The ninth day of the hearing, 20 March 1947
(After the recess)
President: Please summon the witness Kowalczyk.
The witness gave the following information about herself:
| Name and surname | Janina Kowalczyk |
| Age | 40 |
| Occupation | doctor, associate professor at the Jagiellonian University |
| Marital status | married |
| Religious affiliation | Roman Catholic |
| Relationship to the parties | none |
| President: | What are the motions of the parties regarding how the witness should be heard? |
| Prosecutor Siewierski: | We release the witness from the obligation to take an oath. |
| Attorney Ostaszewski: | We release the witness from the obligation to take an oath. |
President: The Tribunal has decided to hear the witness without an oath. What does the witness know about the defendant Höss and about the camp?
Witness: I don’t know any details concerning the defendant because I had no contact with him on the premises of the camp. I could say more about the camp itself. I was detained at Auschwitz from January 1943, then I was transferred – überstellt in camp terms – to Kraków, where I was released in 1943. During my stay in the camp, at first I was in block 14, then in the hospital at block 24, where I was in charge of barrack 24 as a doctor, next in block 10, where I worked in the so-called Institute of Hygiene, living in the middle of the men’s camp at block 10. Then I was transferred to Rajsko, from where they moved me to Kraków, where I was released.
I will try to describe the conditions at Auschwitz camp chronologically – in the order in which I experienced them. At first I stayed in block 14, where I didn’t perform any special function prior to being assigned to the hospital. At the time when I was there, the block housed about 900 women. It was overcrowded. Apart from the Polish women who had been sentenced in connection with their political activity, there were also Polish women who had been arrested during street round-ups and those deported from the Zamość region, whose children and farms had been taken away. They were sent to Auschwitz together with their older, 14–15 year-old daughters. There were also Czech women who had been sentenced in a trial of communists, and many French women. The conditions were the same as in the other blocks at Auschwitz, which means that the building had no ceiling (only a roof), very few windows, no electric light, and no floor. In the corridors on the left and right, there were three-story bunk beds – some with, others without pallets filled with wood shavings. The bottoms of the beds were made out of wooden boards acquired from the demolition of houses around Oświęcim, mostly from pigsties and stables. This is why the entire block was filled with a distinct smell. One bed was used by five, seven, or even nine women, depending on how badly the block was overcrowded.
Food and sanitary conditions are generally known. Perhaps I should mention the so-called general roll-call. All women from the Birkenau camp – except for those severely ill who were lying in the hospital – were escorted to a field next to the camp. It’s hard to tell how many hours we were standing outside – we were driven out when it was still dark, at about 5.00 a.m., and we stood there until nightfall. While we were in the field behind the camp wires, block 25 was emptied. At that time in Birkenau, it was the block for those earmarked for death. No food and drink were distributed there and, every now and then, women were transported from this block to the crematorium. During general roll-call we saw trucks carrying the corpses of women who had died in the camp, as corpses from the entire camp were transported to the yard of block 25. The trucks fully loaded with corpses drove first. The last truck was only half-full of corpses, while the remaining space was filled with the living. This truck made a turn towards Birkenau. When all female prisoners were outside the camp, the German Aufseherinnen [female overseers], the camp authorities, conducted an inspection during which all of our packages, all of the food and clothing that the prisoners had in their possession – everything that was in the blocks was taken away. After the inspection, we were told to run through the gate into the camp, on the so-called Lagerstrasse [camp street]. We were told to run fast, while a commission comprised of German camp authorities who were standing in front of the gate set some of the prisoners aside and let the rest enter the camp. At the time we didn’t understand what this was about (prisoners from this block were fairly new to the camp). Later it turned out that this is was a selection for block 25. A Frenchwoman with one leg who walked in front of me on crutches was picked for block 25. Next to me walked some elderly lady from Kielce, who had been arrested on a train from Zakopane to Kielce – she couldn’t run, so she too was sent to block 25.
To accurately describe sanitary facilities in block 14, perhaps I should talk about the toilets. In the camp, right before the wires, there was a barrack with a large pit in the middle, used as a toilet for women. Leaving the blocks at night in order to get to this toilet was forbidden. Wandering outside the blocks could get you shot. Women often had to get up at night because many of them suffered from diarrhea. The area around the blocks was often foul because women were afraid to go farther away. The weaker ones didn’t leave the block at all, and they fouled up the bottom bunks. You can imagine the sanitary conditions, especially since we returned to the block at nightfall and left at dawn. It was still dark, there was no electric light. If someone was cunning enough to rustle up a candle or if a senior block prisoner Magda lit a candle in the front area of the block, then we were able to see something and make our way to our own beds.
There was no way of washing up. We ate from unwashed bowls. A Czech female doctor specializing in children’s illnesses was there with me. At one point we served as orderlies in this block and we wanted to clean the bowls. There was no water, so we used some leftover tea and coffee to maintain some level of hygiene and avoid eating from dirty bowls. After two days we gave up. The bowls were thrown into the mud, stashed away in dirty pallets and bedding, there were no spoons, and neither was there any water or tea that could be used for cleaning.
I was soon transferred from block 14 to the hospital. In this period male doctors no longer worked in the female hospital – they were to be replaced by female doctors. I was assigned to block 24 together with three Jewish female doctors from Berlin – one of them went mad and was sent to block 25, and the other two died of typhus. I also suffered from typhus, but mine was a mild case, because I had been vaccinated.
In block 24, which housed a hospital for women, the number of patients varied. The highest number was 700. Only those women who had been diagnosed with 39 degree fever in the clinic were admitted. The hospital building had not been designed as a hospital. It was a horse stable, a wooden barrack – admittedly, with electric light – but it had only tiny windows in the ceiling. There were three-story bunk beds, some arranged lengthwise and others at an angle, in order to fit as many inside as possible. Two, three, sometimes four ill women were lying in each bed without sheets, very often naked, because clothing was taken away upon admission to the hospital block. Shirts were issued only occasionally.
In this period, the louse infestation in the hospital block was so bad that I can mention this specific fact: women who took care of their hygiene used the break at noon for picking out lice. At dinner time, doctors and nurses always picked out lice. Right after this procedure, I was putting a dressing on a sick woman who was lying in the block. I felt lice crawling over me, so I started counting them. We counted together. Having found 73 on one sleeve, we gave up on counting those on the other.
The women in the block were ill mainly with typhus, then with camp diarrhea – Durchfall – which in my opinion at first was caused by malnourishment. It was zymotic enteritis, often combined with dysentery or typhoid fever. It involved mainly acute bleeding from the stomach and intestines – gastroenteritis acuta hemoragica – caused by vitamin B2 deficiency. Old prisoners will probably know that the camp diarrhea couldn’t be treated with albumin tannate, charcoal or opium, but it could be treated if packages from home would arrive with food different from that distributed inside the camp – the kind with the proper amount of nutrients. At that period we didn’t disclose information about spotted typhus in the hospital statistics. Instead, we wrote Durchfall, influenza, or pneumonia. It was disclosed later on, when [hiding it] became impossible due to the possibility of an examination. But when I was there, during this entire time, we didn’t disclose the number of patients with spotted typhus in the statistics.
The food in the hospital was worse than the rest of the camp, because there were no Zulagen – bonuses for the working prisoners. The sanitary conditions were the same as in the rest of the camp, there was no way of washing up. Here’s a characteristic fact: there were plenty of rats in the women’s camp. When the lights were off, you had to make a lot of noise with a clog to scare a rat away. No wonder that the corpses which we carried outside the barrack and left for the so-called Leichenkommando [work detail of corpse-bearers] in the morning had had their noses and faces bitten off by rats. One morning I had to apply a dressing to a woman ill with spotted typhus, who was lying on the bottom bunk, and whose skin and muscle in the foot were bitten off up to the crus. The woman with the bitten leg lived for three more days.
There were no medications, apart from the most primitive kind such as aspirin, charcoal, sometimes tannin. There was no heart medication. If we had any medications at our disposal, it was all thanks to our colleagues from the men’s camp, who risked their own lives in order to bring us medications, or sent them via workers who came to the women’s camp.
The German doctors were always aware of the louse infestation in the hospital. While I was in Birkenau, Dr. Kitt was the camp physician, then Dr. Rohde. In the middle of the hospital barrack there were two ovens and resting on top of the chimneys was a bench of sorts. One time, when Dr. Kitt came by, about a dozen naked women were sitting on the bench, having taken their clothes off for examination. Dr. Kitt asked: “What is that?”, pointing to a woman’s back, dotted with lice which had pierced through her skin. Kitt got angry and asked which block these patients belonged to. “The entire camp is infested with lice, they’re from various blocks,” I replied. Dr. Kitt stormed off. I didn’t know whether I would get a Meldung [be reported] for speaking this way to the authorities. I later heard that Kitt had himself sprayed with some disinfectant to be fine.
The German doctors knew that we had no medications. We were told to write entirely false medical records. Dr. Kitt asked me why I didn’t record treatment administered to prisoners suffering from various diseases – in that particular case it was acute inflammation of the bladder. I replied, “I don’t record it, because I have no medications.” He gave me a dirty look. I didn’t have to face any consequences. But the German doctors were aware that we had no medications.
In block 24, when I was there, children were born. Once, when I came to the block room – the German midwife Klara Schwester was there – and after the birth of a child I go into the block room and witness the following scene: Klara detaches the baby’s hand from the edge of the bucket and drowns the child in it. I ask, “What are you doing, Klara?”. Klara begins to cry and says, “Should the mother be gassed?”. In this initial period it was known that the birth of a child and the official reporting of this fact to the camp authorities was a death sentence not only for the child, but also for the mother. So, Klara would drown the children instead of reporting their births.
Later it was better, there was no order to kill children; they could be born and live. They lived, of course, for as long as they could in these conditions, because the mother did not even have not enough water or herbs for drinking, so she couldn’t feed the baby. A child was born to a young Jewish woman. It lived about a week without a drop of milk – at that time no one ever saw any milk in the camp. Dr. Rohde was the doctor at the time. I wanted to help this child – I am not a practicing doctor – so I asked a Czech woman to help me find a solution. Dr. Rohde came in and asked what was going on with this child. I state this fact for the sake of objectivity. And I replied, “Do you have children of your own? This child is starving.” Rohde left. The senior block prisoner told me that I would go to the bunker for such an answer. Rohde returned an hour later and brought some milk in a bottle, saying that he could not do anything more, but as long as the child was alive, he could bring the milk, because this is what he saw fit as a camp doctor. But the milk was not necessary, because the child died anyway on the second day, and the German senior block prisoners drank the milk that he had brought in.
This was a period when I, while in the camp, realized that I was pregnant. Because in the camps and prisons as a result of the specific conditions there, that is as a result of their specific mental state, women do not have their normal monthly cycle, this caused two types of error in our block. I did not know that I was pregnant because it was the beginning of my incarceration in Auschwitz. It was only later that I realized. However, I had some sick women at the block, for example a Russian girl Marusia, deported to work in Germany and brought to Auschwitz, who claimed she was pregnant for two full years because she did not know why she had stopped menstruating.
I was transferred from block 24 to block 10, to the men’s camp. Immediately after my arrival in Auschwitz, my camp mates, male doctors, warned me about block 10, saying that I should try with all my strength not to end up there, because this was the block where human experiments were conducted. Work in such a block was known as the Sonderkommando, and those who worked there, in such a special job, were of course later eliminated as unnecessary witnesses.
Despite these warnings, I had to go there because the head of the so-called Institute of Hygiene, Dr. Weber, demanded that I be transferred to block 10 because of my specialty. I am an anatomical pathologist and histopathologist by profession. Dr. Weber was at once the head of the Institute of Hygiene and head of the infectious ward at St. Lazarus’ Hospital in Kraków. Because he had heard reports about me from Krakow, he demanded me as a specialist for block 10.
Block 10, the so-called block F-10, or Frauen-10, was a prison block. It was a closed block which housed both some of the women who were experimented on, and some of the women who worked there.
There were three types of work at block 10. The first involved the experiments conducted on women, this was block 10 proper. In addition, the Hygiene-Institut der Waffen-SS(Südost) [Waffen-SS Institute of Hygiene (Southeast)] was located there, followed by a technical dental laboratory. I was employed in block 10 proper. As a non-practicing doctor, I was employed in the Institute of Hygiene, where I was to work as a histopathologist.
Because the block was a prison, at 6.00 p.m. we were locked up, the German staff departed, and we were left alone and could communicate with each other freely, talk and find out what was going on and where.
We never ceased trying to find out exactly what they were doing with the women in block 10. Then we kept a lid on this information. When I was later in Rajsko, I told my companions to memorize the names of the doctors and what was done at block 10, because we did not know which of us would survive and who would get to testify.
As for the German doctors who worked there – I do not know whether the names are correct, because the German doctors never introduced themselves to us and I do not know their names well – there was Dr. Weber (an associate professor), Dr. Schumann, Dr. Wirths, Dr. Glauberg or Klauberg [Clauberg] – short, dressed in the Tyrol style, the women called him “professor.” There were three kinds of experiments on women. The first involved X-ray irradiation with the use of very powerful X-ray apparatuses, installed in a special barrack in Birkenau. Up to that point, most of the women subjected to these experiments had been free individuals, as they were selected straight from the transports. The transports were sent partly to the crematoria, partly to the camp in Birkenau, and partly to block 10. The experiments were performed only on Jewish women. While I was there, mainly female Greek Jews were selected, because this was the period when transports from Greece arrived. The women were irradiated with X-rays. Later, an opening of the abdomen and an excision of one ovary was performed. The second ovary was to be excised after some time. I was no longer there at that point, so I don’t know if this plan was carried out. The ovaries were to be examined histopathologically. This examination was not performed at Auschwitz, the preparations were to be sent to Hamburg. I don’t know where they were actually sent, because that stage was conducted outside block 10, and the German doctors made sure that we wouldn’t know much about it.
The objective of these X-ray irradiations was sterilization, destruction of the gonads. The histopathological examination was supposed to help determine what changes would develop as a result of such large doses of radiation.
We could directly observe the general symptoms which the women who had been subjected to radiations suffered from – severe fatigue, nausea and vomiting, but the proper results could manifest themselves only later, with the termination of the endocrine functions of the reproductive glands. Such changes are naturally slower and that is why we couldn’t observe them.
The second kind of experiments was carried out by Dr. Clauberg and involved injections of some unknown substance into the uterus, and via the uterus into the fallopian tubes. Clauberg told the women prisoners who were his assistants that he invented this substance on his own. He explained to his assistants that an injection of such substance was supposed to lead to temporary infertility due to fallopian tube obstruction. This was of course untrue, because an inflammation and obstruction of the fallopian tube caused by an injection of a substance would lead to permanent infertility. One of the German doctors told the nurses that the fallopian tubes were to be excised and examined histopathologically in order to check if they were indeed blocked. Since the substance also served as a contrast, Clauberg could see in the X-ray photograph whether the substance indeed had been injected into the fallopian tube. Photographic film and photographs were prepared in block 10, but Clauberg forbade entering the room where the X-ray photographs were being taken. We couldn’t go there even at night, and we were afraid to show too much interest, so I didn’t see those X-rays.
The third kind of experiments involved comparing colposcopic examinations with microscopic images. A part of the uterus that could be accessed by looking inside the vagina through a special looking glass was examined, excised, and processed into a preparation, which was then given to me for assessment. I asked Dr. Weber what I should do with this preparation – I am a scientist by profession, but I cannot work without relevant scientific literature, without reading about what had been done in this field so far, without scientific articles. He said, “You will be provided with scientific literature. We are interested in precancerous conditions, early stages of cancer.” I said I didn’t understand what he meant, because such instruction was too vague – I needed a specific aim. “Yes, it will become clear.” He never spoke to me about it again. I managed to get my hands on the list of women who underwent these surgeries, but I don’t think I should share it publicly. Perhaps some of them are still alive, so I brought the list with me and will submit it to the Court, but their names should not be made public. In addition to these three main types of experiments, there were also attempts to carry out others, but these ended at the stage of preparations. Preparations were made to carry out experiments on the secretion of urine in kidneys. Urology equipment
| and tables had been set up, but as far as I | know, no experiments were carried out. Every |
| now and then, there was a | new idea. They would start working on something. One time, |
| a | German commission went to the first floor and ordered several dozen women to undress |
and march before the commission naked, while we waited downstairs to learn what they would do with them. At first we heard that they were selecting only the skinny ones, then the elderly, then the obese, and finally – those with some sort of specific nose shape for the purposes of anthropological research which they had initiated there. I don’t see why the women had to walk before them naked for that. The attitude of the German doctors towards this experimental material, these women, and the prisoners who assisted them during the operations, can be demonstrated by the fact that Clauberg also subjected two of his assistants to injections which caused infertility, even though the women knew what this meant and begged him not to do it. The rest of the women subjected to experiments usually didn’t know what was happening. If a woman considered unfit for experiments were to be transferred to Birkenau (i.e. away from the place where she didn’t have to work and could live indoors, in relatively good conditions) – to this deadly camp – she pleaded not to be sent there. What can I say about these German doctors who conducted such experiments and about these methods of experimenting on humans? Doubtless, there are times when experiments on humans are valid. Following the chemical tests and animal testing, the famous Penicillin had to be used on humans. This was an experiment on humans, but with their consent and in special circumstances. A single individual would not be allowed to do that, even with the best of intentions – only supervised by a team of specialists and researchers, for the benefit of science and the patient in question. The experiments at Auschwitz were conducted without the knowledge and consent of the subjects. They also had no scientific merit. The same results can be achieved by testing on animals. From the medical and human perspective, the German doctors disgraced themselves by committing such atrocities. Why did the doctors at Auschwitz do such things? For several reasons. Firstly, they fled from the army and from the battlefront, and thought that they could make use of prisoners’ hands and brains to achieve a better position in the world of science, as the prisoners would be the ones to carry out tests and write theses. Secondly, can we suspect the doctors at Auschwitz of some sort of erotic or sadistic approach to these experiments? We can’t rule this out. One thing is certain – we can’t blame only the doctors at Auschwitz for these experiments, because German scientists knew all about them and perhaps inspired them – that I don’t know. At block 10 there was talk that the experiments concerning castration were to be conducted on a mass scale among the Poles and other Slavic nations. Why murder masses of people in the camps, when you can castrate them? Perhaps others should judge these things. But the German scientists were aware of these experiments. I wish to draw the Supreme Tribunal’s attention to the scientific research by Professor Stieve from Berlin. You may ask him about his source of information for the scientific study that he published in “Zentralblatt fur die Ginekologie,” issue 43, 1942. In this study he writes about the changes which appear in woman’s reproductive organs, in the ovaries and uterus, as a result of prolonged fear. I mentioned that women in the camp didn’t have normal menstrual cycles. Why? Doctor Stieve’s study explains – this has been published – that due to prolonged fear, the nervous system within the ovaries regulating the whole female cycle produces changes observable under a microscope. Professor Stieve describes what changes can be observed under a microscope. He claims that changes appear not only in the ovaries,
I would like to highlight two things about the camp in Auschwitz.
Death, hunger, torture, work beyond our physical capabilities, cohabitation with criminals and sexual degenerates – this was everywhere. It was not just the exclusive domain of Auschwitz. Only over Auschwitz hung the nightmare of unprecedented hopelessness.
In 1943, a transport of women was brought in, and they had the letter E sewn on their striped uniforms. We asked what it meant. At the Politische [Abteilung] we were told that E meant Erziehungskommando [work detail of reeducation prisoners]. We asked what that meant. They were prisoners who may yet be released. The Erziehungskommando was neither numbered nor tattooed. The rest of the prisoners in Auschwitz would never cross the barbed wire – they were branded.
That is why hopelessness hung over the prisoners. They were well aware of this hopelessness. In consequence, there were no restraints. For them, there was nothing to stop them – no hope that maybe someone would leave and maybe he would tell. Everyone in his right mind, any sensible prisoner who had been there a while knew – did not want to talk or think about it – but knew full well that there could be only one way out: in smoke through the crematorium chimney. No other way. Unless something were to happen. And that was the main reason why Auschwitz was perhaps more terrible than other camps.
There is one more thing I have to emphasize here. I am a rare case in that I was in the men’s camp and the women’s camp. Block 10 was the center of the men’s camp and therefore I can say that the women’s camp was more terrible than the men’s because it was younger. And I want to say one more thing. Women can rise individually to the highest heights of heroism, but women – at least those that were in Auschwitz – could not organize a collective camp life. They were poorer at organizing camp life, more inept. Because of that, it was harder.
And one more thing. We did not know how to build – we knew nothing about carpentry, about waterworks, or how to install electric light. Our companions from the men’s camp took care of that. I do not know if anybody has touched upon these matters. I do not know if it is known that the fittings in the baths that were later installed in the camp, the electric lights and wells, and a whole range of improvements were thanks to our comrades from the men’s camp. And this was not according to the organizational plans of the camp. It was Schwarzarbeit [undeclared work]. The men risked their own lives to do this. Only they could say who paid for it with blood, and who paid with their life. They should be the ones to testify as to what happened.
All I know is that if we were short of medicine when diarrhea (Durchfall) spread in my hospital block, in these circumstances we tried everything we could to treat Durchfall. When we did not have any medications, the men somehow procured opium, which did not help, by the way. I have already said why.
There was a period when the packages did not reach us, or we needed clothes – they took care of us and helped us, acting with true heroism and risking their own lives. And they got hold of not only food, but everything that sometimes proved invaluable in the camp conditions. They gave good advice and moral support.
Once, in block 10, I thought that I was at the bottom of the abyss. That a child conceived in freedom would not be born, that everything was lost. And then, instead of a piece of sausage or margarine, or a piece of bread, I was sent a sprig of flowers from the SS men’s hothouse. This symbolic sprig of flowers was of great significance. And that is why today, on behalf of the women of Auschwitz, I would like to symbolically present our comrades from the Auschwitz camp with those flowers that sustained us, thank them for what they did for us and pay homage to what is the highest peak of humanity, to brotherhood in battle and brotherhood in distress.
President: Now the court expert will ask the witness some questions.
Court Expert Kowalski: Assistant Professor, do you know if fetuses were aborted in the Auschwitz camp?
Witness: I do not know. But as regards my situation, I can give a specific answer. I was in the camp at the beginning of my pregnancy, at a time when pregnancy was tantamount to a death sentence. Later the course eased slightly. But then my colleagues from the Auschwitz camp offered to help me – to terminate my pregnancy in order to save me. I could not make that decision, and my colleagues said, “Maybe it’s for the best.” Because then the official information was that they had started releasing pregnant women. And pregnant women were indeed taken for quarantine. Whether anyone was released, I do not know.
Expert: Assistant Professor, did you hear about the Germans performing experiments involving abortion of fetuses by injections with some infectious material or other?
Witness: No. I only remember one case of an abortion in the sixth or seventh month of pregnancy, when normally, for medical reasons, a pregnancy would not be terminated. This one case involved a Jewish woman employed in block 10, who asked for a termination for family reasons. The German doctors found out about this, and they liked the idea very much, because they had a very radical method, namely they performed an operation to remove the whole uterus along with the fetus and were supposed to have sent this uterus with the fetus to Hamburg. But I did not hear about other cases of abortion.
Expert Kowalski: Was the female material used for experimentation specially selected in terms of age or nationality?
Witness: Jewish women were usually picked for the experiments. As for nationalities, I remember that there were Polish, Belgian, German, but above all, Greek Jewish women. This made getting any kind of intelligence more complicated because we could not communicate with any of these Greeks, who were of very low intellect anyway.
Court Expert Kowalski: When it comes to the experiments conducted during research on sterilization, had the women who underwent these experiments given birth multiple times, or had they not given birth at all?
Witness: I do not know. When it comes to infertility, I do not know. However, when it comes to cutting out the vaginal area, in what they claimed was anticancer research, mothers and daughters were often chosen. On this list, which I have with me, because I was supposed to hand it over in Krakow but somehow never got round to it, I have noted some women: 17, 43 years old and here I have multiple times – mother and daughter, a mother in her 40s, a daughter of 16, 18, 19 years. Here, they were often chosen in pairs.
Court Expert Kowalski: When it comes to the cancer research, was it mainly older women who were studied?
Witness: Actually, no. So although we know full well that cancer is to some extent age- dependent, there was never any question of age here, because young girls were chosen along with their mothers.
Court Expert Kowalski: Were vaginal specimens also taken from these women?
Witness: Yes. And here I have the names of the mothers and daughters.
Court Expert Kowalski: Were these specimens small or large, and did the excision procedures cause complications and bleeding?
Witness: I never saw such a specimen, nor did I see or examine such a woman gynecologically. But I did speak with Dr. Samuel, who was a doctor in this hall. Well, he told me that in the first experiments almost the entire vaginal area was cut out, which is a very severe mutilation, and he even told me that when he was present at surgical procedures, he explained to the German doctor that it would be sufficient to excise a small piece. But this is something I did not witness firsthand.
Court Expert Kowalski: Did you hear from Dr. Samuel if, after such a major procedure involving the excision of the vaginal area, there were symptoms of obstruction and atresia of the complete external ostium of the uterus?
Witness: I do not know, because these symptoms may have occurred later, not in the first period when I was in block 10.
Court Expert Kowalski: Did Dr. Samuel not disclose any more profound details of these experiments?
Witness: He gave me the impression that he was insane. He told me that he had invented some surgical scissors or forceps. Maybe he was just bragging.
Court Expert Kowalski: Can you give an approximate number of the women who underwent these experiments and the percentage of complications after the procedures?
Witness: The main direct complications were in the form of local irritation, fallopian tube inflammation and irritation of the uterus and peritoneum. They occurred in a group of women from an experiment run by Prof. Clauberg. I know some specific cases – but I do not want to give the names of these women, because they may still be alive – where, after Dr. Clauberg’s injections, they lay in a fever, in severe pain, with symptoms of peritoneal irritation and generally severely ill for several weeks, until the end of my period of incarceration.
Court Expert Kowalski: Was your time spent in the camp not sufficient to observe menstruation in the women after surgery? Did they menstruate or not?
Witness: I cannot say. I suppose that probably yes. I mean, after irradiation, the functioning of the glands would have had to have been limited, generally. This did not necessarily need to have happened after injections in the fallopian tubes, but it certainly did happen as a result of these excisions of the vaginal area.
Court Expert Kowalski: Were there any externally visible symptoms following X-ray exposure during this time?
Witness: None could have appeared while I was there.
Court Expert Kowalski: Was radiation used therapeutically, or was it used for these procedures?
Witness: I do not know. I was in Birkenau several times, once when I worked there, and then when I was transferred to the next facility, I had to communicate via the camp. Between 1–2 July 1943, I was in the area of the X-ray block, but I do not remember everything exactly. I think there was one large apparatus there. There’s a Czech woman who should know – Dr. Zdenka Nedvědová, and also another Czech woman, who operated this apparatus, currently in Prague.
Court Expert Kowalski: Did you observe cases of burns after X-ray exposure?
Witness: No.
Court Expert Kowalski: Did you hear anything about these wounds not healing and staying open?
Witness: I do not know. From a theoretical point of view, it should be assumed that the wounds must have healed badly if the skin had been damaged with radiation.
Court Expert Kowalski: Did you hear about projects to establish a common block for women and men, where offspring would be conceived as a result of intercourse between women and men? And was there any class of men and women who would have possibly been exposed to radiation, and on whom experiments would have been conducted to determine the possibility of subsequent embryo cell fertilization?
Witness: Regarding these things, during my time there, there was talk of setting up a brothel within the confines of Auschwitz, I think it was supposed to be in block 24, but it was not established during my period of incarceration. Others will confirm this. At the time, there was only talk about the possible creation of a brothel, but whether it was to be for experimental or other purposes, I do not know. I suppose it was to be for other purposes.
Court Expert Kowalski: Did you hear about the use of contrast fluids as an injection preparation?
Witness: No. Clauberg told the nurses that it was a fluid invented by him.
Court Expert Kowalski: Did you not see photographs taken inside the vagina?
Witness: Colposcopic – no.
Court Expert Kowalski: Not colposcopic, I am talking about images made following the insertion of a camera into the vagina.
Witness: Whether this was done or not, I do not know. However, I do know that preparations for this were made. For example, there was a 35 mm camera – a Rompoks or Leica – which was in the block, in the hands of Dr. Samuel. I know that he had difficulty installing a quartz lamp because he wanted to take pictures using UV rays. Was this ever done and with what effect, I do not know.
Court Expert Kowalski: Which of the doctors did the research concerning vaginal excisions?
Witness: I do not know. It was probably Wirths. Weber was not interested in those things and he did not have anything to do with sick patients, only with the Institute of Hygiene. However I do not know if Weber did not perhaps participate in the X-ray irradiation program at Birkenau, because he always went to Birkenau when the irradiation was going to take place there.
Court Expert Kowalski: Were the vaginal specimens not examined there on the spot?
Witness: They were.
Court Expert Kowalski: Who performed this?
Witness: Histological preparations were made at the Institute of Hygiene by Dr. Mąkowski. In addition, various types of examinations were performed there; histological preparations of vaginal sections were also made, and these I received. No pathological changes were confirmed there.
Court Expert Kowalski: So these were tests carried out on healthy patients to capture the early stages of cancer?
Witness: There was no mention of cancer.
Court Expert Kowalski: Did you hear that one of the doctors, probably Dr. Samuel, said he was treating or preventing the disease in that way?
Witness: Nobody told me that. Samuel did not tell me. That would have been complete nonsense. On the other hand, he explained to the women he was experimenting on from time to time: “You should thank God, because you had cancer and we operated on you.”
Court Expert Kowalski: Did you not hear that after cutting out a section, without any further surgery to remove the reproductive organs or areas of possible cancer metastasis, he spoke to patients claiming that he had just cured them?
Witness: He made the following claim, that the very procedure that he had performed was to surgically remove cancer and that he was treating the patient in this way.
President: Do you have any more questions?
Court Expert Kowalski: Two more.
President: The witness is tired. I hereby order a recess of a few minutes.
(After the recess).
Court Expert Kowalski: Did you hear about any fatalities after the experiments?
Witness: No, I did not.
Court Expert Kowalski: And did you hear about the use of certain medications, which were given to women and caused poisoning or had a negative effect on the reproductive organs?
Witness: No, the women in the camp were fed like the rest of the prisoners. Information circulated among the prisoners that some women had something added to their food to stop the normal menstrual cycle. However, this is not true, because it was a result of their mental state, in the sense that some of the women who held some functional positions ate well but also did not menstruate, despite good nutrition with full vitamin value.
Court Expert Kowalski: Did you not hear or see the experiments carried out in order to study the pharmacodynamic effects of drugs by administering them to people?
Witness: During the period when I was there, I did not.
Prosecutor Cyprian: The witness mentioned experimentation of sealing the fallopian tubes with some special fluid, which was supposed to cause infertility. Was this kind of experiment [so] far advanced that it might still produce the same effects in freedom, or was it just doomed to fail?
Witness: The procedure was such that this injectable agent caused inflammation, secondary adhesion changes, and is not suitable for mass application due to the technical difficulties of implementation, very high costs, the necessity to monitor the process with X-rays, and the protracted duration. This type of experiment could not have any mass application.
Public Prosecutor Cyprian: Could any type of experiment have any mass application?
Witness: Yes, X-ray irradiation.
Public Prosecutor Cyprian: Mass application aimed at wiping out an entire group of persons or even a nation?
Witness: It would be possible. With the right apparatus installed, this kind of thing could be quickly carried out on a large number of people. Of course, with the right X-ray dose, this procedure could be applied enmasse.
Prosecutor Cyprian: Could entire cities be made infertile?
Witness: In order to be made infertile, each of the subjects would have to come in and be exposed one, two or three times, depending on the power of the apparatus, on experience, but these factors could be significant in an operation carried out on a mass scale.
Prosecutor Cyprian: Was the so-called Durchfall, the camp diarrhea, something known in medicine, or was it an illness particular to the camp?
Witness: I had never encountered this illness in such a form before the camp. It was not only an Auschwitz disease, but all concentration camps had it, because professors transported from Kraków to Oranienburg and Dachau all succumbed to it. In my opinion, this is not one single disease, but a combination of many different ones included under the umbrella term Durchfall. One thing is beyond doubt: diarrhea resulted from bad food – rotten, infected – as it happens in everyday life, only it was very persistent. I also had this diarrhea, but it just took a few days of voluntary starvation and it passed. The second area included within the term Durchfall was the actual bacterial dysentery, known from the times of the First World War and this, a particular infection, possibly not only a pure infection with dysentery, but sometimes – in some cases – combined with typhoid fever. The third type was constant defecation, watery and in very large quantities, a characteristic diarrhea that was not fully explained. Most unfortunately, no autopsies were performed and its cause cannot be determined exactly. However, we know the following facts: acute bleeding, dehydration and exhaustion.
This camp diarrhea passed with the appropriate administration of proper food. Maybe my fellow doctors from the men’s camp can talk about that. You should not give – I was wary of packages from home – fat, sausage, cured meat, but the sick could eat cheese. All other types of food apart from fat could be eaten to treat this diarrhea. This, moreover, was confirmed by the opinion of doctors who had the opportunity to treat the prisoners in Auschwitz after the Germans had withdrawn. Some of these doctors left. They believed that fresh curd works relatively well.
Public Prosecutor Siewierski: How was it with the prisoners giving birth? Did births take place in a residential block or at the hospital?
Witness: The hospital had one very distinguishing feature – I should have mentioned this before – namely that it was a hotbed of epidemics. No matter the reason for which a patient came to the hospital, he would always contract typhus. If some woman came in with pneumonia or an ear infection, she would get over that but then she usually got typhus. For this reason, generally, anyone who could, tried to avoid the hospital. I know cases of children being born in a block, on the bunks. Three or four days after my arrival, one of the women from the Zamość region gave birth to a child. It was at night. Immediately afterwards, she was ordered to stand for roll-call. The child was taken by sister Klara. What happened, I did not see. Now I know that the child was drowned or murdered in some other way. Women gave birth in the blocks as well as in the hospital. They gave birth there, on these beds, depending on where they slept, while if they gave birth in the hospital, then it would usually be near the heater stove.
Prosecutor: Were there any cases of puerperal fever?
Witness: Everyone in the hospital had fever and typhoid. It is difficult to say whether it was puerperal or typhoid fever. I do not remember any obstetric complications, just one case of placenta previa.
Attorney Ostaszewski: Who was this sister Klara? Was she a prisoner?
A witness: Sister Klara was a prisoner, a German midwife, from Berlin I think, an experienced woman who was sent to the camp for helping administer abortions and remained incarcerated there for a long time. When I was there, she lived through a life tragedy: because being sent to a camp from Germany resulted in the loss of her civil rights, her husband separated from her on the grounds that she was sentenced to a camp, took all her possessions, her lifetime’s earnings, and married someone else.
Attorney Ostaszewski: Did sister Klara have a negative attitude to Poles?
Witness: She did not have a special dislike towards Poles. In general, she had a block position, relatively good, she helped many women, and tried to help me out. I could not say anything bad about her. As for the incident of killing a child, she did so with good intentions, to save the woman.
Attorney Ostaszewski: You spoke about Prof. Clauberg. Do you not know from him or his assistants that he was conducting experiments, that he had his very own medication, that he was supposed to do the opposite of what was done in the camp, that is, restore fertility?
Witness: Yes. Did he do this? As he was a gynecologist practitioner, he certainly did so in practice, the method is generally known. The point is that some women do not get pregnant and it is possible that this is because the fallopian tubes are blocked. Persufflation is used, and air is blown into the tubes. Air is injected into the reproductive organs and fallopian tubes, this air passes through the entire fallopian tube and you can check whether the fallopian tubes are clear. This is a procedure that is supposed to facilitate pregnancy.
Attorney Ostaszewski: Did Clauberg not explain the effects of sterilization? That it had an impact on health?
Witness: I know from a nurse that he said it was only temporary infertility. He said that if it succeeded, it would be very useful in terms of people’s life circumstances if it was possible to periodically cause such a state of infertility without depriving a woman of the possibility of childbearing. If this were the case, maybe it would have some meaning.
President: Are there no more questions? (No.) The witness may stand down.