Presiding Judge: Next witness, please: Jan Nowak.
(Witness Jan Nowak approaches the stand.)
Presiding Judge: Please state your personal data.
Witness: Jan Nowak, 39 years old, doctor, Roman Catholic, no relation to the defendants.
Presiding Judge: I advise the witness as per Art. 107 of the Code of Criminal Procedure that he is obliged to speak the truth. False testimony is punishable by incarceration for up to five years. Do the parties offer any motions regarding the manner of questioning?
Prosecution: No.
Defense: No.
Presiding Judge: Therefore the witness will be heard without an oath. What can the witness say about the case and regarding the defendants? Does the witness recognize them?
Witness: I recognize some of the defendants from Auschwitz and Majdanek. I will name them in the order that I met them: Grabner, Seufert, Plagge, Aumeier from the Auschwitz camp, Orlowski and Mussfeldt from the Majdanek camp.
Presiding Judge: What can the witness say about them?
Witness: I met Grabner on the day I arrived in the camp, that is, on 26 June 1941. I arrived as part of a transport of 51 people in handcuffs, they were removed in Grabner’s presence. After receiving the documents we were called out by our names and divided into a few groups. I was put into a block and was later sent to work at various kommandos. In the closing days of June, during a roll call which lasted longer due to a prisoner escape, I fainted and was taken to the block and then to the Revier [hospital]. While at the Revier, I learned that the first mass shooting of Auschwitz prisoners had taken place on 3 November. Some of my colleagues were also taken. I saw them all, as they were led out from the death block, block 11, in fives. There were 75 of them in total and after the roll call they were driven through the camp to the killing field. I saw, among others, director Feliks, Czuchajowski, the president of Kraków, a few academics arrested in Kraków, and my other colleagues, who had been brought to Auschwitz earlier. They were all taken to the Kiesgrube [gravel pits], where the shootings were done at the time. I learned that straight from the nurses, who are, unfortunately, dead now.
Presiding Judge: Did the witness see any of the defendants doing that?
Witness: I only saw them push a group of prisoners across the camp.
Presiding Judge: Did the witness see them at the execution?
Witness: I did not see them personally, I only know that from others.
Presiding Judge: Then the witness may say what he saw himself.
Witness: On 13 August I was in block 12. Because of an escape by one of the prisoners, a roll call was held from dawn until night. It was conducted by all the SS men, accompanied by camp commandant Höß and Palitzsch. Defendant Grabner also took an active part in it and alongside Fritsch they led ten prisoners out of the line and into the bunker. Among them was Father Kolbe, known to everyone. Almost all of them died within two or three days. On the third day, the prisoner who had escaped was brought back to the camp, but there was no way to bring all those who had died because of him back to life.
Presiding Judge: For how long did the witness remain in Auschwitz?
Witness: From 26 June 1941 until February of 1942. Then I was taken away to Lublin and jailed in Majdanek.
Presiding Judge: Was it at that time that the witness encountered defendant Mussfeldt?
Witness: Yes indeed.
Presiding Judge: What can the witness say about him?
Witness: Initially Mussfeldt, much like the rest of the crew, did not have an assigned function, rather, he occasionally filled in as a Blockführer [block leader]. I would meet him quite frequently when I was working at the prisoners’ hospital. Over the next months of my stay in Majdanek, Mussfeldt became the head of the so-called old crematorium, located between fields 1 and 2, and executions were held there as well.
As for facts [regarding events] that shook the camp, I would mention the first annihilation of patients suffering from typhus fever: about 2,000 sick, both from the hospital and the camp, who were executed in the neighboring forest. After that first mass extermination, a panic set in among the Russian prisoners of war. The remaining ones wanted to escape and, in mid-July, 80 of them managed to do so. The remaining several dozen, who were at the time sent away alongside the sick from the hospital, were shot – some in the crematorium, some in the blocks.
As for further facts I can mention the year 1943, when, right after Easter, entire transports of Jews from the Kraków ghetto started to arrive. It went on for some 20 days. They would bring in a thousand, two thousand, three thousand at a time. They were lined up behind the baths and sorted into groups. The stronger ones, who could work, were sent to work, the weaker ones – to be destroyed. Every day afterwards, from the block I was in, I could see scenes of slaughter of Jews brought from the “rose field” to the crematorium. They were mostly elderly, weak, sick, and cripples. In some cases, when healthier ones were also brought into the crematorium, the crematorium was overloaded. I saw nightmarish scenes take place there. During blackouts, the blankets or covers fell from the windows of the crematorium a few times – and then I saw completely naked figures trying to run away. According to reliable witnesses, the destruction took various forms. The stronger were shot, the weaker were killed by a club to the neck. Of course it happened in the area under Mussfeldt’s administration.
From the later period I remember a fact from the Effektenkammer, that is, the kommando that sorted valuables brought to the camp with the transports. In consequence of a scandal that had resulted in Berlin being informed about SS men taking away the valuables, a commission arrived from Berlin. It ordered that kommando liquidated. They were eliminated in the chambers of the old crematorium. Mussfeldt and Thumann were the ones to do it. Mussfeldt enjoyed the notoriety of being the man who terrified prisoners the most after Thumann, due to his manifest cruelty and the role he had in the camp. He was often inebriated and would then go on rampages in indescribable ways.
Presiding Judge: Maybe the witness would present what he saw. What did Mussfeldt do, what acts did he commit?
Witness: What I have said are facts that resulted directly from Mussfeldt’s actions, as he was the master there. All those details refer to him. I could not have seen them. Those who did are dead now.
Presiding Judge: So the witness has heard about him. Can the witness say what acts did he commit?
Witness: I remember a fact from the period when special SS courts held power in the Lublin region due to intense guerrilla activity. Polish prisoners, male and female, were brought from the Lublin Castle and directly from the prisons neighboring Lublin in special cars, and subsequently shot in the new crematorium. I was told (I heard it from a Leichtenträger [corpse carrier]) that in one case a woman refused to bare herself and was then thrown into the oven alive. Many other facts were told about how Mussfeldt did the shooting personally. He also took part in the shooting of Jews on 3 November.
Prosecutor Pęchalski: The witness has mentioned a group that Czuchajowski died with. How much of the responsibility for the death of that group lies with defendant Grabner? The group was divided into smaller units and what happened next?
Witness: The camp rules said “ Kein Jude mehr im Lager!” [“Not a Jew more in the camp!”] Under that principle all SS men and kapos were ordered to destroy, within the couple of days that followed, all Jews arriving in the camp or already there. At the same time, per the regulations – as I learned later – priests were usually sent to penal companies alongside all those in the category of serious political criminals.
Prosecutor: The witness has mentioned he knows Seufert, where from?
Witness: After a few months in the camp I was completely exhausted. A selection was performed and chosen prisoners were bathed and sent to the death block. We expected the worst to come. We were indeed placed on floor I of the block of death. At the time, due to the activity of then-Blockführer Seufert, the penal company was reduced to a number so low that a decision was made to fill the block with those incapable of work. I was placed there too. Out of a group of 350 only seven of us remain alive. The survivors were those who were extracted from there either by colleagues or through knowing trades needed in the camp. It was then that I had my first encounter with the death block. After being extracted from it, I worked at the hospital, and after a few months I was chosen as part of a group of doctors to go to the Lublin camp.
Prosecutor Brandys: The witness has mentioned defendant Plagge from his time in Auschwitz as well. Does the witness know directly of any facts of his criminal activity towards the prisoners?
Witness: I was in the penal company for the second time between November and December of 1942, and Plagge was Blockführer at the time. Aside from his specialty in “sports” that he arranged for us to see, he also showed off various tricks. When standing on the steps leading to the block, he would show off his strength by hitting various people if they did not take their caps off in time or the like. If someone did not instantly collapse, he would strike them again until they fell and bloodied themselves.
Prosecutor: The witness has mentioned defendant Aumeier. Did the witness ever see Aumeier beat [the prisoners]?
Witness: When I was to leave the camp, I arrived at the camp administrative office to settle the formalities of my release. I saw Aumeier whipping a prisoner.
Defense Attorney Czerny: Can the witness say what was the extent of Mussfeldt’s activities as the chief of the old Majdanek crematorium? Was he, as the boss, tasked with the shooting, hanging, and torture, or just the burning of bodies?
Witness: As far as I know, Mussfeldt’s job was to burn bodies, but during the selections we knew that all other SS men could be sent to take part in the shooting or in other actions.
Defense Attorney: Does the witness have information about Mussfeldt being sent for such actions?
Witness: Yes, I do.
Defense Attorney: Firsthand or secondhand?
Witness: Regarding the prisoners employed in the politische Abteilung [political department], they were firsthand.
Presiding Judge: No more questions? (Nobody answers.) The witness is excused.