(Following a recess)
Presiding Judge: I would ask the witness Kazimierz Smoleń to approach. Please provide your personal details.
Witness: Kazimierz Smoleń, 30 years old, employed at a cooperative, religion – Roman Catholic, resident in Kraków, relationship to the accused – none.
Presiding Judge: I hereby instruct the witness, pursuant to the provisions of Article 107 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, that you are required to speak the truth. The provision of false testimony is punishable by a term of imprisonment of up to five years. Do the parties want to submit any motions as to the procedure according to which the witness is to be interviewed?
Prosecutors: We release the witness from the obligation to take an oath.
Defense counsel: As do we.
Presiding Judge: I would ask the witness to inform us of the goings-on at Auschwitz, and also of the behavior of the accused with respect to the prisoner population.
Witness: I arrived at the camp on 28 January 1943 and was incarcerated there until 20 January 1945. Initially, I dug ditches with the water supply and sewage kommando. It was at around this time that I first encountered the accused Aumeier, during the execution of a prisoner accused of attempting to escape. It was carried out in Birkenau, at section B2b of block no. 10. Then, while still an inexperienced prisoner, I was led up to the barrack and saw a pair of gallows, the condemned man, and a group of SS men together with Aumeier.
I do not know whether this sentence was carried out on the instruction of the authorities in Berlin, or whether it was ordered by the accused Aumeier himself. I think, however, that when in later years similar executions were carried out on the grounds of the camp, the Germans would first read out the sentence handed down in Berlin, and thereafter perform the hanging. In this case the interpreter said in Polish that the accused Aumeier declared that each prisoner who attempts to escape will be punished in the same way as this man.
At a later date, while a patient at hospital block no. 8, I witnessed the systematic gassing of prisoners from block no. 7, which was located nearby. This was towards the end of February or in the beginning of March 1943. The abovementioned block contained some one thousand patients, while it had been designed for no more than 200 people, so that one box was occupied by as many as 20 inmates, crammed together and waiting, cowered, for the order which would send them to the gas chamber.
When there was no room in the barrack, the victims waited their turn in the courtyard of barrack no. 7. Gassings were usually carried out on Tuesdays and Fridays. At the time, seeing as I was a newcomer to the camp, I do not remember exactly whether it was Grabner or Aumeier [who was present]. In any case, gassings were attended by senior SS officers and all of the Blockführers [block leader]. While I was in block no. 8, I met up with my friend Franciszek Rybicki, who was convalescing after a bout of typhus fever. One day an SS man came over from the political department and took Rybicki with him. A prisoner- doctor declared that the man was sick and could not be moved, but the SS man took him nonetheless. In the evening, Rybicki was driven back to camp in an ambulance. He had been terribly beaten, so much so that his body was completely black. I treated him with compresses all night long, and asked him about the reason for the beating. He told me that he had been interrogated at the political department by Grabner, who had maltreated him and declared that if he did not own up, he would sooner or later be shot dead. Rybicki was well aware of the threat and kept on repeating that if they summoned him to the political department once more, he would not return. I comforted him. Despite his serious condition, he was called to the political department once again, however this time he still managed to return. But after he was summoned for the third time, he did not come back. When a few weeks later I tried to determine his fate, I went to the Schreibstube [office] in Birkenau and inquired what had happened with the file of Franciszek Rybicki, no. 32000. His card contained the following annotation: "death caused by Herzmuskeldegeneration [weakening of the cardiac muscle]".
I would also like to notify the Supreme Tribunal that the political department and camp command in Birkenau did not always carry out their orders and duties with due scrupulousness.
After I arrived in the camp, I was assigned to block 20, to which a few days later some 200 people were sent; I saw them while standing next to the "Sauna" in Birkenau. Suddenly, a dozen or so SS men ran up from block 11 and started herding us through the camp gate. Naturally, none of us knew what was going to happen. We thought that we might be in for some "camp sports", which every newcomer had to experience. We ran right up to the copse near the "white house". When we reached the building, we were ordered to arrange ourselves in fives, each group holding hands. We had trouble understanding the instruction, for we did not know the language. Whereupon one of the prisoners, Kucharski, a professor from Silesia (he is still alive), said that we do not understand German. To which the Germans replied, with irony: how can Jews not understand German? Kucharski then informed them that we were not Jews, but Poles. After a while, one of the SS men inquired whether any of us had seen the group kneeling by the Blockführerstube [block leader’s office]. Someone said that he had. Thereafter we were led to the empty Gypsy camp, which was still under construction. We stood there until 2.00 a.m., whereupon they took us back to the camp. As we later learned, we could have been gassed by mistake, instead of the Jews kneeling by the Blockführerstube.
In the courtroom today I recognize the accused Buntrock, whom I encountered for the first time in July 1943. As the clerk of the hospital block, he was initially assigned to the so-called B2d section of the camp. I later ran into him near the camp gate, where he was on duty as the Blockführer. I and a group of other prisoners were returning some parcels. Buntrock inquired about the parcels, and I explained that they were being returned. He did not believe me and insisted that we were "organizing" something for ourselves. Without further ado, he entered the Blockführerstube and returned with a whip made from plaited electrical cables, gave me 15 lashes and ordered me on my way. I also encountered the accused Buntrock during the gassing of prisoners from section B2f. This was one of the gassings that took place between September 1943 and August 1944.
Since my block was situated close to the bath, from where people were selected for the gas chamber, I was able to observe the prisoners who were sent there. First, an SS doctor from the so-called SDG would come up to the block over a period of a few days, and he and his assistants would select the inmates, mainly Jews. In practice, the whole procedure consisted in the German doctor turning up and ordering all those who were weak to stand in the center of the block. And when the sick Jews had stepped forward, he ordered them to turn around and had a look at them. That was it – this was how people were chosen for the gas chamber. These people knew what lay in store for them. Sometimes they had to wait a few days before the list arrived from the political department. Before being gassed, all such prisoners were sent to the bath, from which – naked, irrespective of the season – they were driven to the gas chamber. Their behavior inspired our compassion. However none of the SS men showed as much as an ounce of humanity. When these prisoners, half-insane [with terror, lost all orientation] and simply could not get onto the trucks, the SS men beat and kicked them. It was at this time that I saw Buntrock, administering strong blows to the inmates, and also the accused Plagge, whom I met when he was Lagerführer [camp leader] at the Gypsy camp. It was a Sunday, and we were walking past the Gypsy camp, careful to keep the requisite distance. The accused Plagge, accompanied by two SS men, strode around on the other side [of the fence]. Suddenly, he shouted towards our group – "Halt!". As we knew his surname and had heard what he was capable of, not one of us intended to stop, and we all ran away, hiding between the blocks. Whereupon Plagge started shooting at us. Luckily, no one from our group was hit. He then sent a few SS men to our camp, and they dragged two of the prisoners, among them Andrzej Łepkowski (who is still alive), a student of medicine, into the Gypsy camp, where each received 25 lashes.
I encountered the accused Mandl on the grounds of Birkenau in 1944. While walking through the camp along sections a, b, c, d, e and f, I noticed a white motor-car drive up to the Blockführerstube at section e, where the Hungarian Jewesses were located. This was in July or August. One of the female prisoners was standing in front of the Blockführerstube. Mandl ran up to her and started hitting her on the top of her head; the blows were so strong that the woman soon collapsed. I am unable to say whether the accused used her hand, or whether she helped herself with some implement. This incident is etched in my memory, for later, while walking with a friend of mine, we shared our amazement at how one woman could beat another so terribly; indeed, we were surprised that she had hit her on the top of her head, and not elsewhere.
Since in Birkenau I was incarcerated at section f – which was the last section before the crematorium – for a period of two years, I witnessed the continuous incineration of bodies in the crematorium, observing the whole procedure from the window of my barrack. In June 1944, the Germans carried out the extermination of the Hungarian Jews. Enormous transports arrived at the camp – there were so many trains that you could not count the wagons. A dozen or so would roll in every day. Naturally, the existing crematoriums could not process such a mass of bodies, and therefore gigantic pyres were lit up right next to our camp, at a distance of some 200 – 300 meters, and the corpses were burned in heaps, day and night. The stench was so bad that we did not open the barrack windows, for we would have suffocated.
And the smoke was so dense that you could not see a fellow prisoner who was standing 100 meters away from you. We heard the cries of children and women, and the barking of dogs from near the pyres. This led us to surmise that the children and women were being burned alive on the pyres, and that the SS men had set their dogs on them to force them into the flames. These scenes were repeated daily, starting just after nightfall.
I also witnessed the extermination of the Gypsy camp. Some 18,000 people were gathered there. Of these, 8,000 died, while 4,000 were sent to forced labor in Germany; the remaining 6,000 were annihilated in the course of a single night. Since my camp barrack was located just 10 meters from the Gypsy camp, I could observe the whole "action" through the window. The cries and screams were terrible, and you could see the SS men milling around the camp; without a doubt, all the Blockführers were there, certainly Buntrock and the others. The children were thrown onto trucks by their legs or hands. I saw all this with my own eyes. I have nothing more to testify concerning the case.
Amongst the accused present here today, I recognize Brandl. I remember how she strode around the camp, always accompanied by her Alsatian dog, but there is nothing specific that I can say about her.
Presiding Judge: Are there any questions to the witness?
Prosecutor Szewczyk: I have one question. It appears that the witness has a good knowledge of the topography of Birkenau. Did he by any chance observe that part of the camp which was known as "Meksyk"?
Witness: Yes I did. I went to "Meksyk" a few times, in order to "organize" window panes for our barracks; we would go there and remove whole window panes, and take them back to our block. While there, I saw loads of women dressed in filthy rags. The barracks had no sewage system, and were terribly overcrowded.
Prosecutor: Were these barracks fitted out in some way?
Witness: No, because the camp was under construction, so that some of the barracks did not even have roofs – the water seeped through inside, and there was mud right up to your knees. The women huddled together, hunched down, ashamed to get up because of their tattered clothing.
Prosecutor: That is to say due to their lack of proper dress?
Witness: Yes. You frequently saw women crying; they were mainly from the Hungarian transport, but also – I think – from the ghetto in Łódź.
Prosecutor: How long were these women kept there?
Witness: For up to a month. Some were transferred to section B11c, while others were gassed; I do not know what happened with the rest. It could well be that they were sent to work.
Prosecutor: Who was the Lagerführer of this camp?
Witness: I do not know, but I think that it was administered by the accused Mandl, for she was in charge of the entire female camp.
Prosecutor Pęchalski: Does the witness know anything about Dr. Malinowski being tortured at the political department?
Witness: Dr. Malinowski was with me in Birkenau at block no. 8. I knew him well and I wanted to help him. A few days after his arrival at the camp, he was summoned to the political department and asked, among others, about something that had to do with his arrest. Malinowski informed me that he told his interrogator that he had already explained the matter during an examination at the Gestapo in Radom. In response, he received a terrible beating, and lay incoherent for a week, unable to go to work.
Prosecutor: Did the witness learn at the time, while talking with Dr. Malinowski, that the torture had been ordered by Grabner?
Witness: Dr. Malinowski told me that he had been interrogated by Grabner, however I do not know whether Grabner tortured him personally, or whether he fell victim to someone acting on Grabner’s orders.
Prosecutor: In any case, he was beaten in connection with an interrogation carried out by Grabner?
Witness: Yes.