The twelfth day of the trial
The Chairman: The next witness, Bogna Jaworska.
(The witness Bogna Jaworska takes the stand.)
The Chairman: please give us your personal data.
The witness, Bogna Jaworska, 22 years of age, clerk at the Textile Center, Roman Catholic, with no relationship to the parties.
The Chairman: I am informing you that under Article 107 of the Code of the Criminal Procedure you are obliged to tell the truth and that making false statements is punishable by a custodial sentence of up to five years. Do the parties wish to file any motions regarding the way in which to hear the witness?
Prosecutors: No.
Attorneys: No.
The Chairman: In that case the witness will testify without taking an oath. What can you tell us about the case? Which of the defendants do you recognize, and what can you tell the Tribunal about them?
The witness: I can provide information about the defendant Lächert.
The Chairman: Do you recognize her?
The witness: I certainly do. I arrived in the concentration camp in Auschwitz on 8 January 1943. After two weeks I began to work in the laundry. In the first days of February I met the defendant Lächert. Cruel towards prisoners, she would storm into the laundry from the office room and beat women about their faces. A friend of mine was beaten by her while putting coals into the stove. Lächert ran up to her and, having found a piece of a cigarette in her pocket, began beating her about her face until the chief of the crematorium came in and made her stop. Once, she beat my mother and me. We went down to have dinner, but we had forgotten to take spoons with us, so I gave my mother a bowl to hold and went back to the laundry to get two spoons. Lächert saw my mother holding two bowls and started to beat and kick her. At that point, I returned and tried to explain the situation to her. In response, I was punched several times in the face. Known in the camp by the nickname “Bloody Brygida”, she was with us only as a replacement. In April I met her in the gardens, in what was known as the Gärtnerei labor unit. Although the camp authorities didn’t forbid us to wear sweaters in April, Lächert searched us at the camp gate and took our sweaters away from us.
One day, as I was working in the gardens, she beat me about my face.
In May, during the liquidation of the Warsaw Ghetto, Jews were brought to the camp in great numbers. At that time the following episode took place. A Jewish woman lost her way near the greenhouse where she was caught by Lächert who knocked her down to the ground, lifted her dress with a stick, and began to carry out a gynaecologic examination, searching her for valuables. Later, I saw the Jew lying covered in blood.
I don’t know what happened to her. Shortly afterwards, the segregation was carried out and she might have been taken to the gas chamber or simply died. At the time, when the gassing was carried out on a large scale and the crematorium was falling behind with the incineration of dead bodies, a great pit was dug up in the garden where the bodies were dumped and burnt.
Hildegard Lächert often walked up to the pit wearing a gleeful expression on her face, inhaling the smoke with relish.
On 1, 2 or 7 June, a Jewish woman was executed by hanging for trying to escape. The execution was carried out during the roll-call in the evening. Once we were all gathered, she was brought up to the gallows.
We averted our eyes to avoid watching the execution, then Hildegard Lächert walked up to individual prisoners and turned their faces in the direction of the execution site.
I learned from other prisoners that she beat one of my friends, Kunze. She hit her so hard on the head that Kunze had to spend a long period of time in the sick room. The blow she received left a permanent scar, and her hair didn’t grow back there.
There were male staff working at the bathhouse. Lächert often showed prisoners into the bathhouse. After bathing we had hairy skin areas disinfected. Women tried to avoid this procedure. Lächert beat those whom she caught trying to evade this fumigation. She laughed as a kapo before whom they were put doused them with a decontaminating substance.
During the day, Jewish women gathered bread or bought it from other prisoners and saved it for later. Lächert took bread from those who were about to be sent into the gas chamber.
That is all I have to say about Hildegard Lächert. I am unable to provide information about others.
The Chairman (adressing Lächert): Have you heard what the witness has just testified? Do you admit this is true?
The defendant Lächert: I ask for permission to make a statement. The witness said that the segregation of Jewish women had taken place in August. At that time I was absent from Auschwitz.
With regard to warm clothes, we received formal orders to prevent prisoners from wearing warm underwear. The witness may have seen the main guard, Ehrlich, upbraiding me as I walked along with prisoners who were allowed to buy different things and whom I helped to see their relatives. Prisoners were often searched, and the main guard deprived them of everything she had found.
The witness also may have seen me arguing with the main guard and the camp commandant.
Bathing was always accompanied by lice decontamination, and lice decontamination was often followed by the burning of clothes.
I often told the kapo to leave the bathhouse but he didn’t want to. I had to carry out every order I had received from the main guard and the witness certainly knows that I spent three weeks in custody remaining only on [illegible] before I left the camp.
The witness: I didn’t say that Lächert had appeared in the laundry on 8 January but at the beginning of February, and we got there as late as 28 January. Initially, there was another woman supervising us. Lächert came as her replacement.
Sweaters were taken away only from the women who worked in the field, that is, those who made up my column. Women working under the roof weren’t deprived of their sweaters.
In the matter of making it easier for prisoners to buy food and see their relatives, I can state that I once took advantage of the opportunity to see my own relatives, but it was another guard named Ana who helped me see them. I would have mentioned it if she were here. I never received any help from Lächert, and I never saw her help anyone. I know she was a sadist who beat us for no reason at all.
The Chairman (addressing Lächert): You have heard what the witness has testified about searching prisoners for their valuables. Do you admit this is true or do you deny this?
The defendant: Your honor! There must be a mistake here. Although I was trained as a nurse, I am unable to perform things like this with a stick.
The Chairman: Does the witness uphold her testimony?
The witness: Yes.
Prosecutor Szewczyk: The defendant’s statements are confusing. The witness has testified that her detention in the camp began on 8 January. The defendant, relying on the witness’ testimony, has given us different dates. For this reason, I would like you to read out the statement (volume 58, page 121) the defendant made regarding her stay in Lublin, which lasted from October 1942 to August 1943. This means that the witness appeared in the camp at a later date than the defendant and that these dates may overlap.
The Chairman: Please, read out the relevant passage.
Court trainee Jaślan is reading out: Page 121. “I stayed in Ravensbrück from April to October 1942. Then I was transferred to the Lublin-Majdanek camp where I stayed until my release in the first days of August 1943”.
Prosecutor Szewczyk: The defendant has just stated that she was there until June.
The defendant Lächert: Your honor! I wish to note that I was discharged from the camp at the end of July, and I left it at the beginning of August.
Prosecutor Szewczyk: The witness has mentioned that the defendant was referred to in Majdanek as “Bloody Brigitte”. Why was she given this nickname?
The witness: We called her “Bloody Brigitte” because none of the other female guards treated us like she did. None of them beat us as long as we worked. She beat us for no reason at all. We always found her drunk and holding her whip.
Prosecutor Szewczyk: She stood out from the rest of female guards by her severity.
The witness: Not by her severity but by her sadism.
Prosecutor Szewczyk: Can you tell us something about the defendant’s habit of getting drunk? How did it affect her behavior?
The witness: When she was drunk…
Prosecutor Szewczyk: Did this happen often?
The witness: Very often. She never marched us to the gardens while she was sober. While drunk, she would beat and kick us. She found fulfillment in beating us. Then she would simmer down from her rage and be calm.
Prosecutor Szewczyk: Did this “examination” of a Jewish woman with a stick take place only once? Or, based on what you saw or were told, can you say that this took place more often?
The witness: I saw it from afar once. The incident was much talked about. The whole camp knew about it. I don’t know if there were more incidents like this because I was transferred to the sewing room.
Prosecutor Szewczyk: How was this woman affected by this examination?
The witness: Covered in blood, she was staggering. There was a selection in the evening and I don’t know what happened to her.
Prosecutor Szewczyk: So the witness doesn’t know what happened to her. And how long were you in Majdanek?
The witness: From 8 January to 15 July 1945.
Prosecutor Szewczyk: This was when the defendant Orlowski appeared in the camp. Have you heard anything about her?
The witness: No, I don’t know her.
The defendant Lächert: I want to make a statement.
The Chairman: Please go ahead.
The defendant: Supreme Tribunal! I must state that I was never drunk, and I didn’t have a reputation for being a drunkard. If this had been the case, then I would have ended up as a camp prisoner myself.
The Chairman: Does the witness uphold her testimony?
The witness: Yes.
Attorney Wolska-Walas: Did the defendant beat prisoners while being sober or only while being drunk?
The witness: She beat prisoners when she was sober and when she was drunk.
Attorney Wolska-Walas: Were you far away from where this incident with the Jewish woman took place?
The Witness: We were working at a distance of 50 to 100 meters from where this happened.
Attorney Wolska-Walas: From such a distance you couldn’t clearly see what was going on.
The witness: Other prisoners who were working much closer to where it happened and who saw everything very well described the whole incident to me. And their word can be relied on.
Attorney Wolska-Walas: So you learned from others about this incident.
The witness: Th kapo who was close to the defendant told us later about what had happened.
Attorney Wolska-Walas: But you didn’t see it yourself.
The witness: I saw it from afar and I heard inhuman screams. Your Honor may summon other witnesses and they will testify the same.
The Chairman: The witness is free to go.