: As regards the underwear, there was a special barrack manned by SS men. This is where valuable items were picked out, put into chests, and then carried over to the head- office in the second barrack, where another department carried out the segregation. All of the underwear was segregated into four categories: perfectly good, worn-out, totally unusable, and children’s underwear. Pieces of underwear were frequently bloodstained or dirtied with shreds of flesh. The prisoners had to arrange them into parcels. As I have already stated, underwear that was in good condition was intended for German civilian and military camps. Underwear that was in a worse state of repair, or Jewish underwear which had stars that could not be unstitched or otherwise removed, was sent to concentration camps in the Reich.

Prosecutor Siewierski: Let us move on to the misappropriations committed by the SS men. Did you and others who worked in “Canada” have an opportunity to observe that they were stealing?

Witness: Not just an opportunity. The SS men forced some of the less intelligent inmates to steal.

Prosecutor Siewierski: How did they do this?

Witness: They ordered that prisoners give them a certain amount of gold, valuables, or textiles of the highest quality. Those whom they broke, in one way or another, did not ever see the sun again. They would be liquidated in due course.

Prosecutor Siewierski: What if someone resisted and refused – what happened to him?

Witness: They could not do anything to him because of this openly, but they would harass him until they ran him down. In this line of work people hardly ever died of natural causes.

Prosecutor Siewierski: The witness mentioned that following Höss’ inspection repressions were introduced because of the discovery of irregularities. Can the witness provide an example of these irregularities?

Witness: In this instance they were not irregularities as such, but rather a failure to maintain order. For instance, there were complaints from outside the camp that the proper underwear had not been delivered, etc.

Prosecutor Siewierski: So these were not misappropriations in the sense that a prisoner stole something from “Canada”? Was such a thing ever discovered during an inspection?

Witness: Such things were often discovered during evening inspections, and in one instance a female inmate was ordered to be executed on the spot.

Prosecutor Siewierski: The witness said earlier that executions would take place after such an inspection. We are looking for clarification as to how this method of procedure could have been connected with the camp command’s orders. Please elaborate on this matter.

Witness: I have already given one such example. A prisoner collapsed and fell asleep during work. The defendant, who was present at the time, had him shot. One of the SS men shot the man dead.

Prosecutor Siewierski: Did defendant Höss give this order?

Witness: On that day – yes.

Prosecutor Siewierski: When did the execution take place and under what conditions?

Witness: It took place in the evening. On that day we were loading several wagons of underwear – this was the hardest kind of labor. One of the prisoners fainted and fell asleep in the barrack. When the kommando was about to leave, they searched for him. Suspecting that he stayed behind in a wagon, planning to flee, they searched the wagon. He was not found there, so the search continued. He was eventually found in the barrack and ordered to be killed.

Prosecutor Siewierski: Perhaps the witness can recall – this is an important issue for the Tribunal – on what basis does the witness state that this was ordered by commandant Höss?

Witness: On the basis of his presence during the search that day, and of the conversations between the SS men.

Prosecutor Siewierski: The witness spoke about selections made among the personnel of “Canada”. What were the criteria of these selections – the prisoner’s health, or perhaps his behavior while working in “Canada” or performing certain functions in “Canada”? The Tribunal would like the witness to specify the character of these selections.

Witness: Larger selections were carried out on the orders of the commandant’s office, while smaller selections were more closely connected with the functions performed by inmates. Individual persons would be dismissed from “Canada”, and their deaths announced within several days. Prisoners from other camps would be informed by those from “Canada” of these deaths.

Prosecutor Siewierski: So, dismissal from work in “Canada” was tantamount to a death sentence.

Witness: Yes.

Prosecutor Siewierski: On what basis were people removed from “Canada”?

Witness: There were various reasons. Prisoners refused to steal or were caught with stolen goods at the gate. They would be punished, even though they were stealing for others rather than for themselves. When theft was disclosed, the [real] culprits themselves tried to get rid of the prisoner as quickly as possible.

Judge Zembaty: The witness stated that 13 to 16 million pairs of shoes were transported from “Canada”. Is this the number of pairs of shoes from Auschwitz or Birkenau?

Witness: From of all the transports which arrived in Birkenau for gassing.

Judge Zembaty: How did the witness establish this number?

Witness: On the basis of shipment and calculation ledgers. Shipments of personal underwear and textiles…

Judge Zembaty: …we are concerned with shoes.

Witness: Each transport was annotated – that such and such a number of pairs had arrived.

Judge Zembaty: The number provided by the witness is fairly accurate?

Witness: Yes.

Judge Zembaty: Were there also new shoes, ones which had never been used?

Witness: Yes.

Judge Zembaty: What was the percentage share of unused shoes?

Witness: It is hard to tell, at least 15 percent. A small number, 1 percent, were unfit to wear.

Judge Zembaty: How would the witness relate this figure to the number of people who were gassed? According to the witness’ estimates, how many people were gassed if we take into account that some of the shoes were unused?

Witness: The segregation of items indicated that each prisoner had three pairs of shoes with him. Thus, if we count three pairs per inmate – and base ourselves on the above figure – we would have to conclude that more than 5–5.5 million people passed through the crematoria.

Attorney Ostaszewski: The witness stated that he learned that Höss had ordered executions from conversations with SS men. Is this correct? Did I understand correctly?

Witness: Partly, yes.

Attorney Ostaszewski: So far it has been established in the course of the trial that there was a considerable distance between the SS men and the prisoners. Such confidential conversations seem unlikely.

Witness: The SS men did not care much when it came to this kommando, because it was to be gassed in the future.

Attorney Ostaszewski: So the SS men discussed this subject. Did the witness hear these conversations?

Witness: I heard the conversations carried on between the SS men.

Attorney Ostaszewski: As regards the Jew who lay exhausted in the barrack, the witness has stated that Höss ordered he be executed. The witness did not hear the command himself?

Witness: I was not present when the command was issued. We – the working prisoners – were ordered aside; the search was conducted by special units.

Attorney Ostaszewski: So how did the witness find out about it?

Witness: From those prisoners who were present during the search.

Attorney Ostaszewski: So they were not present when the command was issued.

Witness: They were. According to the accounts of prisoners who were present, they heard the order being given to execute him immediately.

Presiding Judge: There are no further questions, the witness may stand down.