German Crimes in Poland

Published by the Central Commission for Investigation of German Crimes in

Poland - Warsaw, 1946

Note on Source Material: the text contains numerous inaccuracies of spelling,

hyphenation and grammatical usage, which have been left as in the original. Usage is
also inconsistent. Page numbers precede text.

INDEX

-Background

-The Auschwitz Extermination Camp. Part I

-The Auschwitz Extermination Camp. Part II

-The Auschwitz Extermination Camp. Part III

-The Treblinka Extermination Camp

-The Extermination Camp at Chelmno (Kulmhof)

-Extermination of the Polish Jews in the Years 1939-1945. Part I

-Extermination of the Polish Jews in the Years 1939-1945. Part II

-German Crimes Committed During the Warsaw Rising. Background

-German Crimes Committed During the Warsaw Rising. Part I

-German Crimes Committed During the Warsaw Rising. Part II

-German Crimes Against Soviet Prisoners-of-War in Poland

***

BACKGROUND/INTRODUCTION

The Central Commission for the Investigation of German crimes in Poland, after
more than a year’s work, is now publishing the first results of its investigations of the
crimes which the Germans committed between 1939 and 1945.
For months members of the Commission investigated any traces left by the occupants
of the crimes they had committed, collected documents and all available proofs of
crime, and took evidence from witnesses and from surviving victims of the criminal
proceedings, in an endeavour to obtain as detailed and true a picture of the offences
as possible. It is due to the fact that these investigations were carried out in due legal
form, by examination of witnesses and according to the principles which are valid in
all judicial proceedings-i.e. impartiality, proper caution in collecting evidence, and
careful verification of witnesses’ statements-that so long a time has elapsed before the
Commission could publish the first results of its work. All data which appear in this
bulletin are based on evidence which has been very carefully examined from every
angle and properly verified. The only statements and documents that have been
considered were those which could be treated as factual evidence. Only data of
unquestioned evidential value were considered fit for publication.
The Bulletin of the Central Commission for the Investigation of German Crimes in
Poland aim at recording the unique historical and sociological phenomenon of the
crimes which the Germans committed in Poland during the world war 1939-45. The
recording of these crimes and their detailed reconstruction has been considered by the
Commission as a duty, not only towards the Polish nation, but towards humanity. Not
merely the present but also future generations ought to realize what deeds were
performed by the Germans under the influence of national-socialistic ideology; what
certain ideas and social myths lead to, and of what kind and range where the crimes
committed by the Germans in the middle of the twentieth century in a country the
population of which was considered by the rulers of the Third Reich as mere slaves,
condemned to death.
The crimes that were committed in Poland cannot be treated as transgressions by
individuals against laws, regulations, or orders. They are not merely the criminal acts
of individual people, in breach of valid laws. They were planned and prepared for by
the chief German governmental authorities, who explicitly instructed offices and
government officials as to the way in which they should be carried out.
They were committed in accordance with Nazi law and with Nazi ethics and
ideology; not only by members of the Gestapo, SS and police, but also by officers
and soldiers of the German army, German administrative officials, railway officials,
doctors, and by representatives of German industry and science. The whole
governmental system in Poland was criminal, and every crime was an inevitable
consequence of the official German attitude.
The ashes of the millions of victims of these official German crimes have the right to
request those who survived that history should accurately depict the period 1939-
1945, and that the real truth about these years may be fully revealed.

THE AUSCHWITZ EXTERMINATION CAMP

PART I

I. The geographical, geological and climatic situation of the Camp

II. The beginnings of the Camp and its development
III. "Sonderbehandlung" and "Sonderaktion"
IV. Arrangements and organization of the Camp
V. Prisoners
Destruction of the Jews
Plunder of the victims‘ property
The working prisoners
Quarantine
The work
VI. The fate of the Soviet prisoners
VII. Punishments
VIII. Housing conditions
IX. Food Rations
X. The victims of hunger in photographs
XI. The camp hospital and "scientific" experiments on the prisoners
XII. The selections
XIII. The shootings
XIV. Hanging
XV. Gas-chambers
XVI. The burning of corpses. Crematoria
XVII. The wiping out of all vestiges of the crime

I. The geographical, geological and climatic situation of the Camp

p.27

The small, provincial Polish town of Oswiecim is situated far from the main railway
centres and the more important lines of communication. It has grown famous not only
in Poland but in the eyes of the whole world because of the German concentration
camp called officially "Konzentrationslager Auschwitz", situated in the suburbs of the
town. The little town has about 12,000 inhabitants, and is situated 286 km. southwest
of Warsaw, and 50 km. west of Cracow.
Oswiecim lies on the crossroads from East to West. Although it is close to the Tatra
Mountains and the Gate of Morawy, a water shed of the Danube, Wisla and Osdra
(Fig. 1) Oswiecim is situated on particularly flat, and even hollow ground, without
any declivity. It is sufficient to look at a topographical map (Fig. 2) to see that the
place where Oswiecim is situated and the centre of the camp is like the bottom of a
flat basin with no regular slope for draining away water. It is encircled by a series of
fishponds, which permeate the whole land with damp, mist and mud.
The earth at the bottom of the basin is impervious to water owing to its geological
structure, (Fig. 3) consisting of a 60 to 80 metres thick layer of marl, at the bottom of
the basin. The surface consisting of sand and pebbles is always muddy, due 40 its
underlying substances. Besides, the quality of this stagnant water is very bad due to
the rotting of organic substances which poison the air. It could be improved only by
in-

p.28
stalling very expensive purifying works. For all these reasons, Oswiecim and its
surrounding are not only damp but also abound with malaria and other diseases,
which endanger human life.

II. The beginnings of the Camp and its development.

Already in the first part of 1940 the Nazi authorities had organized a concentration
camp in a part of the suburb of Oswiecim - Zasole, the so called Owsianka. At first
the camp consisted of military barracks and several buildings of the Polish Tobacco
Monopoly situated on the left bank of the river Sola. These barracks consisted of 16
low buildings and four one-storeyed buildings; they could not suffice for the future
needs of the whole of Europe conquered by the Germans and formed the germ of the
gradually constructed huge death camp. If the SS. authorities chose as a suitable place
for the future big camp a place like Oswiecim and its surroundings, it was due to its
situation and climate and to the character of the ground which qualified this place for
its name as the most infamous of a long series of concentration camps constructed by
the Nazi Germans in Europe. The lack of technical and housing facilities and the fact
that the vicinity of Oswiecim corresponds in its geological and climatic conditions
with the type of the "Dachauer Moos", with unlimited, constantly quaggy and damp
moorland, dim with fog, situated on the heights of Bavaria to the North of Munich,
proves, that the choice of Oswiecim for a place of punishment was not accidental, but
that, on the contrary, Dachau became the topographioal model for the Nazi places of
execution. Such places as Dachau and Oswiecim, in the opinion of Prof. Romer. were
avoided by life for thousands of years, as death kept watch there. The German
authorities used the climate and geographical character of Oswiecim with
premeditation in their criminal design.

p.29

Numerous orders of the command of the Garrison SS in Oswiecim, have proved that
the fact that the climate and water were poisonous was known to the camp
authorities. Dr. Ing. Zunker Professor of the University of Wrocław (Breslau)
investigated the qualities of the water in the camp at Oswiecim (by order of Himmler)
and stated in a writtten report of the 26th. III. 1941 (p. 22) that the water used in
Oswiecim was not even suitable for rinsing the mouth (...nicht eirimal zum
Mudspülen verwendet werden kann).
This statement was handed by the Berlin Centre (Der Reichsführer SS, Amtsgruppe
C) to the authorities of the camp at Auschwitz, who forbade all the SS men to use this
water without boiling, for drinking and washing the kitchen utensils; giving as a
reason that the use of such water was most dangerous and might cause most serious
infection. In many other orders the SS men were instructed to take different
precautions, with a view to avoiding malaria and typhoid fever. All these measures
were thought over and applied to maintain the good health standard of the camp SS
personel. Nothing of the kind was done for the prisoners.
The sanitary conditions in which they lived were during the whole time of the
existence of the camp disastrous, ruining the health of the prisoners, and causing
among them a high rate of mortality. The huts which served as a prison and were
overcrowded were considered by the camp authorities as a hotbed of infectious
disease. The authorities ordered the members of the SS staff, when escorting the
prisoners, to keep away from them because of the danger of infection. Order Nr. 3/43
of the 14th II 1943 isolated the SS men who were in direct touch with the prisoners in
separate buildings, where they underwent a daily disinfection (order Nr. 15/43 of the
7th VII 1943). Motor-cars were disinfected after each journey carrying prisoners or
their clothing (Order Nr. 8/43 of the 20th IV, 1943).

p.30

After the trial of the first transports in June, 1940, the extension of the camp premises
was begun at once.
The premises at first consisted of the military barracks, the so-called base camp
(Stammlager) during the whole of its existence. From this centre it grew until it
became a series of buildings known to the world as "Konzentrationslager Auschwitz",
which included 39 subsidiary camps (Nebenlager, Aussenlager, Zwerglager,
Arbeibslager) scattered throughout Silesia. The camp at Brno was situated beyond its
boundaries.
The accompanying drawing of the camp at Auschwitz (4) illustrates all the branches
of this network and the extent to which its influence reached.
A special group called "Zentralabteilung der Waffen SS und Polizei Auschwitz" was
organised among the camp authorities for planning and extending this immense
combination of camps. This group was subordinate through the Command of the
camp, to the Main Economic and Administrative Board in Berlin
(Wirtschafts- und Verwaltungshauptamt) at the head of which stood SS
Obergruppenführer and General Oswald Pohl. Several hundred engineers, specialists
chosen from the prisoners and civilian employees and a similar number of SS-men
were working only in this group. This group was particularly answerable to the
official group C (Amtsgruppe C) of this board, directed by SS-Gruppenführer and
General, Lieutenant SS Dr. Ing. Kammler. At the head of the central construction
authorities was SS-Sturmbannführer Karl Bischoff. For his activities Kohl was
decorated with the German Silver Cross (Deutsches Kreuz in Silber- Order Nr. 26/43
of the 16th VII. 1943), and Bischof with the War Cross of the First Class with Swords
(Kriegsverdienstkreuz erster Klasse mit Schwertern-Order Nr. 8/44 of Feb. 25th.
1944).
The size of the camps and the activity of the authorities. who constructed them are
shown by the fact that in 1942 an average of 8,000 prisoners were working daily,
carrying out

p.31

the plans sent out by the Berlin Centre. (e. ,g. on August 31 st 1942 8,353 prisoners
were working). In the year 1943 the number of days Worked by prisoners amounted
to 2,976,380 and by civilians 293,887. And in the year 1944 the construction
authorities employed over 4,000 prisoners and 200 civilian prisoners a day on
building works (e. g. on .June 28th 1944 4,717 prisoners were employed. These data
have been taken from authentic specification and employment charts.
As a result of this activity the base camp at Auschwitz grew so much that already by
the end of 1941 it could accommodate 18,000 prisoners, (letter of the Chief of the II
Board of June 18th 1941), and in the year 1943 it could hold .30,000 prisoners
(Aktenvermerk SS-Untersturmführer Dejaco). The original status of this camp and
the gradual stages of its development and plans for its future extension are shown in
Figs. 5, 6, 7, 8.

III. "Sonderbehandlung" and "Sonderaktion"

To understand the proper character of the camps at Auschwitz and Birkenau, attention
must be drawn to the-following facts:
In the autumn of 1941 on the moor of Brzezinka (Birkenau) 3 km. away from the
base camp, the construction of a special camp was proposed, ostensibly for prisoners
of war (Kriegsgefangenenlager - Official abbreviation K. G. L.) According to that the
original plan of the Berlin Centre it was calculated to contain 200,000 prisoners
(order of construction of Nov. 1. and Dec. 16. 1941 - assignment of credits and
allotment of funds Jan. 9th 1942).
Within the administrative framework of the construction authorities a special section
called Sonderbauleitung was organized, and in the official correspondence it is
clearly stated that in the constructed camp it wasintended "to carry out

p.32

a special treatment of the prisoners" (Durchführung der Sonderbehandlung).

According to Notice No. 32,269/43 a railway track was constructed to serve this
camp (Privatgeleisanschluss), the unloading platform of which was situated opposite
the gate leading to the crematorium. This track was meant to carry special transports
(Sondertransporte).
On the 16th VI. 1944 Pohl allowed (Aktenvermerk Nr. 8580/44) for the construction
of three huts of a specia1 character for Jews. (Baracken für die in den letzten Tagen
van allen SS-Angehörigen geleistete Arbeit anlässlich der Sonderaktion...) According
to the evidence given by the former ,prisoner of the concentration camp in Auschwitz
Nr. 128823, Dr. Otto Wolken, in the days immediately preceding the issue of the
above order Nr. 31/43, - 50,000 French Jews were gassed and burnt in the crematoria
at Auschwitz.
An authentic key to the reading of this code gives the Bischof's letter of the 13th I.
1943 No. 21242/43, according to which the crematoria are an indispensable
arrangement to carry out a special treatment. He wrote in this document as follows:
"So sind vor allem die bestellten Türen für das Krematium K. G. L., welches zur
Durchführung dar Sondermassnahmen dringend benötigt wird, umgehend
anzuliefern".
The contents of this letter, and the fact that on the camp area at Birkenau four modern
crematoria with huge gaschambers were constructed, which were in writing on Dec.
16th 1942 called "Spezialeinrichtungen" and in writing on Aug. 12th 1942
(Aktenvermerk Nr. 12115/42 "Badenstalt für Sonderaktion", prove that under
the cryptograms: Sonderbehandlung, Sondermassnahme and Sonderaktion the
German authorities were concealing the mass murder of millions of people, and that
the special camp constructed for the carrying on of this Sonderbehandlug was already
by assumption a huge extermination camp (Vernichtungslager).

p.33

According to this assumption it grew in practice into the largest extermination camp,
not only in Poland, but also in the whole of Europe, in which only those were left
alive among the prisoners who were indispensable to the munition factories and other
industrial establishments working for the Army and for the war at Auschwitz and in
the whole of Silesia.
The highest authorities of the IIIrd Reich as well as those who carried out orders on
the spot at Auschwitz were conscious of the purposes of the camp, and did everything
to enable this camp to fulfill completely its mission of extermination of the conquered
nations of Europe with the Slav nations and the Jews in first order of importance.
The only bui1dings calculated for longlasting and constant use were the four big
crematoria with gaschambers, and the barracks for the SS men who staffed the camp.
The rest of the settlements, and particularly the huts for the prisoners, were destined
from the beginning for the short and transitory existence in them of a constantly
changing tide of prisoners.

IV. Arrangements and organization of the Camp

Both centres of the camp i. e Stammlager and Birkenau (Lagergebiet) were enclosed
with a fence made of barbed wire four metres in height, through which ran an electric
current of high tension. On the poles of the fence searchlights burned at night with
their beams turned to the interior of the camp. Along the fence were high
watchtowers in which the SS men kept guard during the day and in the night, armed
with quick-firing machineguns. In the base camp a second line of barbed wire
(Drahthinderniss), was constructed later, and on both sides of it were constructed wire
safety barriers (Sicherheitsdraht). From the direction of the road and from the east the
base camp was protected by a high wall of concrete blocks, with barbed wire at the
top, and from the west with

p.34

buildings housing the camp authorities and administration. The entrance gate to the
base camp, above which hung the inscription "Arbeit macht frei", was at the back of
the camp, inaccessible and invisible to nonauthotised persons, A view of the entrance
gate, the fence and other safety arrangements are shown in Fig. 12, 13, 14.
The enclosure at Birkenau was based on the same system, with the one difference that
the whole area of the camp was divided into three sections, divided from each other
by internal barbed wire fences through which electric current ran, and cut by deep
trenches (Ringgräben). The area of the camp, with a surface of about 175 ha, was
enclosed and cut all over by a network of trenches, of 13,000 metres in length, and
with a chain of fence more than 16,000 metres in length. Both centres were ringed
around by a large chain of sentries (Grosse Postenkette) for a distance of one km.
around both camps, and guarded by armed SS men and patrols of a "Hounds
Company". (Sperrgebiet). This company consisted only of SS men and was officially
called Hundesstaffel. It was allowed to cross the boundaries of the enclosed area only
by special permit. In case of alarm this whole area was completely closed. According
to the Acts of BW 210, the camp authority intended to enclose the whole ground with
a supplementary fence of barbed wire. This project was not realised, however, owing
to the non availability of iron necessary for its construction. By order of the Berlin
Centre, according to the plan BW 199, a velley was constructed of barbed wire at the
end of 1944, the so called "corridor of lions" (Löwengang), leading from the main
gate of the camp to the German munition plants (Deutsche Ausrüstgswerke) and to
the bracnch of them producing at Auschwitz, under the firm "Union" grenade fusses.
Although both factories were situated in an enclosure ringed around by sentries the
arrangement of this valley of barbed wire was found to be useful.

p.35

Further means of preventing the prisoners flight were introduced after 1943, such as
tattooing the prisoners, and immediate change of clothing after arrival at the camp
into conspicuous prisoner’s dress.
Notwithstanding all these precautions, there occurred instances of escape of prisoners
from the camp, and so the system of "collective responsibility", and the responsibility
of the prisoner’s family was introduced. In the former case, by an order of Fritsch, 10
prisoners, companions of the runaway, were shot, and in the latter case the family of
the deserter were brought into the camp, and had to stand at roll-call with an
inscription that they were in prison in place of their sons, husbands or brothers who
had escaped, and that they would stay in the camp until the runaway had been
recaptured.
A whole section of the land round the camp comprising more than 40 km. Was
occupied and laid out as the economic area of the camp (Interessengebiet). The
inhabitants of Zasole, a big suburb of Oswiecim, were expelled as well as those in 10
villages situated between the rivers Wisla (Vistula) and Sola so that this economic
expanse embraced the whole area from the islet on the Sola near Bielany up to where
the estuary of the Sola flows into the Vistula near the village of Broszkowice. These
lands were regarded as the property of the SS and the German State
(Reichseigenesgebiet).
In the office of the Political Department forms were found containing a printed
statement to the effect that everything that was alive, was born and grew at Auschwitz
was the unquestionable property of the SS.
As the area of Auschwitz and its vicinity was incorporated in the Reich, the local
legislation in force in the concentration camp was laid down by the Gestapo H. Q.
Centre in Berlin (§2 Act 4 regul. 10. II 1936 GS p. 22), and particularly by the Chief
of the Official Group D (Amtsgruppe D) of the Main Economic and Administrative
Board located in Oranien-

p.36

burg. The full name of this office was: Der Reichsführer SS-Wirtschafts-
Verwaltungshauptamt Amtsgruppe D-Konzentrationslagsr (Organisationsbuch, 7th
edition p. 420). In July 1943 this name was changed, and the supplement:
Konzentrationslager (Order No 26/43 of the 16. VII. 43) was omitted.
At the head of the camp stood a Commandant, who was simultaneously in chief
command of the SS garrison at Auschwitz and Chief of the armed force of the camp,
consisting of 12 lookout companies (SSTTotenkopfsturmbann).
This function was successively performed by SS-Obersturmbannführers: Rudolf Hös,
Liebehenschel and Richard Baer. The First Director Manager of the camp1 (1
Schutzlagerführer) was directly liable to the Commandant. This post was occupied by
Langner, Fritsch, Aumeier, Schwarz, Hoffmann und Hessler, all SS-men with the rank
of officer. Prisoners were in the first instance in direct contact with the report-
managers (Raportführer) and managers of the block (Blockführer).
During the construction of the camp at Auschwitz the base camp was marked as camp
A I, the newly constructed part of the camp (Schutzhaftlagerweiterung) as Camp A II,
the first section at Birkeaau – as canrp B I, divided into Fields A, and B; the men's
section of Birkenau - as camp B II, divided into fields A, B, C, D, E, F, G, and finally
a third constructed section in Birkenau was known as Camp B III (order Nr 14/43 of
the 18. V. 1943).
By a garrison order of the 12. XI. 1943 Nr. 53/43 signed by Himmler, Liebehenschel
carried out the division of the whole camp into three, namely: concentration camp
Auschwitz-I Stammlager, concentration camp Auschwitz-II Brzezinka and
concentration camp III-secondary camps (Aussenlager).
These later were organised by mining and other industrial, forestry and agricultural
establishments, to whom the camp authorities sold the working power of the
prisoners at the

p.37

rate of 6 RM for a day for ‘an unskilled worker (files of the oil refiners in
Trzebionka). The camp authorities calculated their own costs of maintaining a
prisoner at 30 pfennigs a day (letter of the Ing. Lhotzky p. 17).
The above figures show that the camp authorities made heavy profits from slave
labour. From the files of the foil refinery at Trzebionka, in which 600 prisoners from
Auschwitz were working it is shown that the net profit to the concentration camp
from this activity amounted in a period of two months to 106.789,60 RM.
At the head of each main camp stood a commandant and managers of the camp for
prisoners’ affairs. The secondary camps were managed by directors (Lagerführer).
The general administrative medical, political and ,other work concerned with the
employment of the prisoners was carried out centrally for all the camps from the base
camp, where special central sections existed for the handling of these problems.
On Nov. 25 th 1944 the camp of Birkenau was incorporated with the base camp,
which was officially named Konzentrationslager Auschwitz, and the camp at
Auschwitz III was transformed into Konzentrationslager Monowice (order Nr. 29/44).
This transformation caused no real change in the organization. The object was to
minimise deceitfully the camp by the centralization of its administration, and to
create in this way the appearances of two camps independent of each other; one at
Auschwitz and the other at Monowice. In this locality huge establishments were
constructed for the firm I. G. Farbenindustrie producing synthetic benzine and other
chemical products. These establishments employed 25,000 prisoners of Auschwitz,
about 100.000 civilian workers and about 1,000 English prisoners-of-war.
Through such an artifice the name of the camp at Birkenau disappeared from the list
of the Nazi concentration camps, disgraced in the eyes of the whole world as the
largest of the extermination camps.
Similar frauds had been carried out in

p.38

Auschwitz already by the changing of the name F. K. L. (Frauenkonzentrationslager)

to F. L. = Frauenlager (Order Nr 7/43 of the 30. III. 1943 and the name K. G. L.
(Kriegsgefangenlager), to Lager II (Aktenvermerk, as from the 31 III. 1944). New
names ought to prove that women did not live in the concentration camp and that in
the Ausschwitz camp there were no prisoners-of-war. Both one and the other were
obvious lies, as the regime in that part of the camp in which the women were
imprisoned, was the same as in the remaining parts of the camp, and as far as the
prisoners of war were concerned, 96 Russian prisoners of war are inscribed in the list
of the prisoners in the camp on the day of the 17th I 1945 (bring the surviving
remnants of 16,000 murdered prisoners registered in the camp).
Such was the appearance and thus was organised the concentration camp at
Auschwitz, through which millions of people passed and from which only an
insignificant percentage came out alive.
Himmler personally supervised the establishment of this camp (‘see figs. 15 and 16)
during his inspection of the camp at Oswiecim.

V. Prisoners

The first prisoners in the concentration camp at Auschwitz were 30 professional

German criminals, who were brought to Auschwitz at the beginning of June 1940,
after having spent many years in other concentration camps in Germany. SS-men had
chosen them as the executors of their criminal plans, and in the first place as
instructors in the laws and regulations of the camp. They had received special
instructions on how they must treat Polish political prisoners. They could beat and
torture them and were not responsible to anyone. These prisoners filled the posts of
camp seniors (Lagerälteste) foremen of working companies (Blockälteste)
roomorderlies (Stubendienst) Capo and Obercapo and Foremen (Vorarbeiter). They
did not disappoint the hopes which had been placed in them, and they grafted their
ideas of morality upon whole series of other keepers, whom they chose from among
the most brutal individuals and professional criminals.
On the 14th VI. 1940 the first transport of Poles arrived at Auschwitz. Innumerable
others followed which in the first period of the existence of the camp brought Poles
exclusively, and later on Poles and citizens of all the conquered nations, and citizens
of other countries, found in the occupied countries during the German invasion.
From the fragments of records which were found, and particularly bundles of
questionnaires amounting to about twenty undestroyed by the Germans it appears that
the following nationals were found among the prisoners: Americans, Austrians,
Belgians, Bulgarians, Chinese, Croats, Czechs, French, Greek, Dutch,
Spaniards, Serbs, Lithuanians, Latvians, Germans, Norwegians, a Persian, Poles,
Russians, Roumanians, Slovaks, Swiss, Turks, Hungarians, Italians, Jews from
Palestine and one Egyptian.
Among the citizens of so many different countries mentioned here indubitably the
most numerous group was formed by Polish citizens (Poles and Jews) next the
Russians, Serbs and French, but in general the majority of the prisoners were of other
nationalities than Polish - prisoners of Jewish origin, Especially numerous among the
Jews from abroad were Hungarian, Czech and Slovak Jews, and Jews from Germany,
Greece and Holland.
To the camp in Auschwitz people were brought of both sexes and various ages,
belonging to different social groups, professions and religions, and being as a rule
quite innocent people whose guilt even the Germans did not try to prove. The vast
majority of prisoners were recruited from people who had nothing in common with
any political activity, people brought

p.40

to the camp only because of their nationality or of their race. They were doomed for
slave labour or to extermination simply because they were Poles, Jews, Gypsies,
Soviet prisoners, etc. The requisite number of prisoners was regulated according to
the size of the concentration camp and to its power of absorption. The prisoners were
captured by the Gestapo during specially organised manhunts, by arresting whole
loads of passengers in trains, by raids on public premises, and on whole areas of
towns, and finally by mass arrests in their homes of thousands of people, and the
expulsion of whole districts of the country side (the region of Zamosc).
All these were imprisoned in the concentration camp as a safeguard (Schutzhaft)
according to an order of the Nazi Government of the Reich of the Feb. 8th 1933
regarding the defence of the nation and State issued after the mystery of the burning
of Reichstag, although this order never was in force in the countries occupied by the
Germans. This lawlesness was all the more glaring in that people were included in
this "security arrest" whose alleged guilt was never put to the test by trial.

Destruction of the Jews.

For the Polish Jews Oswiecim was as a rule an extermination camp, as it was for the
Jews of other European countries 1) (1 A special small group was composed of
Jewish prisoners-of-war, who had fallen into German hands with arms in their hands.
They were taken from the camps where they were interned as prisoners-of-war and
confined like the criminals in concentration camps. (In the EC. at Majdanek a card
index with 6000 names of such prisoners was found). At Oswiecim .prisoner No
85512 was an English doctor Sperber, who had been taken from a torpedoed British
ship, where he had been serving as doctor with officers rank, and had at first been
placed in an officer-prisoners’camp for British, but on December 19. 1942 was
transferred to Oswiecim.

p.41

The Jews, morally and physically ill-used by insults and treatment not fit for human
beings, ruined by the extortion of heavy financial contributions and constant removal
from place to place in Europe, were lured to Auschwitz by false promises of transfer
to various jobs in Poland and the Ukraine. In this way they were tricked out of their
property which they were told to take with them to begin life with in new lands and
of which they were robbed immediately they left the train at Auschwitz. The Gestapo
even concluded contracts with the Greek Jews for the purchase of small-holdings and
shops in the Ukraine. Others were promised that they were to be exchanged for
German prisoners of war interned in England and asked when they arrived at
Auschwitz how far it was to the English Channel. They were advised before
departure to the camp to take with them a suit of working clothes and everything they
possessed of value, and told that they would need these things in their new homes as
each would be able to work in his own trade or profession.
By this subterfuge a huge store of different tools, medical instruments and other
useful and valuable things was accumulated at Auschwitz.
After their arrival at Auschwitz, at the moment the train stopped at the railway siding,
the Jews were driven out from the wagons and their belongings thrown on the loading
platform, from whence a special working party of prisoners carried them into huge
stores called "Canada" (this name being given by the prisoners to the stores because
the wealth deposited in them, was afterwards taken by the camp authorities and used
officially).
At the same time the SS doctors chose from amongst those who had arrived only a
small number of young Jews fit for work, and the rest were sent directly from the
unloading platform to the gas-chambers, where they were all suffocated by gas. So
the first victims of murders were the sick, old, pregnant women, women with infants
and children. If the cre-

p.42
matoria could not absorb all the victims, they were placed in the camp as a deposit
(the official name Depot Häftlinge), and were not registered in the record of the
prisoners, but after emptying the crematoria they were gassed and burnt. The same
happened to the healthy, young and strong people who were not needed by the camp
authorities as a working strength at the moment of the arrival of the transport. Only
those were taken into the camp who were needed to fill up the gaps which arose in
the working gangs. Because of this system a great number of transports did not pass
through the camp, at all, and the victims went directly from the unloading platform to
the gas chambers after being robbed. The number of prisoners taken into the camp
from Jewish transports amounted to an average of about 10% of all the people who
were brought to Auschwitz. According to statistical data collected only from one field
"A", being a section of the B II camp in Birkenau, there arrived at this field from Oct.
21st 1943 to the Oct. 30th 1944 only 7,253 men, in 76 railway transports and the rest,
i. e. 24,688 men, all the women and all the children went directly from the trains into
the gas-chambers. These reports are completed by the evidence of the following
prisoners, crossquestioned as witnesses: prisoner No. 102160, Adam Ciechanowieoki,
stated that from a transport of 1,200 persons who came to Auschwitz on March 9 th
1943 from Drancy, near Paris, only 140 persons were taken into the camp, and the
rest, i. e. 1060 persons were directed straight to the gas-chambers. The witness
Szlama Dragon arrived at Auschwitz on Dec. 7 th 1942 in a transport of 2,500
persons, of whom only 400 were saved, and Jakob Gordon from Wilno arrived on
June 22nd 1943 in a transport consisting of 3,650 persons of whom only 345 persons
were taken into the camp. The rest, among them Gordon's wife, his little son of 4
years and a half, his father of 73 and his mother of 64 were gassed and burnt
immediately after their arrival at Oswiecim.

p.43

Plunder of the victims' property.

All the belongings of the victims were stored in special huts. In the Canada Stores
there were separate compartments for men’s, women’s and children’s clothing, and
for different articles of value. Objects were discovered by the help of a specially
constructed X-ray apparatus (BW 160) in search of concealed valuables, and
afterwards sorted for transmission to the Reich. These were gifts of the SS to German
families, and valuables were sent to the Treasury of the German State.
A member of the military staff of Auschwitz, SS-Untersturmführer Fritz Bergmann,
said in the presence of the witness Artur Mayer, that the SS took valuables from the
Jews in Auschwitz amounting to the value of about 1,000,000,000 Reichs Marks, but
that in reality the value of those things was much higher. According to a report of the
witness, Bergmann then said literally the following: "jetzt nahmen wir dem
Saujudenpack ca 1 Milliarde RM in Brillianten ab, welche ich nach Berlin brachte,
aber ausserdem sorgten wir auch für uns selber". A confirmation of the report that the
SS men, when getting hold the belongings of deported persons, did not forget about
themselves, is the order of the Commandant of the Garrison Nr. 51/43 of NOV. 16 th
1943, in which he said literally as follows: "Ich habe Veranlassung, letztmalig daruf
hinzuweisen, dass das Eigentum der Häftlinge, ganz gleich, um was es handelt
(Kleidungsstücke, Gold und Wertsachen, Esswaren und sonstige persönliche
Gegenstände), auch ganz gleich, wo es sich befindet oder gesichtet wird,
unangetastet bleibt. Über die Verwendung des Eigentumes der Häftlinge entscheidet
der Staat und es wird somit dieses Eigentum Staatseigentum. Wer sich an
Staatseigentum vergreift, stempelt sich selbst zum Verbrecher und schliesst sich von
selber aus der Reihen der SS aus". This order was quite explained by the behaviour
and conduct of the SSmen and is confirmed by the fact, that SS-Rotten

p.43

führer, Lubusch Edward ordered the prisoner Kula to construct for his private use a
machine to roll gold in ingots.
The distribution of things robbed from prisoners, and particularly the distribution of
clothing and the despateh of parcels into the Reich, was forbidden by the Berlin
Centre, the Tearson for this Ibeing that the parcels on their way might be damaged,
and the uninitiated might get to know that in these parcels was clothing stained with
blood, and full of bullet holes, (order of the ‘Amtsgruppe D of the 11th VII. 1942).
The extent of this robbery is proved by the fact that on the site of the camp at
Auschwitz there were 35 special stores to sort and pack clothing and other articles.
The Germans before their evacuation burnt 29 stores together with their contents. In
the remaining 6 stores there were found: 348,820 complete men's suits of clothes,
836,255 women‘s complete outfits, 5,525 pairs .of women‘s shoes, 38,000 pairs of
men's shoes, 13,964 carpets and large number of tooth-brushes, shaving-brushes,
spectacles, artificial limbs, all kind of kitchen utensils and also children’s clothing.
From the report of SS-Oberscharführer Reichenbach among the records of the camp,
it appears that during for instance, days from Dec. 1st 1944 to Jan. 15th 1945, 99,922
suits of clothing and children’s underwear, 192,652 suits of clothing and women’s
underwear and 222,269 sets of men’s suits of clothes and underwear were sent to
Germany from the camp at Auschwitz. The trade marks on the things found in these
stores prove strikingly that their owners, murdered in Oswiecim, belonged to the
nationalities of all the countries conquered by the Germans.
The photographs below represent some of the stores with the things found there,
which the Germans did not succeed in carrying away from Auschwitz to the Reich.

p.45

The working prisoners.

What happened to the transports of prisoners who were destined for slave-labour?
(among whom the Jews amounted to only a very small percentage).
The prisoners who were not at once condemned to death were strictly surveyed,
registered and given numbers. From the moment of passing through the camp-gates
and getting his number a man ceased to be a personality and became a cypher without
freewill. 400,000 passed in this way through the camp and were registered in turn.
Under the general series for men and women came subsections, i. e. series A. and B
classified male and female Gipsies, series R Russian prisoners while series E
comprised prisoners brought in from "educational" motives.
The prisoner wore the camp number sewn on his clothing and at the beginning of the
year 1942 it was also tattooed on the left forearm. Since the introduction of tattooing
all the prisoners, with the exception of the Reichs and Volksdeutsche, were tattooed.
The full distinguishing mark of the prisoner consisted of the number written on a
white linen band, with coloured triangles signifying the type of prisoner, with the
initial letter of the prisoner’s nationality. This sign was worn by the prisoners on the
left breast of their blouse or jacket and was also sewn on the outside seam of the right
trouser leg. Triangles were in use: red for political prisoners, black for prostitutes and
perverts, green for professional criminals, pink for the homosexuals and violet for the
clergy and Investigators of the Holy Bible. The Jews wore at first a star of David, and
afterwards above the triangle a yellow stripe. The initial letter of the name of the
nationality was written with black Chinese ink on the triangles.
The destiny of these cypher-prisoners was slave labour until their strength was
exhausted, when death was their release. Before harnessing them into the yoke of one
of the 300 la-

p.46

bour gangs, amounting to 50-1200 prisoners, they all were obliged to pass through
the procedure of being enrolled into the camp. The aim of the process was to change
a free man into an obedient number without his own will, to kill in him the feeling of
human dignity and to make him a servile labouring unit.

THE AUSCHWITZ EXTERMINATION CAMP

PART II

Quarantine
The work
VI. The fate of the Soviet prisoners
VII. Punishments
VIII. Housing conditions
IX. Food Rations

Quarantine.

The process of admission into the camp is described by witnesses as follows: the
unloading platfor at Auschwitz and the whole road to the camp was heavily guarded
by SS men, who also lay in the ditches along the roadside with their guns ready. All
the SSmen were armed as well with sticks and had police-dogs. Amidst constant
beating the prisoners were driven to the place of roll-call, where they were paraded
before SSman standing on a table, and beaten by others standing around. On the
opposite side the newcomers were ranged in rows of ten: There were the Capo,
consisting of the first 30 professional criminals brought from Germany in the
character of supervisors, who took rings, watches, and tore from the necks of the
prisoners their chains and medallions, beating in the process some prisoners into
unconsciousness.
In the group, in which the witness Michal Kula came to the camp on August 15th
1940, there was a young priest from Warsaw. The SSmen and Capos turned his hat
upside down, put round his neck a loop of a string, and tied the other end of the string
round his waist. They gave him a broom to hold.
In this guise he was obliged to run around the whole group, while it was being driven
from the place of the roll-call on the yard between blocks XV and XVI. The SSmen
and Capos tortured him mercilessly and beat him with sticks until he fell
unconscious.

p.47

On the yard between the XVth and XVIth blocks the prisoners were obliged to
undress completely and give up their clothes. Afterwards their hair was cut and they
received their numbers. Then the whole group was driven amid constant blows to the
baths. There was no possibility whatever of bathing, it was only possible to splash
some cold water on oneself. In the same building there was also a medical inspection,
which consisted of the physician asking the prisoner if he was well, and whatever his
answer, he was instructed to go further. From the bath the prisoners were driven to
the next yard, on which lay two big heaps of prisoners’s clothes made of striped
ticking. The prisoners were obliged to put these c1othes on while running and were
afterwards obliged to line up at the place of roll-call. By such a method of out fitting
a stout man often got a blouse which covered only half of his breast, while a small
prisoner got clothing too big for him. It was the same, with the shoes.
After such a fitting-out the prisoners who arrived in the same group of ten could not
recognise each other.
Those prisoners were lucky whose admission procedure was completed in one day, as
they had the chance to spend the night under a roof. If, however, the transport arrived
at Auschwitz in the afternoon, they were obliged sometimes to spend the whole night
naked in the open air after their things were taken away regardless of the season of
the year or the weather. As a result of this, for instance out of a transport including the
prisoner Wolken, 42 prisoners did not live through the night until the morning. Others
spent the night naked in the bath house, where with a temperature of about 20 degrees
below zero cold water was poured on them from time to time.
Late in the evening of Dec. 5 th. 1943, there arrived at Auschwitz a transport
containing 1200 prisoners from Flossenburg. Eighty of the most weak the
Commandant of the camp
p.48

left lying in the snow. At the order of the Commandant water was poured on them to
speed up the freezing process. A part of these victims were carried by the prisoners to
the blocks, the remaining 32 died by morning. Only one man survived that night by
remaining under the corpses of three others, but even he died the following day
(witness Wolken).
During the whole period of admission there was no possibility whatever of eating or
drinking. In Summer prisoners died of thirst.
After the formalities of enrolment were completed and after being tattooed the
prisoners were driven into quarantine camp, where some victims had to stay for 8
weeks. It was a period of testing the physical endurance of the future slaves,
organized in such a way, that only the healthiest could endure it. From statistics of the
quarantine block in Birkenau (B IIa) which contained an average of 4,000 to 6,000
prisoners, it is seen that during the period from September 1943 to November 1944
4023 prisoners were so seriously ill that they were obliged to go to hospital, 1902
died and 3233 prisoners were selected for gassing as unfit for further work. The
numbers of sick did not include prisoners cured in the infirmary, who were in many
instances seriously ill but afraid to go to hospital on account of possible selection.
They averaged about 500 persons daily.
These figures become understandable only when the conditions in the quarantine
hospital are taken into account. Hundreds of people were crowded together in stables
built for 52 horses, and often more than a thousand people were compelled to huddle
on plank beds built in tiers one over the other. They slept without even straw
mattresses and blankets on the bare boards. When there was no room in the huts they
spent the night in the open air. During the day they were tormented by killing work of
ditch-digging, draining swamps or standing idly barefooted from 4.30 in the morning
till late in the evening, regardless of the season of the year and the

p.49

weather. What was perhaps the worst of all was the "sports" and "gymnastics".
During this period the prisoners were taught to lineup in rows of five, to take off their
caps and to march in straight lines. They learned very quickly, for they were taught
with a stick. During the hours of "sports" the prisoners were surrounded by the SS-
men, and Capes and beaten. They were forced to crouch, to jump, to dance with
uplifted hands, to run in a circle barefooted on the gravelled square.
Many lost their strength and fell to the ground in the first hours of such "gymnastics".
Those were dragged aside by the Capos, where often the senior of the camp, Leo,
finished them off by putting a stick into their mouths. Those that were sluggish in
running were often caught by an SS-man, taken behind the building of the VIIIth
Block, and there killed. The slightest effort to straighten the body during the
crouching exercise produced kicks and blows. The prisoners were ordered to roll in
their underclothes, and afterwards they were told to have clean and washed linen
within half an hour although no soap and water were provided.
At 12 o’clock the prisoners were lined up for roll-call, which lasted 45 minutes. After
a further 15 minutes which were allowed to the prisoners for eating soup, they were
lined up by the SS-men and the seniors of the camp on the place of the roll-call and
taught to sing vulgar German songs, such as "O du mein Bubikopf" or "Im Lager
Auschwitz war ich zwar so manchen Monat so manches Jahr".
All the Jews were herded together and forced to sing a derisive German song ("O du
mein Jerusalem"). Such a choir was often conducted by a Catholic priest. Those
prisoners who did not know German could not understand and memorize the text of
the song, so the Capos, displeased with the singing, ordered them to sing in a
crouched position or lying on the ground beat them face downwards. Prisoners, lying
in such a position, were beaten and trampled on. The singing lasted until 3 p.m., then

p.50

the prisoners were trained in "gymnastics" till 6,30 p, m. Later came the ordeal of the
evening rollcall, which lasted about 2 hours. Some groups of prisoners were
compelled to stand at attention from 9 in the evening until noon the following day
with their hands behind their heads. Reflectors shone on them at night, the SS-men
keeping close watch to see that no prisoner dropped his hands.
If it so happened that the weaker among them did so, they were beaten and
tormented. In consequence of this treatment, out of a particular group of 265 only 60
stuck it till the end; the rest fell unconscious, only to be revived by having water
thrown on them, and beaten.
Others were driven away to the place of roll-call where they received the commands
of the Unterscharführer: "Fall, stand, crawl, wallow", and forced to crouch four-time.
If one raised himself from a pool of water in which he was told to roll, the
Unterscharführer forced him with his heel to the ground. Dr Kruczek was a victim of
this "sport".
One day 50 prisoners were ordered to climb a very slender young tree. According to
the order they were to climb all at once to the top of this tree, which was, of course,
impossible, as the tree broke at once after the first few people had climbed it. During
these "gymnastics" the prisoners were beaten firstly because they were not yet up the
tree, and secondly for having broken the tree. During the "sport" many prisoners died.
The rest were injured, and their feet swelled up from the constant running without
shoes on the gravel, nails and barbed wire.
The sick and wounded were allowed to go to the doctor, who in many cases gave
them a card stating they were only fit for sitting down work. Such prisoners were
employed in cleaning old mortar from bricks. This work was carried out by the
prisoners sitting on the sharpened end of a wooden stake which was buried in the
ground. The Capos and SS-men watched closely to see that the prisoner worked the
whole day long sitting down. If anyone raised himself or fell down he was

p.51
beaten till he lost consciousness then he was left without any help.
After returning to the Block the prisoners were only allowed to go to the latrines after
the distribution of rations. In the latrines thousands of people crowded and there they
were also beaten. In such conditions the quarantine camp was a succession of
torments. The people did not know what to do, and where to hide themselves as they
were tortured everywhere and all dreamt of being transferred to the working camp
from the quarantine in the hope that things there would be easier to endure.

The work.

They did not realise that the same ill treatment would meet them there. Among the
camp authorities there existed a special section (Arbeitseinsatz) for exploiting the
labour of the prisoners of the Auschwitz camp. This section divided the prisoners into
special working gangs and posted them to work in industrial plants and mines,
scattered over the whole of Silesia. In the immediate vicinity of Oswiecim the
Germans constructed a big chemical factory in Monowice (Buna) and established a
Krupp "Union". Through this work people were reduced to an extreme state of
exhaustion by work in draining swamps and marshes, in the mines and on road
construction. Some working groups were obliged to walk 7-8 km. to their work. The
SS-men ranged the prisoners in units, and surrounded by an escort armed with sticks,
hounds and overseers, they were driven to work. During the work, which was carried
on in complete silence, and as rule running, the prisoners were beaten under the
slightest pretext. One for not straightening his back, another for not taking enough
earth in his

p.52

shovel and another for going aside, suffering from dysentery, to attend to the wants of
nature. Any attempt to rest during the hours of labour, or an accident during work
resulting in material loss to the camp was treated and punished as sabotage.
Those who fell from fatigue were shot on the spot. The place of labour was at the
same time a scene of mass murder.
A prisoner's day began with reveille at 4.30 a. m and finished at varying times up to
late in the night according to the distance from the camp of the labour site.
The working gangs went to their labours to the tune of the camp orchestra, in which
prisoners were playing standing at the gate. In the evening they came back from all
parts of the Auschwitz camp bleeding, exhausted, carrying the corpses of their
comrades on wooden stretchers, on their backs, or dragged in carts. The camp
orchestra also played to this procession of ghosts and corpses. The corpses of the
murdered comrades were also laid out for the roll-call in order to be counted, as the
number of prisoners must always correspond to the camp lists. The fact that they
were dead or alive was a matter of indifference.
Some of the camp regulations were an obvious encouragement to murder prisoners.
Of such a character was the payment of a premium to the SS-men for shooting
prisoners who left their work.
The prisoners were first ordered by the SS-men to run on in front and then were shot
as "runaways".
A short report "shot while escaping" was the end of the matter ("auf dar Flucht
erschossen") and the premium was duly paid for preventing the flight of a prisoner. It
is seen from Orders 33/34, 88/43 and a series of others that the SS-men were
rewarded for such exploits by several days leave also.
The Jews and priests were set to do the hardest work. Huge rollers were brought in on
the work of extending the base camp, to the two shafts of which were harnessed Jews
and priests. They had to drag the rollers all day long to the accompaniment

p.53

of blows. The driver was a German prisoner, Krankenmann. Those who fell from
exhaustion were killed under the blows of this executioner’s stick. He murdered in
this way nearly all the priests and numerous Jews. Some prisoners dragged carts
loaded with earth and stones, while others were forced to carry loads exceeding their
strength. In the stores containing material for construction work 10 prisoners had to
unload 480 sacks of cement in two hours. This worked out at 48 sacks of 50
kilograms each per prisoner. As the stores were located 150 metres from the railway
track they had thus to travel 15 kilometres in two hours, carrying for half this distance
a load of 50 kilograms.
The unloading of potatoes from the train went on in the same conditions. Near the
wagons stood stretchers loaded with about 150 kg. of potatoes, which two prisoners
were obliged to carry running to the mounds. The road, was guarded by a file of
Capos and overseers, who forced the prisoners to hurry with sticks. This work was
done running. After several hours the stretchers were falling from the hands of the
prisoners, and the elders dropped from fatigue. Such weaker workers were regarded
as saboteurs and were forced to continue working with blows under which they died.
Their corpses were thrown into a nearby ditch, from whence they were taken before
finishing the work by a special "Fleischwagen", or motor car for collecting the
corpses from the place of work. The bored SS-men often beat the working prisoners
for amusement and women, dressed in the uniforms of the S.S. accompanied them for
pleasure. The witness Walman told us about the following incident: a group of SS-
men accompanied by dogs and German women approached a group of prisoners who
were digging a deep ditch for burning the corpses near the crematoria. The SS-men
ordered them to load 60 wheelbarrows with earth and to push them along a high
earthen wall over the edge of the hole. They then released their dogs

p.54

to chase them. The prisoners, nervously and physically exhausted, fell down with the
wheelbarrows into the hole, and most of them were killed. The SS-men shot those
prisoners who remained alive.
The same performance was repeated by the SS-men the same afternoon. The women
who accompanied them were very amused.
During the digging of the basements for the XVth block in the base camp, the
following scene took place: The German prisoner Reinhold, being the Capo of a
group which was working there threw an old Jew into a hole filled with water in the
presence of his son who was working in the same group.
When the father lifted himself from the water and tried to get out of the hole,
Reinhold and the Ssmen ordered the son to descend into the ditch and to drown the
father. The son was compelled to fulfil this order, he descended into the ditch seized
his father by his neck, put his head into the water and held it under as long as his
father showed signs of life. The SS-men ordered the son to climb back to the edge of
the ditch, where Reinhold and another prisoner, a German, seized him by his hands
and feet, swung his body and threw him into the ditch, where other Jews working in
the water digging for gravel were forced to drown him.

VI. The fate of the Soviet prisoners

The Russian prisoners of war, who, according to a secret order of the Chief of
Official Group D, issued from Oranienburg on Nov. 15 th. 1941, were directed to the
concentration camp for extermination were treated in a specially barbaric way. The
contents of this or,der are as follows: The Reichsführer FF [sic-ed.] and the Chief of
the German police gave in principle his consent for the postponement of the
extermination of those Russian prisoners who were strong enough to work in the
quarries. It is necessary therefore to obtain the per-

p.55

mission of the Chief of the Security Police and the SD Service. In order for this
purpose; that the commandant of camp (E) and the camp physician should choose,
after the arrival of the transport meant for execution, those physically fit Russians
able to work in the quarries, a list of the selected Russians must be sent to me in
duplicate. The camp doctor must state on this list, that he agrees to the use of these
people for work. After receiving the permission of the Chief of the Security Police
and SD Service these prisoners may then be sent to the quarries.
Sixteen thousand numbered Soviet prisoners passed through the camp at Auschwitz,
out of whom, according to the camp roll of Jan. 17 th 1945 only 96 were left alive.
Immediately after their arrival at the camp the Russians were completely stripped and
driven into blocks, where in the cold autumn days in 1941 they huddled together for
warmth. Afterwards they were clothed in stripped ticking, some in wooden shoes, and
so dressed they worked in penal companies, and later on at the construction of the
camp at Birkenau.
Amidst constant chicanery, beating and kicking they had to wallow in mud, digging
ditches and constructing the roads. Half dressed, hungry and frozen every day weaker
and weaker, they were punished for even the shortest pause in their labour by being
locked in a shed naked, where frost and exhaustion finished them off. The conditions
were no better in the blocks. The naked prisoners were forced to do gymnastics in a
hard frost. They washed themselves once in a week under constant beating. In such
conditions death reaped a rich harvest. Those that were half dead after verification
by the SS Raportführer Stiwitz with hot iron that they still lived were killed with
sticks.
A list of about a hundred causes of prisoners deaths came to be gradually written
down on death certificates and in registers. From the register of deaths preserved until
now (Totenbuch), including the period from Sep. 7 th 1941 to Feb. 28 th

p.56

1942, it transpires ,that during this period, i.e. 144 days (on Feb. 23 rd 1942 no deaths
were recorded) 8,320 prisoners were murdered. The highest number of 352 dead is
noted down under the date Nov. 4 th 1941. This book is closed by a pencilled
calculation of a SS clerk, who multiplied the number of the dead written on one page
(36) by the number of pages (234) and he divided the figure obtained by the number
of days (144), getting in this way the number 58 as an average of the daily deaths.
From analysis of the inscriptions in this book, in which the number of the blocks is
given in which the prisoner allegedly died, the hour, and the cause of death, the result
is, that during 137 days the victims "died" between the hours of 6 and 10 in the
morning, and only on three days during night during 4 days the hours were not
inscribed, that during the period between 7-10 a, m, 5,744 prisoners died, and that the
majority died not in the hospital, but exclusively in the living quarters.
From the column "causes of death" it appears that those who died in the living
quarters were sick among other things with peritonitis and pneumonia, during which
as a rule walking is impossible. It proves that both the diseases and the causes of
death were falsely inscribed.
From the comparisons of the causes of death it appears that 653 people died of heart
attacks, 989 from deficient circulation of blood, 806 persons from catarrh of the
bowels, 484 persons of general exhaustion, 512 of the inflammation, of the kidneys,
551 of inflammation of the lungs, 137 of heart failure 1214 of tumours, 317 of heart
disease, 806 of bronchitis, and the rest of about twenty other diseases. The
description of numerous deaths of young militarily fit people as being due to heart
failure and deficient circulation of the blood as well as the fact that, for instance, on
the 13. I. 1942 942,persons died in one block only in the 10 minutes from 8.50 to 9
o’clock proves that the causes of death given are false. In about 20 cases (Nos. 692-
711) description of the real reasons of death is given in the appropriate column as
"überstellt" without

p.57

giving the place to which the prisoner was transferred. According to a uniform
account by the prisoners employed in the camp offices, this cryptogram signified that
the said prisoner was murdered.
This fact was also noted in the camp register book by the sign SB
(Sonderbehandlung), by a cross, or by the word "entlassen".
From the seoond register preserved containing the numbers 9794-25,5000, it appears
that of 15706 prisoners who arrived at Auschwitz Camp in the period from August 7
th 1943 to July 19th 1944, 12341 were certified as released (entlassen) and 766 were
marked with a cross. As almost all the ostensibly released were Jews and it is well
known that the Jews were never released from the Nazi camps the sign "entlassen"
written in this book beside the name of the Jew undoubtedly signifies death.

VII. Punishments

Besides the beating by the SS-men and overseers at the place of work the following
punishments were applied to men and worsen, with the aim of maintaining working
discipline among the prisoners: flogging, (penal gymnastics (Strafexerzieren), work
under supervision on Sundays and holidays, transfer to a penal group, standing,
kneeling with hands up, stones holding, and finally incarceration in a dark narrow cell
(Stehzelle).
Punishment was based on report by an SS-man, overseer at the place of work or
block leader. The punishment was prescribed by the Commandant of the Camp in a
written order, by virtue of the disciplinary authority which was given him by the
regulations for concentration camps. In the printed form of this regulation the
following penalties are laid down: Threat of punishment, work under the supervision
of an SS-man during normally free time, a ban on writing or

p.58

receiving letters, deprivation of dinner with work as usual, transfer to a penal

company, and a hard bed in a cell after his daily work.
Deprivation of freedom was marked by three grades of arrest. During arrest the
prisoner received daily only bread and water, and full diet every fourth day. Third
grade had to be endured by the prisoner in a dark cell, so arranged that he could
neither lie nor sit. Third grade was known in the language of the camp as "Bunker". It
was endured in small dark cement cells, in which the prisoners were so squeezed that
they could not move and were obliged to stand the whole time. At Birkenau these
cells were entered by a small opening like a dog kennel. This punishment was
administered practically in all cases where "hard bed" was ordered. Officially it was
called "Stehzelle", and in practice was enhanced by ingenious tortures, such as
pouring of water into the ears, beating the heels, pulling out finger nails, or starving
for several days after which the prisoner was given vegetable salad specially
seasoned with salt for producing a great thirst.
A starvation cell was instituted with special sadism by Lagerführer Fritsch, where
prisoners were kept who were caught trying to escape. In this cell there were
instances of cannibalism. One of the prisoners who was in this cell told of the
following scene: "When the door was opened, a horrible smell of decaying corpses
was noticeable. After accustoming myself to the darkness, I noticed in a corner the
corpse of a prisoner, with his intestines pulled out, and beside him in a half
recumbent position- second body, also of a prisoner. He was holding in his hand the
liver he had taken from the body of his dead companion. Death struck him in the act
of devouring this liver".
According to the regulations concerning the administering of punishment by flogging
(Körperliche Zuchtigung) the prisoner first had to undergo a medical inspection, and
then the punishment was to be applied with a leather whip, with blows

p.59

following swiftly upon each other. Beating was allowed only on the buttocks, which
had to be clad.
Further down on the form there is a printed medical certificate form, to the effect that
the prisoner underwent a medical inspection before flogging and that from the
medical point of view there were no objections to his receiving such a punishment.
Afterwards the confirmation of the extent of the punishment by the Chief of ,the
Official Group D in Berlin, was included, and a protocol that the punishment was
administered, with the names of the prisoners who flogged the delinquent, and the
signature of four officers of the SS (the Commander and three functionaries).
Flogging was administered publicly during the evening roll-call on a specially
constructed whipping block which is seen on the photograph below.
Regardless of the above-mentioned regulations the prisoners were beaten on naked
buttocks, which as a rule were cut till the blood flowed. Usually this punishment
caused tumours on the buttocks sometimes as big as a fist. If the delinquent fainted,
he was restored to consciousness and the punishment was continued. The smallest
punishment amounted to 10 blows. It was an official punishment. Unofficially the
blockleaders flogged the prisoners for the slightest offence usually ordering the
prisoners to put their heads into the opening of the stove, and afterwards beating them
on the buttocks with a rod. The standing punishment consisted of standing at
attention at the camp office near the exit gate of the camp. This punishment was
applied in the women’s camp, and lasted from three hours to a whole day, and even
several days following each other without a break. During the time it lasted the
woman-prisoner did not get anything to eat. If in the punishment of kneeling the
woman-delinquent dropped her stone-filled outstretched hands, she was beaten till
she lost consciousness. The duration of the punishment by kneeling ,depended on the
whim of the authorities, and lasted from two to several hours.

p.60

The prisoners who formed the penal company always worked in the open air, always
on the hardest work, often in water to the waist, and lived in an isolated Block No.
XI, at the far end of the camp and in the XI Block of the B II Section in Birkenau.
They worked in winter and in summer without socks, in Dutch cloys, clad only in
ticking. They received food or not according to the whim of the blockleader. They
spent in most cases sleepless nights owing to constant shouting and blows. They were
lying without even straw mattresses on the bare floor, and left their rags in prescribed
order in the corridor. This Block was not heated. It is obvious that people in such
conditions fell ill wholesale.
Up to 1943 it was not permissible however to take sick from the penal company into
hospital. So the seriously ill, deprived of medical assistance, were doomed in Block
XI to death. The greatest percentage perished, however, at the hands of the
blockleader of the XI Block- Krankenmann. He used to line up the prisoners by a
wall, struck their jaws with his hand, so that they split, and the other side of the head
struck the wall and was smashed.
In winter 1942/43 a Giant-Jew, specially kept for killing people was prowling in XI
Block in the penal company. He did no work, was well fed, stood at the place where
the prisoners were working leaning against a great thick pole and shouted without
ceasing "Bewegung". When he disliked one of the prisoners, he called him up to him
and killed him with a blow on the back of his neck. A second method of killing was
strangulation. The prisoner was ordered to button and hook his tunic under his neck
and then the executioner gripped the collar from behind and pressed the head of the
prisoner downwards, so that the collar and the hook pressing against the larynx of the
victim caused strangulation. Finally he flung the prisoners on the floor with their
faces upwards, put earth or bricks under their necks and then placed his pole across

p.61

their throats, standing with his feet on both sides of the pole. He stood thus until his
victims died.
Punishments were administered for the slightest offence against the camp regulations,
such as not making one’s bed properly, for finding potatoes on the prisoner, who
wanted to cook when in his Block or at his place of work, for having in one’s
possession family photographs or letters, and particularly for writing and receiving
letters from other prisoners within the camp area.

VIII. Housing conditions

Even if there had been no physical and moral torturing of the prisoners at Oswiecim,
even if they had not been tormented and murdered wholesale, still the mere living
conditions and lack of hygiene, and the deficient food which they received would
have caused a high mortality-rate.
The scheming and exactness both in the construction of the living quarters and the
starvation level of rations is striking.
The prisoners lived in huts without windows, used only by the German army as
stables for horses, officially called: Pferdestallbaracken Type 260/9 with dimensions
of 40.76 X 9.56 X 2.65 metres constructed on posts, with walls made of thin boards,
and roofs made of tarred boards through which water was constantly leaking. The
only furniture of these huts consisted of 3-storey bunks 1.80 metres in breadth, in
which 30 prisoners were cabined on litter, and in most cases on bare boards.
There was a primitive stove whose pipes ran through the whole length of the barracks
and heated the interior with carbon monoxide. These stoves were called officially
"Russenofen".
Such huts were regarded as living accommodation for 300 prisoners. On each litter,
consisting of two straw mat-

p.62

tresses slept from 6 to 10 prisoners. From a letter of the manager of the clothing
stores one learns however, that in reality, often 1000-1200 prisoners lived in them at
once, and after deducting the area of the senior Blockleader’s and Capo's rooms and
of the foold-store, it amounted for one prisoner to an area of about 0.28 m2 and about
0,75 m3 of air. It is characteristic of the camp authorities that they found such huts
unsuitable even for keeping the camp cows in, and after the reconstruction of Type
260/9 as a cow-shed, ventilation and a cement floor were added (plan No. 1433 of the
3th VII. 1942). The authorities showed the same care for the health of the animals
when constructing dog kennels. By order from Berlin of Oct. 16th 1942 a luxuriously
arranged kennel was built at cost of 81.000 RM. at Birkenau calculated to contain
250 police dogs. From the files of this building construction (BW 77) it is seen that
when the kennel was being planned a professional camp veterinary surgeon was
asked for advice, and everything was done to build it in accordance with modern
sanitary requirements. They even thought about an adequate grass plot, a specially
arranged dog-hospital, and a kitchen. In connection with a delay in mending the roof
of the kennel, the head of the dogs’ section threatened to resign, saying that he could
not take the responsibility for disease among the dogs caused by leaking roofs. When
comparing the sanitary conditions in the prisoners, huts and those in the dog kennels
it must be said that the dogs at Auschwitz were a hundred times better off.
All the prisoners' huts were constructed on muddy ground in the swampy Birkenau
area with no drainage. During practically the whole of the camp's existence they were
deprived of regular water supply, were without drainage, had no ventilation
whatsoever, had clay floor, which got very dusty in the dry season, and which in rainy
periods, owing to the leaking of the roofs was transformed into one big swamp. It
served as an incubator of flies, lice and rats which were

p.63

one of the greatest scourges of the prisoners and a hotbed of different epidemic
diseases, the principal one being typhoid fever.
Violent epidemics of the worst type of spotted typhus were the scourge of the
prisoners, especially in winter, and confirm the inhuman hygienic and sanitary
conditions which were found in the camp, It was impossible to wash or to change
one’s underwear. The huts were overcrowded in an unheard-of manner.
The prisoners who were heard as witnesses stated with one accord, that they did not
receive water either to wash in or drink. They washed themselves in the imitation
coffee which was supplied to them, as nourishment, or in pools of rain, or in ditches
which also served their physiological needs. From a letter of the manager of the
construction authorities, Bischoff, of Dec. 16th 1942 (Erläuterungen zur Ausführung
der Wasserversorgung) it is shown that the camp authorities knew just how bad these
sanitary conditions were, and particularly the lack of water as the cause of epidemic
diseases which exterminated the prisoners, and notwithstanding this, they did nothing
to prevent this calamity.

IX. Food Rations

When considering the problem of food rations, the difference between the official
rations foreseen in the bill of fare, in portions distributed in the kitchen store, and
those rations which actually reached the prisoners in the hut must be taken into
account.
The daily portion of bread amounted to 350 gr. but in reality the prisoner got as a rule
at best only 300 gr. as the block leaders, when cutting bread, stole from each loaf. At
Birkenau (camp for men) a loaf of bread (1400 gr) was divided in 6 even in 8
portions! In 1942 1943 during many months at least

p.64

50 gr. It must be remembered that bread was distributed in the evening and the
famished prisoner ate the whole 300 gr at once, so that he had no more bread for
brealkfast.
For breakfast he received half-a-litre of coffee or tea made of herbs: 3 kg. of sugar
was prescribed for a kettle containing 300 litres, then 5 gr. for a half litre portion, but
in practice, the coffee was sweetened but rarely, and in such a way that 5 gr. of sugar
was for a portion used only exceptionally.
For dinner two kinds of soup were given: meat soup four times a week, and vegetable
soup three times a week.
A portion of soup with meat ought to contain: 150 gr. of potatoes, turnips, cabbage,
greens and beetroots 150 gr., 20 gr. of flour or Avo, 5 gr. of salt and 20 gr. of meat
with bones.
In reality such a portion shrank in the kitchen store to the following dimensions.
There were only 50 gr. of potatoes and turnips for a portion owing to the necessity of
throwing away large quantity of rotten vegetables, and as meat with bones was
systematically taken from the store for the SS-men’s kitchen, instead of 20 gr. there
remained for a prisoner’s por tion only 10 gr. (with bones).
A portion of the second type soups should have contained: 500 gr. of potatoes or
turnips 500 gr. ,or 250 gr each of potatoes, turnips, psomrridge, groats, (pearl barley,
rye, mlillet, macaroni) 40 50 gr. of flour or Avo, 5 gr. of salt, 20 40 gr. of margarine
(40 gr. only twice a week as extra for heavy work). In actual fact this soup’ wa.s
already in the kitchen store invariably delprivsd of many essential ingreldientis.
Instead of 500 gr. of ‘potatoes or beets ‘per portion there was only 100 150 gr. (there
were always so many rotten potatoes and beets) and half the margarine disappeared in
the same way as meat in the kitchen for the use of the SSmen. The result was that
instead of 20 40 gr. per portion of soup the prisoner actually got only l0 20 gr. of
margarine.

p.65
Twice a week a huge five-ton lorry carried from the prisoners’ food store sacks of
sugar, groats, sausage, flour etc., products destined for the kitchen of the SS-men.
Hauptscharführer Werner Hendler supervised this activity (Annie Franz in the
women’s kitchen), and in the kitchen of the Ssmen these products were received by
Unterscharführer Paschke.
The prisoners should have received a litre of soup, but the portion of soup in reality
amounted as a rule to ¾ litre. In the kitchen a 300 litre cauldron was not filled up to
the brim owing to the technical difficulties of adequately mixing it) It contained
usually only 260-270 litres of liquid. Afterwards part of the cooked soup was wasted
during its passage from the kitchen to the place of work or to the huts (lack of can
lids caused the soup to be spilled). Finally, durirrg the disstribution the capo or the
block leader distributed the soup unequally, keeping a certain number of portions for
the German prisoners and for their assistants from among the prisoners extra.
In this way instead of one litre of soup the prisoner usually got for dinner ¾ litres at
best.
Attention must be drawn to the fact, that in the years 1940, 1941 and up to the middle
of 1942, by obvious command of the camp authorities, soup was distributed in the
blocks at midday, and poured into the canteens immediately so the prisoners who
returned from their work at 6 o’clock in the evening were obliged to drink their soup
quite cold. It was a time of serious diseases of the alimentary canal, of diarrhoea, and
typhoid, which undoubtedly resu1ted to a large extent from the eating of cold soup by
the prisoner (The prisoner was deprived completely of hot food from morning)!
When speaking of the supper portions, it is necessary to distinguish carefully between
the official bill of fare, the portions distributed to the kitchen stores, and finally the
por-

p.66

tions which the prisoner actually got in the huts. The comparison given below shows
the difference between the three stages to the disadvantage of the prisoner according
supplied prisoner the menu gr to the kitchen received:
In a similar way out of the quantities of meat and margarine destined for dinner, large
amounts constantly found their way to the kitchen of the SS-men, as did portions of
sausage and margarine meant for supper, and even in the kitchen-store a part of these
products was set aside for the fattening of the SS-men. Each portion of sausage and
margarine was cut down by at least 10 gr. even during the distribution of rations in
the kitchen store, to the detriment of the prisoner. The final stage of the distribution of
portions in the barrack was invariably connected with a new diminution of the
already starvation ration: here the block-leaders for their own benefit reduced the
portions of the prisoners, stealing sausage and margarine for themselves and for their
closest pals. As a result the prisoners got instead of 40 gr. at most only 15-20 gr. of
sausage, and instead of 40 gr. of margarine only 25-30 gr.
It must be emphasized, that with the consent of the camp authorities every attempt at
complaint ended in tragedy for

p.67

the prisoner to whom injustice had been done; this recurred constantly during the
whole existence of the camp. Such were the supper rations, to which half a litre of
black coffee was added1. (1 Since 1942 the prisoners were to receive twice a week
half a litre of Mehlsuppe (20 gr meal or groats, and 5 gr salt - one portion). This
supper was distributed in the morning.)
On Tuesdays and Fridays supplements were allocated for those who worked
extremely hard, the so called Schwerarbeiterzulage for prisoners working in the field
in the woods in the crematoria. These additional portions should have amounted to
700 gr. of bread and 100 gr. of sausage, but in reality the prisoners got only 70 gr. of
sausage and 700 gr. of bread.
On Thursday the prisoners working inside the camp in the clothing stores, in the
laundry, in the shoemakers, tailor workshops a. s o. should have received in addition
460 gr. of bread and 50 gr. of sausage. They were getting however at least 10 gr. of
sausage less.
An accurate evaluation of the nutritional value of the food consumed by the prisoners
at Auschwitz, its energy value in calories is difficult owing to the fact that the
investigators did not have any specimens of bread, margarine or other products which
were given to the prisoners. It is certain however, that according to the evidence of all
the witnesses heard, these products were of a much worse quality than the average
given in the tables on which the calorific value of the consumed nourishment is
based. The data below given concerning calories is based on the calculations made
during the Inquiry in accordance with an official German publication "Nährstoff ,und
Nührungswert von Lebensmitteln. Bearbeitet im statistschen Reichsamt in
Verbindung mit dem Reichsgesundheitsamt" (Leipzig 1943 J. A.Barth), which took
into account the average products eaten by

p.68

the German population. So if in the calculation of the caloric value of bread, we were
obliged here to base it on "Kommisbrsot" it must not be forgotten that in the
Auschwitz camp bread which was given to the prisoners was of a much worse quality
and that its worth in calories was less owing to a serious increase of flour substitutes.
If the calorific value of the sausage was according to data concerning the average
sausage it must be remembered that at Auschwitz in most cases a sausage specially
poor in calorific value was given to the prisoners, such a sausage as is not seen in
normal conditions, with very little proteins and fat. The same thing applies to the
margarine and marmalade, etc.
In this way the data given below relate to average products, more valuable from the
point of view of nutrition than the products which were distributed to the prisoners in
the Auschwitz camp. In reality the amount of calories calculated ought to be much
less. If we are satisfied with the data obtained by calculations based on official
German tables, we do it only because the evaluation must be done on a strictly
defined basis.
Using data contained in official German tables, we get the following striking figures:

p.69

Whereas according to the standards of the Physiological Commitee of the Section of

Hygiene of the League of Nations a hardworking man ought to receive in 24 hours
about 4,800 calories and an average working man more than 3,600 calories, the
prisoners at Auschwitz were getting at most from 1302 up to 1744 calories for 24
hours! 1744 calories daily represent a little less than the basic conversion of food into
energy of a grown man, or in other words a little less than the amount needed by a
man resting in a lying position, covered and motionless. A man who works, nourished
in such a way is burning up his own tissues in order to cover the amount of energy
expended. This inevitably results in the wasting away of his organism in a manner
dangerous to life.
The diet of the prisoners working very hard outside the camp possessed such a
calorific value. The prisoners who were working in the camp and whose work was
also undoubtedly hard were getting at most 1302 calories for 24 hours, which was
much below the amount necessary for the preservation of life when lying in bed.
The above given data explains in full why the prisoners of the Auschwitz
concentration camp were dying in masses after a short period of time, and only those
who had the chance of getting stolen food, or were getting parcels of food from their
families at home, could preserve their life. All the other prisoners were doomed to
destruction. When speaking about details, the great deficiency of protein in the food
issued to the prisoners must be remembered, especially the lack of grade 1, animal
protein which

p.70

caused after a certain time a hunger-swelling. The lack of fresh vegetables in the diet
and of milk and its products meant a serious deficiency of the so called protective
foods, and especially of vitamins A, B and C. The need for mineral salts, and
particularly for calcium, phosphorus and iron was also not satisfied. Pathological
effects were the inevitable result of this, such as night-blindness, a ,lowering of
resistance to infection, septicemia, scurvy and skin diseases, teeth and bone diseases
caused through lack of calcium, inflammation of the nerves and so on. So the
nourishment of the prisoners was deficient in both quantity and quality to such an
extent that, overworked and overdriven as they were, it led very quickly to starvation,
exhaustion and death.
The above calculations explain the attitude of the SS-men, who regarded any prisoner
who survived in the camp for several months as a thief who stole food. "A prisoner
has the right to live in the camp only three months" was a typical saying of the
representatives of the camp authorities. When the commandant of the camp, Krause,
saw prisoners with low numbers he reproached the SS-men for tolerating such as had
learned how to "manage" and ordered their liquidation. Krause was convinced that a
prisoner should not live in the camp longer than six weeks.
The general conditions of life in the camp, and in particular the scale of food rations,
fully justify this belief.

THE AUSCHWITZ EXTERMINATION CAMP

PART III

X. The victims of hunger in photographs

XI. The camp hospital and "scientific" experiments on the prisoners
XII. The selections
XIII. The shootings
XIV. Hanging
XV. Gas-chambers
XVI. The burning of corpses. Crematoria
XVII. The wiping out of all vestiges of the crime

X. The victims of hunger in photographs

After the flight of the German’s a special legal and medical Commission inspected
the 2819 sick prisoners from the Auschwitz camp who survived, and stated that
among them 2189 i. e. 91% - were suffering from extreme exhaustion and starvation,
and 223 had tuberculosis. The autopsies which were

p.71

carried lout on 536 corpses proved that in 474 cases death was due to starvation.
The phbtograph No. 31 shown below represents a part of one group of corpses found
in one of the Blocks of the Auschwitz camp. The physical condition of the prisoners
during the existence of the camp is illustrated in photograph No. 32 taken by the SS
doctor Mengele. Photographs Nos 33 and 34 were taken in May 1945, and show the
state of the prisoners after they had already received several months of intensive
treatment in a Polish Red Cross hospital. Photograph No. 33 represents a woman
prisoner Nr. 44884, born in 1914, a Pole who arrived at Auschwitz Camp on May 15
1943. She is a woman of 160 centimeters in height and weighing about 25 klg. Before
her arrest she weighed 75 klg.
Photograph Nr. 34 is that of a German woman prisoner of Aryan origin born in 1922
who came to Auschwitz on Feb. 28 1944. She weighed at the time the photograph
was taken about 25 klg. One of the many ,others unhappy victims, a woman prisoner
No. A 27858, a Dutch Jewess, born in 1908, who had been in Auschwitz since the
middle of the year 1944, when photographed she weighed 23 klg. and measured 155
cm. in height.
All these women were ,suffering from the ,disease Distrophia Alimentaris III gradus.

XI. The camp hospital and "scientific" experiments on the prisoners

The inhuman conditions of life in the camp, hunger and hard work were the cause of
an average of 30% of the prisoners being sick and needing medical assistance. This
figure was contained in authentic diagrams of a section of prison - labour during the
period 1st June 1942 to 1st August 1944. At certain

p.72

periods up to 80% of all the prisoners had diarrhoea (Durchfall), a very dangerous
complaint in camp conditions.
Insufficient personal hygiene, and above all lack of water, caused breeding of lice,
and that led to epidemics of spotted typhus, which almost a11 the prisoners caught
during the winter periods of 1941-1943. They were also decimated by typhoid fever
in all its varieties and finally by malaria, for, although the camp authorities did
everything to protect the SS-men from it, they did not do anything to protect the
prisoners. The disease "distrophia alimentaris" must also be mentioned, and was
caused by starvation. It led in most cases to tuberculosis. Then there were scurvy and
other diseases caused by avitaminosis, and finally various skin diseases, scabies in
particular, and traumatic diseases caused through ill treatment.
Malnutrition undermined the constitutions of the prisoners who could not fight
efficiently against disease, so that the mortality rate among the sick was very high.
Typhoid fever and spotted typhus caused an excessively high number of deaths.
Elderly people, and of weak constitution perished in masses in a short period.
During the first period of its existence the camp had no hospital at all. Afterwards it
was organized, but it was designed rather for experiments by the SS doctors and
different representatives of German science than for the cure of the sick. The German
doctors and "scientists" sought in Auschwitz human rabbits for their experiments. It
follows undoubtedly from the testimony of a series of witnesses and from the report
of the surgical section of this hospital of Dec. I6 th 1943 that in the camp hospital at
Auschwitz experiments were carried out on living people. In the above-mentioned
report there are enumerated among other things: 90 castrations (Hodenamputation),
10 operations for removal of the

p.73

ovaries (Eierentfernung) and 10 operation to remove the ovi duct (Entfernung der
Eierleiters).
These experiments were carried out ,on the Xth Block of the base camp. The may be
divided into the following groups: experiments having as their aim the investigations
of cancer, finding out of a new contrasting mass for X-rays photographs and
hematological and serological experiments. Women of Jewish origin were used in
most cases for these experiments, which were done several times on many of them.
At the order of the Garrison doctor Wirths these experiments and the investigation of
cancer were done by a prisoner, Dr. Samuel, a German Jew, who cut out under
narcosis a part of the neck of the womb of the women prisoners. The cu-tout tissue
was frozen, and Dr. Samuel investigated it under the microscope. A big piece of tissue
was cut out, and the cut was deep, as the further experiments proved that, owing to a
strong scarring of the neck of the womb it became inaccessible to a sounding-rod, so
such women were sent to Birkenau to the gas-chambers as not suitable for further
experiments. Among others, Herman Mina, bforn on Dec. 27 th 1902 in Amsterdam
fell victim to such experiments.
Samuel's asistant had constructed a special apparatus for photographing the inside of
the vagina.
These photographs were very painful, as they lasted an hour and they had to be
repeated many times.
The sterilization experiments by means of X-rays were done by an airman of the
Wehrmacht, Oberleutnant, Obermedizinalrat Prof. Dr. Schumann from Berlin.
Illumination of the ovulas with Xrays directed on them for 5-15 minutes was carried
out. The intensity and the tension of the current were regulated by Prof. Schumann
himself, (sitting in a leaden cabin) - according to what he wanted to achieve by such
an illumination. Many women vomited after this operation. Many of them died after
it. After three months of this treatment

p.74
two controlling operations, were carried out on each of such women during which a
part of the sexual organs was removed in order to investigate their condition.
Probably owing to changes in the hormones ,resulting from these operations, even
young girls grew prematurely old and gave the impression of nearly old women.
In the case of men only one testicle was exposed to the rays. After the operation they
were returned normally to their blocks, from whence after one day of rest they were
driven to work notwithstanding the state of their health. Many men also died owing to
the rays. Those who survived were castrated by Schumann after one month in the
hospital. The cut-out testicles were gathered up by Schumann who took them away to
Berlin. Only young and healthy people were chosen for such operations, most of
them being Greek Jews and Jewesses. During one session Schumann put rays on
about 30 women. He organized such sessions 2-3 times in a week.
The principal experimentalist on living people in the camp was the German
gynaecologist, Prof. Glauberg who, with his colleague from Berlin, carried out
experiments in order to find out new contrast substances for the X-rays. Glauberg
however was a business man above everything else, as he was working by order of
the German Chemical Industry, from whom he was getting a considerable sum for
each woman used in his experiments. He bought 150 women from the camp
authorities for his experiments. These women were laid on the table which served for
the X-rays and with an electric syringe a dense, liquid mass like cement was squeezed
into their sexual organs. The insertion of this mass was controlled with the aid of the
Röntgen apparatus, and afterwards photographed. Women were writhing in pain, and
often had severe haemorrhage. These experiments were carried out on the same
women from 3 to 6 times at intervals of 3-4 weeks.

p.75

The victims of these experiments suffered from inflamation of the womb ovaries, ovi
ducts and peritoneum.
Further experiments were carried out by the SSmen Weber and Münch. Their aim
was the indication of the blood group the denoting of the text and the establishment
of the group elements text serum in the saliva. Other experiments had as their aim the
establishing of the amount of sulfphonamide and salicyl preparations in the blood and
the establishment of the reactions on the system of the injections of blood in people
suffering from malaria.
Finally other experiments were also performed in Auschwitz, such as ,the making of
plaster casts of the women’s genitals, and the investigation of the reaction to different
means of irritating the skin, ,or the relative effects of injections of petroleum and
benzine. These last experiments were carried out at the request of the German army
in order to obtain a detailed description of diseases ensuing from these operations.
At the beginning of the year 1944, a special Medical Commission arrived at the camp
consisting of SSmen from Berlin, who investigated about a hundred sick Jews and the
health staff. A special preparation was injected into their muscles and the reaction
from this injection was examined very carefully. After 15 minutes the victims were
led into the courtyard where they had a special kind of gymnastics, for half an hour.
Then individual members of the Commission asked the prisoners, among other
things, if they wanted to live or to die, if they felt fear, and they were particularly
asked several times who was their personal enemy. This last question proves that the
gestapo were working to find out such means as would produce in the victim a
special psychological condition facilitating extortion of evidence. It seems that the
prisoners who underwent this experiment felt symptoms of a slight dimness,
drowsiness and an inability to concentrate.

p.76

So the hospitals at Auschwitz served in the first place for experiments. The sick were
taken thereaccording to the statement of a certain SSman-five minutes before their
death. They were supplied with almost no medicaments whatsoever, there was no
proper diet, the sick were fed almost in the same way as the prisoners, the housing
conditions in the hospital were even worse than in the living quarters. There was one
period of time when the only medicine which was in the hospital was aspirin and
other analgesic tablets. The sick were given one spoonful of medicine only to create
the illusion in them that they were being cured. The medicine which was in the
hospital at the moment was given to all, in most cases analgesic tablets
(Schmerztabletten) which included treatment for headaches,
pleurisy, ischias, rheumatism, inflammation of the bladder, stomach aches and all
other diseases. In the hospital drug store paper bandages and lignine were given out,
which however were always in short supply. In the surgical section, contained in a
small surgery, everything was done without, local or general anaesthesia. Often 8-10
cuts were made on one limb. Very often the operation of the squeezing out of tumours
was performed. These were in most cases on the buttocks, resulting from suppuration
of wounds, the result of beating with a rod.
In the hospital the meticulous recording of the case history of the diseases was
observed very strictly and would have done credit to the best clinics. In some of the
hospital blocks the curves of temperature and analysis were so carefully done that
they might serve as an example even to the best hospitals. The German doctors
however did not cure the prisoners.

XII. The selections

As in the camp only those who worked had the right to live, therefore the sick were
taken regularly from the hospital at

p.77

intervals of time, and murdered. Such activities were called selections. This
nightmare weighed heavily upon the hospital huts. It obviously deterred the sick
people, so that for a long period of time the hospitals of Auschwitz were a refuge only
for would-be-suicides, tired of life and the torments of camp existence. Such
selections were also carried on in the housing blocks of all sections and branches of
the camp, in order to clear out prisoners from them unfit for further work. In most
cases the SSdoctors Helmersohn, Thilo, König, Mengele and Kitt, whith the manager
of the Prisoners’ Employment department reviewed the sick and the prisoners in the
blocks and without any medical inspection they decided merely from ,the appearance
of the prisoner whether he should live or die.
The prisoner, who at the first glance gave the impression of being exhausted, sick,
unable to work, was regarded by the doctor as qualified for destruction. The sick
knew that they were approaching in turn these masters of their life and death and tried
to give the impression of being healthy. They straightened themselves, lifted their
heads, pushed out their lean chests, trying in this way to weight the scales in favour
of life. It did not help much, it was sometimes enough that someone had an abcess, or
wore a a bandage, and so fell victim to selection. The Viennese Paul Kruger, was
selected only because as he had an old appendicitis scar. The methods of selection are
proved by the fact that in about 20 minutes the doctor "inspected" in this way often
about 500 persons. During a certain selection carried out by Helmersohn, the
physically weak prisoners tried to conceal themselves under the plank beds. They
were seen and the SS-men fired blindly at the hidden men, wounding and killing
many of them. The extent of destruction by such a selection is proved by the fact
based on statistical data, that 7,616 people were selected only from the camp of the
quarantine in Birkenau during the period from August 29 th 1943 up to Oct. 29 th
1944.

p.78

The chosen were put into separate blocks called by the prisoners "blocks of death".
In the women’s camp the XXVth Block was described by witness Mrs. Rachwal as
follows: It was a stone block with grated windows whose courtyard was fenced with
a high wire. In this block up to 2000 persons were often staying who sometimes did
not get anything to eat for days. There was a dreadfull stuffiness and stench as it was
filled with dead and dying prisoners, among which crept, sick persons, swollen
bleeding human skeletons, moaning and begging for a drop of water. Isolated in
such blocks the selected prisoner perished either from hunger or from an injection of
phenol or were suffocated by gas. The gaps thus made in the ranks of the labour
groups were filled by the prisoners who arrived in the fresh transports.
In the carefully thought-out mills of death at Auschwitz the selections served as a
means of keeping the prisoners at the highest level of working efficiency, killing by
hard labour, hunger and disease some, who were destined to be replaced by others. In
this criminal way the turnover of human material at Auschwitz was controlled.
The inventor of the method of ridding the camp of prisoners unable to work by
injections of phenol was one of the camp doctors SS-Obersturmführer Dr Endress.
Injections of 10-12 cm. of a 30% phenol were made, first in the veins and then in the
heart. The number of prisoners selected by him for injection of phenol was on some
days as large as 300. These injections were made in most cases by both of the
medical assistants, SS- Oberscharführer Josef Klehr and Herbert Scherpe, assisted
first by Stessel and then by Panszczyk. Stesse1 boasted before the prisoners that he
had murdered over 10,000 patients by phenol injections, and Panszczyk similarly
treated more than 12,000. These operations were carried out in the surgery of the
XXth Block or in ,the XXVIIIth Block of the base camp. The condemned man warns
seated in a chair,

p.79

similar to a dentist’s, and two prisoners seized his hands and a third blindfolded him
with a towel and held his head. Then Klehr approached his victim and drove a long
needle into his chest directly into the heart. The prisoner did not die immediately, but
everything turned dark before his eyes; then the prisoners who had assisted at the
injection led him into an adjoining room and threw him on the floor, where he
expired after about 20 seconds. The room in which these operations were carried out
was close to the entrance to the XXth block on the left. The corpses were 1aid on the
opposite side of the corridor in the lavatory. Klehr, who took keen pleasure in making
these deadly injections, did not confine himself to the patients selected by the doctor,
but if he had no officially selected material, went himself and looked for it. He used
to go to the XXVIIIth Block, enter the room where the sick were waiting to go into
the hospital, selected ten or a dozen, and killed them by injections. It is not strange
therefore, that in these conditions the prisoners were afraid of the hospital and
avoided it particularly as even a high temperature shown on the case chart was
enough to bring one to his doom.

XIII. The shootings

A second method of mass murder of prisoners was shooting, practised principally by

the "political department" at Auschwitz, which was organised and directed from June
18, 1940, to Nov. 1, 1943, by the chief executioner, SS-Untersturmführer Ernst
Grabner.
He was chosing a group of suitable assistants strictly collaborating with the camp
Command, he secured for the political department unlimited power over the life of
the prisoner. He was the initiator and executant of daily mass shootings. It was he
who in 1941 introduced the practise of shooting victims through the back of the head
(Genickschuss). The following shot prisoners in this way: first reporter of the camp
SS- Hauptsturmführer Palitsch, the ex-reporter, SS-Unterschar-

p.80

führer Friedrich Stiwitz, son of a German pastor; Blockführer Bruno Schlage, SS-
Unterscharführer Lachmann, SS-Unterscharführer Quackernack Walter, SS-
Unterscharführer Kirschner Herbert, SSUnterscharführer Bogar Wilhelm, Kaduk
Oswald, Nebest Wilhelm, Schultz Erich, Burek Wasil, Löwenday Friedrich, and other
SS-men from the political department. Grabner's principal assistants were SS-
Hauptsturmführer Aumeier, Lagerführer of the base camp and afterwards the
commandant of the concentration camp at Riga, and Hauptsturmführer Fritsch,
afterwards commandant at Flossenburg. Aumeier pronounced the sentences and was
present, along with Grabner, at the almost daily executions.
His mentality is illustrated by the following incident: on Saturday Jan. 23, 1943, a
Polish colonel, Jan Karcz, who had been half a year in a penal company, came to
Aumeier and asked for release from this company, as his time was up. Aumeier
answered mockingly that he would be informed of his decision. On Monday, Jan. 25,
Karcz was summoned to the XIth Block and shot.
Fritsch greeted the prisoners who arrived in the camp with the following speech: I
warn you that you have come not to a sanatorium but to a German concentration
camp from which there is no way out, save only by the chimney (i. e. the
crematorium). If any one disliked it he may go at once on to the (high-tension) wires.
If there are Jews in the transport, they have no right to live more than a fortnight; if
there are any priests, they may live for a month; the rest may live three months.
He was the organiser of the penal company, to which were sent mainly persons of
education and army officers. Grabner’s right-hand man was Boger, who organised a
network of spies in the camp and invented the most refined methods of torture for use
when prisoners were questioned. He used to torture prisoners himself, and
particularly persecuted preg-

p.81

nant women, whom he kicked in the stomach and so killed. Quackernack at these
examinations used to crucify his victims, prick their testicles with steel needles, or
introduce burning suppositories into their vaginas.
Palitsch, the principal executioner and first executant of Grabner’s sentences by
shooting, was the terror of all the prisoners. He always carried a tommy-gun before
shooting them used to criminally assault his victims. He ordered some Po lish officers
who were brought to the camp on Aug. 15, 1940, to kiss his boots in the presence of
other SS-men and when they refused he shot them.
The first shootings were done at the posts outside the camp fence. The prisoners were
bound to these posts by their arms, which were twisted behind them. The shooting
was performed by a firing squad, commanded by an officer of the SS. Afterwards
deep holes dug outside the fence were chosen as the place of execution, near the
camp gate, and afterwards a square near the branch railway line. In July, 1942, 82
Poles from Cracow were shot there in batches of ten. All of them had their hands
bound behind with wire. Those who were in the last ten had been obliged to look on
at the death of their 70 companions.
Afterwards the yard of the XIth Block was chosen as the scene of the shooting's, and
particularly a wall connecting the Xth Block with the XIth. Before it a high platform
was constructed of boards, the sides being covered with cork and painted black. The
condemned men were assembled in the lavatory of the XIth Block, where other
prisoners covered by rifles bound their hands with barbed wire, the SS-men watching
to make sure that the wire should be drawn tight with pincers so that its barbs should
eater deeply into the flesh. Then they were taken to the black wall, placed with their
faces to it, and shot through the back of the head from a distance of 1 metre. When
smaller groups were shot their hands were not bound.

p.82

The unfettered prisoners made the sign of the cross. Palitsch ordered them to do it
again, and when the prisoner lifted his hand to his forehead Palitsch fired. The firing-
squad used guns with silencers.
Special automatic guns, such as are used in slaughter-houses for killing or stunning
cattle, were also employed.
In 1943 Palitsch fell in love with a Jewess who was a prisoner and for having
relations with her was lodged in the coalhole of the XIth Block. He then told
prisoners confined together with him that he had shot 25,000 prisoners at Auschwitz
with his own hand.

XIV. Hanging

Another method of carrying out the death-sentences of the political department was
by hanging. This was principally in order to deter the prisoners from attempting
escape. At first the executions were carried out in the camp yard in the presence of all
the prisoners, lined up for roll-call. Before being hanged the condemned were
flogged. Afterwards the gallows was moved to the yard of Block XI.
The bodies were left hanging all night. The corpses of prisoners shot while
attempting to escape were also exposed to public view in order to deter the rest. They
were laid on a table in front of the guardhouse at the camp gate, and next morning all
the working-parties going out to their daily labour were made to file past the dead,
turning their heads towards them. These corpses were usually injured in the most
horrible way so that their intestines protruded. Men were also hanged for other
offences. On Sep. 15,1944, Jozef Jasinski, a 27-year-old prisoner, was hanged at
Brzezinka (Birkenau) ostensibly for having sent out a letter in which he described the
conditions in camp, and so, as it might happen to fall into the hands of the enemy
intelligence, endangered the good fame of the German government.

p.83

XV. Gas-chambers

All these murder-methods, however, were not enough to absorb all the superfluous
prisoners, and above all could not solve the problem of getting rid of hundreds of
thousands of Jews. So the German arranged for them to be gassed wholesale.
This method was tried out in the summer of 1941 in the coal-cellars of Block XI on
about 250 patients from the hospital blocks and about 600 prisoners-of-war. After the
victims had been put there, the windows of the cellars were covered with earth, and
afterwards an SS-man in a gas-mask poured the contents of a can of cyclon on the
floor and locked the door. Next afternoon Palitsch, wearing a gasmask, opened the
door and found that some of the prisoners were still alive. More cyclon was
accordingly poured out, and the doors locked again, to be reopened next evening,
when all the prisoners were dead.
Afterwards the gassing was carried out in the gas- chamber near the first
crematorium. This chamber with a floor area of 65 sq. metres (78 sq. yds.) haid gas-
tight doors, and the gassing was done by pouring the contents of cans exhaling
poisonous gas through an opening in the ceiling. After that the gassing operations
were systematically extended. In the autumn of 1941 on a clearing in the wood of
Birkenau, in a small, cottage which had belonged to a deported peasant, a primitive
gas-chamber was organised, called Cellar 2, and two kilometres (1¼ miles) away,
likewise in a deported peasant’s cottage, a further chamber, called Cellar 1.
In the summer of 1942 it was decided to extend enormously gassing operations and to
improve them technically, entrusting the construction of huge crematoria to the firm
of J. A. Topf and Sons at Erfurt (ms. of Aug. 3, 1942, No. 11450/42Bi/H). This was
done just after SS. Reichsführer Himmler’s visit of inspection. The construction
began immediately, and in the early month’s of 1943 four huge modern

p.84

crematoria were ready for the use of the camp authorities; their fundamental and
essential part consisted of a set of gas-chambers ,of a type unknown before. These
crematoria were distinguished by the numbers II, III, IV and V. Crematoria II and III
had underground areas, called on the construction drawings Nos. 932 and 933 of Jan.
28, 1942, Leichenkeller 1, and 2, both of which were intended for the gassing of
human beings. Cellar 2 had an area of 400 sq. metres (480 sq. Yds.) and was 2,3
metres high. Cellar 1 had an area of 210 sq metres and was 2.4 metres (7 ft. 9 in.)
high.
In crematoria IV and V chambers were built on the surface, each having an extent of
580 sq. Metres (694 sq. yds.), which were officially called Badeanstalt fur
Sonderaktion ("Baths for Special Action") (Aktenvermerk of Aug. 21, 1942, No.
12115/42). From the specifications of the central building board of Feb. 19, May. 6,
1943, and Apr. 6, 1943 it appears that both cellar No. 1 in crematoria II and III and
the Badenanstalten in crematoria IV and V had gas-tight doors with grated
observation windows of unbreakable 8 mm glass. The true purpose of all these rooms
variously described is revealed by Bischoff’s letter of Jan. 29,1943, to the Chief of
the Official group C. Kammler, 22250/43 in which he called them gas-chambers
(Vergasungskeller).
From the evidence of witnesses who as prisoners were employed at the gas-chambers
and crematoria and from written reports by prisoners which have been preserved the
operations seem to have been carried out as follows: Prisoners, selected for gassing
straight from the trains on the railway line, and others selected in the camp were
driven to the crematoria on foot, those who were unable to walk were taken in motor
trucks. Between the railway platform and the gas chambers there was an
uninterrupted procelssion of people towards the chambers as they were steadily
cleared of corpses.
In the middle of the road lorries were continually fetching the
p.85

weak, old, sick, and children, from the railway. In the ditches at the road-sides lay
SS-me with machine guns ready to fire. An SS-men adressed the crowd huddled in
the yard telling them that they were going to the baths for disinfection as they were
dirty and lousy, and in such a state they could not be admitted into the camp. The
gassing was carried on under the personal supervision of the doctor SS-
Hauptsturmführer Mengele. The prisoners who arrived in the yard of the crematorium
were driven to the dressing-room over the door of which was the inscription "Wasch
und Desinfektionsraum" and the same inscription in the language of the victims
destined for gassing.
From plans and remains which have been found, and from the evidence of witnesses
it appears that in the dressing-room (Leichenkeller 2) there were clothing pegs with
numbers. The SS- men advised the victims huddled in the cloak-room each of them to
remember the number of the peg on which he had hung his clothes so that he might
find them again easily afterwards. After undressing they were driven through a
corridor to the actual gas chamber (Leichenkeller l), which had previously been
heated with the aid of portable coke braziers. This heating was necessary for the
better evaporation of the hydrogen cyanide. By beating them with rods and setting
dogs on them about 2000 victims were packed into a space of 210 sq. metres (250 sq.
yds).
From the ceiling of this chamber, the better to deceive the victims, hung imitation
shower-baths, from which water never poured. After the gas-tight doors had been
losed the air was pumped out and through four special openings in the ceiling the
contents of cans of cyclon, producing – cyanide hydrogen1 gas, were poured in. (1
The Cyclon needed for the killing of the victims locked in the chamber was brought
by an SS doctor in a car with the Red Cross on it. The opening of the cans with a
special key, the pouring of their contents and afterwards the closing of the opening
with lids with tight-fitting felt covers was done by a Gestapo-man in a gas mask.)

p.86

The contents of the cans fell down a cylindrical shaft constructed of four corner
pieces covered with wire mesh-work of varying density. In the case of the surface
gas-chambers in crematoria IV and V, the contents of the cans of cyclon were poured
in through openings in the side-walls.
Hydrogen cyanide (HCN or HCy) is extremely poisonous. A man is poisoned by
inhaling air containing no more than 0.12 mg. of it per litre (i. e. . 0012 per cent) It
stops the action of the ferments, which render possible the giving of oxygen to the
tissues by the red blood corpuscles, and thus causes death by internal suffocation with
the symptoms of irritation of the respiration centre, accompanied by feelings of fear,
dizziness and vomiting.
With sufficient concentration of hydrogen cyanide in the air, death comes almost
immediately. The SS-men employed at the crematoria at Auschwitz did not give
themselves the trouble to calculate the proper quantity for each gas-chamber, which
by a quick death would save the victims from agony.
They poured into the chambers the contents of the cans of cyclon and to make sure
kept their victims under the gas for about 25 minutes. During period of greatest
gassing activity in the summer of 1944 they shortened this period to 10 minutes, at
the same time for reasons of economy reducing the amount of cyclon from 12 to 6
cans. According to the evidence of the stokers it appears that after the doors of the gas
chamber, in which there was an observation window, had been closed the gassed
victims ran towards the door, broke the observation pane, and damaged the electric
installations and the air-exhaustion pumps.
When the doors of the gas chamber were opened the gassed were found in a half-
sitting position.
The corpses were pink; in some spots more pink, in others covered with green spots.
Some had foam on their lips, others were bleeding at the nose. Many corpses had
open eyes, many were looked together. The

p.87

majority were packed near the doors; fewer were under the gas inlets. From their
position it could be seen that the victims had tried to get away from the openings and
get to the door.
The statements of the witnesses that in the Auschwitz chambers people were
poisoned by cyclon are confirmed by the following facts: The "Azot" chemical
factory at Jaworzno delivered to the camp authorities between Aug. 3, 1943, and Apr.
29, 1944, a total of 1,155 kg. (253 gallons) of this powerful poison (letter of May
11,1945). During the investigation several cases of cyclon were found intact in a
store-room specially this purpose storeroom in the base camp, and in the bathroom of
the women’s camp at Birkenau. In the women’s hair which was cut after they had
been gassed, and in the zinc lids of the air-exhaustion openings of the gas-chamber
(Leichenkeller 1) of Crematorium II, and finally in the metallic objects hairpins and
clasps, an the metal spectacle-frames, found in the bag of hair, an expert chemical
investigation carried out by the Legal Expert Inquiry Institute at Cracow found traces
of hydrogen cyanide and a relatively large quantity of its compounds (report of Dec.
15,1945).

XVI. The burning of corpses. Crematoria

All the methods of individual and mass murder here described produced an enormous
number of corpses, which had to be disposed of. At first they were buried in mass
graves in the wood adjoining Birkenau. In the spring of 1942 their decomposition
began to poison the air with its exhalations, so the mass graves were dug up and part
of the corpses were burnt in the crematorium, and the rest in pits, and the rotten mess
was burnt with flame-throwers. The mass-murders forced the camp authorities to seek
a radical and wholesale method of disposing of the bodies. Already in 1940 a small
crematorium was installed at Auschwitz (No. 1) in an old Austrian munition
magazine. It had at first two and afterwards three two

p.88

retort furnaces. 3-5 corpses were put at one time into each retort. As the burning of
such a load lasted about an hour and a half, and the furnaces were active about 14
hours a day, or even longer, the number of bodies burnt in a day must have been
about 300.
After gassing had begun in 1941, the small crematorium could not hold all the
corpses of the victims, so they were burnt in 8 open pits, dug for the purpose near the
gas chambers and called "bunkers" 1 and 2. After the extension of the camp to cover
the whole Birkenau area, in the spring of 1943 four more crematoria were constructed
in pairs according to the plans, and symmetrically located. The first pair (II and.III)
had 5 furnaces of three retorts each, heated by two half-generator fires.
Crematoria IV and V were constructed at a distance of about 750 metres (820 yards)
from the two previously mentioned, and had twin furnaces of 8 retorts each, heated
by two fires on either side.
Together, therefore, these four new crematoria had 46 retorts, each with a capacity of
3-5 corpses.
The burning of one retort load lasted about half an hour, and as the cleaning of the
fireplaces took about an hour per day, so all the four crematoria could burn about
12,000 corpses in 24 hours, which would give 4,380,000 ,a year. But even such
efficiency in the crematoria and their intensive exploitation, as a result of which one
of the flues cracked II (Aktenvermerk No. 36132/43 of Sep. 13,1943), did not suffice
to burn the numbers of bodies supplied at certain periods by the camp authorities.
Between May and August, 1944, during the mass transports of Hungarian Jews and
French Insurgents in the haste caused by the development of the situation on the war
fronts, Hungarians and French were gassed in such numbers that the crematoria could
not burn all the corpses. So six huge pits were dug beside crematoria V, and old pits
were opened near the gas plant in the wood, and corpses burnt in them continuously.
When operations were in full swing in

p.89

August, 1944, the number of corpses burnt daily rose to 24,000 For this work the
prisoners employed at the crematoria numbering at first 100, but later over 1000,
received a special bonus of whisky.
The records of the camp construction department abound in calculations and
comparisons of the use of coke, current and other materials necessary for crematoria.
It is evident, thereflore, that the camp authorities sought an economic method of
corpse-disposal.
The experience of August, 1944, showed that the cheapest way was burning in open
pits. So the crematoria were closed, and thenceforward the corpses were burnt only in
pits, and the plans for a sixth crematorium were based on this principle.
In Crematorium I the corpses were loaded into the retorts with the help of a specially
constructed truck. In Crematoria II and III the corpses were raised to the level of the
furnaces by electric lifts on specially constructed platforms. In crematoria IV and V
they were dragged up to the furnaces with hooks.
Before the loading of the corpses into the furnaces gold teeth were pulled out,
earrings and rings were taken away, and the women’s hair was cut off. After the flight
of the Germans 7,000 kg. (7 tons) of women’s hair were found in the stores at
Auschwitz; what was left of the hair of hundreds of thousands of victims, which the
Germans had not succeeded in carrying away to the Reich. There were also found
2,904 reports by the manager of the crematorium, stating that from 2904 corpses
altogether 16,325 gold and platinum teeth had been extracted. 40 prisoners were
employed daily on this ‘"dental" work, and at certain times as much as 12 kg. (26 lbs.
8 ,oz.) of gold teeth were melted down. The ashes of the corpses were at first buried
in pits, and the marshes near the village of Harmenze were covered with them, and it
was only afterwards, when the German army was in retreat, that

p.90

they were thrown into the rivers Vistula and Sola, as were those also from the pits.
A small quantity of carefully sifted ash was kept in a shed, for enclosures in urns and
dispatched on demand, to the families of murdered prisoners, who had been informed
of their deaths. The notice sent to the family stated that the corpse of the prisoner had
been burnt at the cost of the State, and that the funeral urn was kept in an Urnenheim
adjoining the crematorium at Auschwitz. At the family’s request the urn was sent on
payment of the required sum. It was an obvious swindle, as the ashes of the burnt
corpses were not preserved individually, and owing to the simultaneous burning of
several corpses in the same retort it was quite impossible so to preserve them.
Besides, there was no urn burial place whatever at Oswiecim.
On the basis of calculations made by experts of the Investigation Technical
Commision under the guidance of Prof. Dawidowski it was stated during the inquiry
that the installations for disposing of corpses in pits and crematoria could have burnt
more than 5 millions bodies during the period in which they were active.
As is well known, the Soviet Legal and Medicinal Commission, which arrived at
Auschwitz immediately after the flight of the Germans, has stated that the number of
prisoners murdered exceeded 4,000,000.
These calculations are in conformity with the data obtained during the inquiry from a
competent witnes, a railway employee from Oswiecim station. This man, Fr. Stanek,
stated that in the three years 1942-1944; 3,850,000 prisoners were brought to
Oswiecim by rail. Five millions would be nearer the mark counting those brought by
car.

XVII. The wiping out of all vestiges of the crime

The Germans tried of course to destroy if possible all proof of the crimes they had
committed. They tried therefore to
p.91

wipe out carefully all traces which might betray them in future. The crematoria were
the best means for doing this. The scattering of the ashes on the rivers and afterwards
the destruc tion of the crematoria tended to the same purpose, as did the murder of the
prisoners from the Sonderkommando, the killing of persons on whom experiments
had been made, and the destruction of their remains, the killing of the prisoners who
had collaborated with the Germans in carrying out the experiments, the writing of
false case histories relating to murdered prisoners, and destruction of the records of
the camp.
As early as May, 1944, the old crematorium at Auschwitz was transformed into an
air-raid shelter.
Crematorium IV was burnt on Oct. 7, 1944, during a fire which broke out when the
members of the Sonderkommando tried to avoid being gassed. The technical
installations at crematoria II and III were dismantled in November, 1944, and part of
them sent to the camp at Gross Rosen, and the buildings were blown up.
Crematorium V was burnt and its walls blown up in the night of Jan. 20, 1945. Some
of the Sonderkommando were gassed by Germans in the disinfection hall
(Enfwesungskammer) in the base camp. It was even proposed to take down the wall
of death in the yard of the XI Block and to remove the sand under the wall which was
soaked with blood. The XXVth Block in the women's camp (the block of death) was
transformed into a hospital block, and the numbering was changed, so that it became
No. 2a.
At the end of August, 1944, the registration books in which the deaths of prisoners
had been registered were destroyed, by special delegates from Berlin who took them
all away, loaded them on two cars, and removed them from Auschwitz. The main
book containing very many facts about the Sonderbehandlung (S. B.) was left to the
camp authorities, but it was copied and the mark S.B. Was replaced by another.
Schumann’s X-ray apparatus was taken away in December, 1944. The

p.92

prisoner Slezak who worked it and had witnessed many experi ments done with it
was sent to the concentration camp at Mauthausen, where he was executed.
The same fate befell five prisoners who had been employed on the crematoria.
On January 18, 1945, the camp authorities hastily evacuated about 58,000 prisoners
from Auschwitz, leaving 5,000-6,000 who were seriously ill. Many of the 58,000
were shot on the way, as they were unable to walk. In one of the daughter-camps
(Fürstengrube) all the sick were burnt in their huts.
On January 22 Auschwitz was occupied by the Red Army.

In the light of the investigations which have been made, it may be stated that the
Auschwitz camp was not only a concentration camp, but was in the first place an
extermination camp, and already at its foundation was designed by the Nazi
authorities as a place of execution for millions of people, who, in accordance with
Nazi principles, had been deprived of the right to live, as representatives of "inferior
races and nationalities" , "less valuable" and standing in the way of the expansion of
the Herrenvolk.

THE TREBLINKA EXTERMINATION CAMP

p.95

The evidence on which this account relies is in the first place the testimony of 13
Jews, former prisoners at Treblinka, who succeeded in escaping during the armed
revolt of August 2, 1943. Their names are: Jankiel Wiernik, Henryk Poswolski, Abe
Kon, Aron Czechowicz, Oskar Strawczynski, Samuel Reisman, Aleksander Kudlik,
Hejnoch Brener, Starisław Kon, Eugeniusz Turowski, Henryk Reichman, Szyja
Warszawsski, and Leon Finkelsztejn.
Additiond facts concerning particularly the number of railway transports, is to be
found in the evivdence of 11 Polish railway workers.
The railway records at Treblinka station have a1so been consulted, as well as
documents and coins dug out during the levelling of the surface; and the results of
legal and medical inquiries, as well was the sworn evidence of a land surveyor, were
used by the prosecutors.

I.

The Extermination Camp at Treblinka in which hundreds of thousands of Jews were

murdered is situated near the village of Wolka-Okraglik, in the commune of Kosow,
district of Sokolow Podlaski, province (voivodship) of Warsaw. The camp site was
placed in a sandy region, overgrown with pines and far from human habitation. The
nearest village, the above mentioned ,Wolka, was 1½ km from the camp boundary.
The nearest railway station Treblinka (after which the camp was named) is 4 km.
away.

p.96

At a short distance, along the north-western and northern boundaries of the camp, the
road from Kosow to Malkinia and the railway from Siedlce to Malkinia run parallel,
but owing to the undulating, wooded character of the region, the grounds of the camp
are invisible alike from the road and from the railway.
Near the south-western edge of the camp a branch line runs to a gravel pit and was
continued to the camp itself. This extension no longer exists; it served to bring the
transports of victims. A road also, still in existence, was made from the high road and
continued to the camp.
The area of the camp amounted to 13.45ha. (33 acres). The entire camp had the shape
of an irregular rectangle. Construction work was begun on June 1, 1942, and was
carried out mostly by Jewish workers brought in cars from the adjoining small towns
of Wegrow, and Stoczek Wegrowski, who during their work were killed in masses.
The first railway transports of victims destined for destruction arrived at the camp on
July 23, 1942, and from that time until approximately the middle of December, 1942,
there was a constant stream of fresh arrivals. After New Year, 1943, the number of
transports began to diminish. In February or March, 1943, Himmler visited the camp,
and after this a whole-sale burning of corpses was undertaken. On August 2 a revolt
broke out, during which part of the camp hutments were burnt. But at the end of the
month several more transports arrived The camp was finally “liquidated” in
November, 1943. At the present time no traces of it are left, except for the cellar
passage with the protruding remains of burnt posts, the foundations of the
administration building, and the old well.
Here and there can also be traced the remains of burnt fence posts and pieces of
barbed wire, and short sections of paved road. There are also other traces. For
example, in the north-eastern part, over a surface covering about 2 ha. (5 acres),

p.97

there are large quantities of ashes mixed with sand, among which are numerous
human bones, often with the remains of decomposing tissues.
As a result of an examination made by an expert it was found that ashes were the
remains of burnt human bones. The examination of numerous human skulls found in
the camp has shown that they bear no traces of external injuries. Within a radius of
several hundred yards from the camp site an unpleasant smell of burnt ash and decay
is noticeable, growing stronger as one approaches.
The south-western part of the camp site is covered with the remains of all kinds of
aluminum, enamel, glass and porcelain vessels, kitchen utensils, trunks, rucksacks,
and remnants of clothing. Almost the whole camp-site is now covered with pits and
holes.

II.

According to the evidence of the Jewish witnesses who had been confined at
Treblinka, the general appearance of the camp was as follows while it was
functioning: It was enclosed within a 3-4 m. (10-13 ft.) high barbed-wire fence,
densely interwoven with pine branches to make it invisible. Along the enclosure were
barricades of barbed wire, and at intervalswere watch-towers, where Ukrainian
guards armed with machine-guns were stationed.
The interior of the camp was divided into two parts: the first, including about five-
sixths of the whole, had a railway siding, stores, warehouses, workshops, offices,
living-quarters for the SS men, Ukrainians and Jewish workers; garages and a
kitchen-garden. It was the administrative part. The second was the extermination
camp proper‘and contained two buildings -with 13 gas- chambers, living-quarters for
the Jewish
p.98

workers, and the place where the corpses were buried, and afterwards dug up and
burnt.
During the first phase of the camp, from July, 1942 onward 3 gas-chambers were in
use. In the early autumn of 1942, however, the construction of a new building,
holding 10 chambers, was begun. One of the witnesses brought to Treblinka on
October 10, 1942, saw these chambers already functioning.
The aspect of the chambers in which victims were gasssed, according to statements
by the witnesses Wiernik, Rajchman and Czechowicz, was as follows: Both buildings
had many corridors, within the larger building the entrances to the chambers being on
both sides of the corridor, but in the smaller one on one side only. The entrances were
small and had tightly closing doors. In the outer wall’s of the chambers were large
trap doors which could be raised in order to permit the removal of the corpses. The
chambers had tiled floors, sloping towards the outer side. In the ceiling were
openings connected by pipes with engines situated in adjoining buildings, which
produced the CO gas with which the victims were suffocated.
The witness Wiernik, who worked as a carpenter during the whole time of his stay in
the camp, and so had a certain amount of freedom, gives the dimensions of the
chambers as being in the smaller building 5x5 metres (15ft. 6 in. square) and 7 x7
metres (23 ft. square) in the larger.
The burning of the corpses had begun already at the time of the full functioning of the
camp. At Treblinka there were no crematoria with furnaces, but there was a primitive
arrangement of grates made from rails placed on supports of reinforced concrete,
which could hold 2,500 corpses.
Mechanical excavators were used for digging the pits and later for the exhumation of
the corpses. In the waybills for the wagons sent from Treblinka at the time of the final
"liquidation" of the camp three excavators are mentioned. One of them was

p.99

dispatched from Treblinka on June 29, 1943, to the firm of Adam Lamczak, Berlin-
Neukölln, Willy Waltherstrasse 30-3 Tr.
In the general lay-out of the camp the so-called Lazarett or hospital is interesting. It
was situated in the first part of the camp, and was in essence a place enclosed by a
high fence and divided inside into two unequal parts. The entrance was through a
small hut, on which was a Red Cross flag, whence the way led to a smaller "waiting-
room", with plush-covered sofas, whence again the victims were taken to the second
part. Here there was a pit, on the edge of which an SS-man or Ukrainian shot the
victim through the back of the head with a revolver, The Lazarett was designed for
the destruction of the sick, invalids, old people, and small children who were too
weak to enter the gas-chambers by themselves.
The Sonderkommando tried thus to prevent interruption of the normal smooth
working of the camp activities.
The fact of the existence in the camp of arrangements whose sole aim was to deceive
the victims as to its real purpose is very noteworthy. A sham railway station was built
to resemble a real one, with various inscriptions, such as "refreshment room",
"waiting room", or "booking office", and signs showing the "passengers" where to get
in for Bialyatok and elsewhere.

III.

The camp was run By a relatively very small group of SS - men. Witnesses mention
the names of the following: Stengel, the camp commandant, from Vienna, Kurt Franz
from Thüringen, the vicecommandant Rütner from Leipzig, Franz Miete from
Bavaria, Mentz from the vicinity of Bydgoszcz, Paul Bredow from Silesia, Willy Post
from Hamburg, Kurt Seidel from Berlin, Müller from Hamburg, Suchomil from the

p.100

Sudeten mountains, Schafner, Joseph Herman from Cologne, Schmidt and

Minzberger, all of whom worked in the first, administrative, part of the camp. In the
second part, where the gas-chambers were, there were, among others, Flops of
Munich, a specialist in burning corpses, Emil Ludwik, the manager of this part of the
camp, Karl Petzingelr of Leipzig, Mathiss, Lefler, of German origin but probably a
citizen of the United States, Edwin Gense of Vienna and Otto Horn.
Auxiliary functions were carried out by the Ukrainians, who numbered about 100, but
there were also a certain number of Jewish workers, who were frequently killed off
and replaced. As stated by the Jewish witnesses, these workers were chosen from
particular transports in parties of not less than ten and not more than 100. In the first
part elf the camp there were about 1000 of them, and in the second from 200 to 500.
The workers in the two different parts of the camp could not communicate with each
other. At the head of the group was a senior official who wore an arm-band with the
inscription: Aeltester der Juden (Senior Jew). The group was subdivided as follows:
a) A group with blue arm-bands, who cleaned the wagons after the transports had
arrived; b) a group with red arm-bands, who helped to undress the victims; c) the
largest group, who sorted the clothing, d) Goldjuden (Gold Jews) who took valuables
from the victims, e) a group of workers specially employed in niterweaving the fence
with brenches and f) a group of artisans who worked in the workshops. In the secoad
part of the camp Jewish workers were employed in removing corpses from the gas-
chambers, burying them and later on in burning the remains.
The railway trains had staffs consisting mainly of Ukrainians and Lithuanians under
the command of SS-men, recruited from outside the camp. Two German railway
mans, Rodolph Emerich and Willy Elinzman were permanently employed at
Treblinka station unloading trains of Jews.

p.101

IV.
The treatment of the victims was as follows: the railway trams arrived at the station at
Treblinka. As the branch line could not take more than 20 wagons at once, the trains
were divided, each section in turn being drawn by an engine on to the extension line
leading to the camp. Here the SS-men and Ukrainians were standing ready with arms
and whips, and after opening the wagons they drove the Jews brutally forward.
Everything had to be done in the quickest possible time. The unwilling and those who
were too slow were shot. At the same time Jewish workers removed corpses and
baggage from the wagons and cleaned them out. We must bear in mind that the
victims travelled in locked cars meant for the transport of freight, and especially on
bad days, owing to overcrowding (often as many as 200 persons in one car) the
weaker ones died before their arrival at the camp.
After leaving the cars the victims were driven along with blows and shouts to the
enclosure, where the men were separated from the women and children. Old people,
the sick, and abandoned children were directed thence to the lazaret, where they were
shot.
A small number of the men were then selected for work in the camp, while others
were sent to the adjoining labour camp. After a short time they also died wholesale.
AS the SS-man ordered all money and valuables, to be given up, Jewish workers
(Goldjuden) went round with trunks collecting everything that was precious.
Afterwards the order was given to strip.
The majority of witnesses state that the men were stripped in the courtyard itself; the
women and children in a hut on the left. In the huts 60 barbers were kept busy cutting
off the women’s hair.
Meanwhile the naked men were driven about with whips and made to run and collect
all

p.102

the clothes from the whole transport, putting them in heaps to be sorted. Then, when
the women had had their hair cut off, the naked men, women and children were
directed on to the road leading to the gas-chambers, being told that they were going
to the baths. At first the victims were ordered to take a zloty each in their hands as
bath fee, the better to deceive them up to the last moment the money being collected
by an Ukrainian in a hut by the way, but later this practice was stopped. In front of
the entrance to the gas-chamber there were usually several Ukrainians standing by
with dogs, who cruelly drove the victims in, often wounding them with knives. The
victims were driven into the gaschambers with their hands up, so that as many might
be squeezed in as possible, and small children were piled on top.
SS-man Hitreider specialized in killing infants, seizing them by the legs and killing
them with one blow on the head against a fence.
The actual gassing in the chambers lasted about 15 minutes; and after the state of the
victims had been observed through a special small window, the doors on the outside
of the building were opened, and the corpses, being so closely packed inside, fell out
of their own weight on to the ground.
Instantly the Jewish workers removed them, and prepared the place for the next
batch.
At first the corpses were buried in pits, but afterwards they were burnt. Only a few
hours passed between the arrival of a train-load by the branch line and their gassing.
The Treblinka camp was in reality just a place of mass execution.

V.

An accurate calculation of the number of victims is at present impossible. It will be

remembered that Treblinka

p.103

ceased its activities in the autumn of 1943, so that the German authorities had enough
time to wipe out the traces of their crimes. The most reliable method of counting the
number of victims is by counting the number of train-loads. The figures based on the
dimensions of the gas chambers give no guarantee whatever of accuracy, as we do not
know, firstly, how often the gas-chambers were used, and, secondly, the number of
people who, on an average, were gassed at any one time. In establishing the number
of train-loads, the commission based its findings on the evidence given by the
witnesses, laying special stress on the statements of the railway workers and on the
railway records from Treblinka station, which are in the possession of the
commission of enquiry.
The most active period seems to have been from August to the middle of December,
1942. During that time we may assume one daily train-load as unquestionable
according to the evidence of the railway-workers. Indeed four witnesses put the
figure at two per day. After that, from the middle of January to the middle of May,
1943, the average was probably one a week. Some of the witnesses put the figure at
three.
The average number of wagons in a transport was 50 through sometimes, as the
railway records showed, it was as many as 58.
The total number of wagon-loads of victimls from August 1, 1942, to May 15, 1943,
may be taken, with some certainty, to have been 7,550.
In the later period, from the railway records; the list of the wagons for August 17,
1943; a telegram of August 18, 1943; and a document entitled Fahrplanordnung Nr.
290 sent from Treblinka station by the Reichsbahndirektion Königsberg, the number
of train-loads could be established quite accurately.
In the above-mentioned Fahrplanordnung we read among ather things: Zur
Abbeförderung von Aussledlern verkehren

p.104

folgende Sonderzüge von Bialystok nach Malkinia. Ziel Treblinka, from which it may
be concluded that after the revolt the following train-loads, were brought in: on Aug.
27, 1943, 41 wagons; on Aug. 19, 35 wagons; on Aug. 21, two transports of 38
wagons each; on Aug. 22, two transports of 39 wagons each; and on Aug. 23, one
transport of 38 wagons; i. e. a total of 266 wagons.
As an average number of persons per wagon we may take 100 (the majority of
witnesses deposed that it was more than 150).
According to this calculation the number of victims murdered at Treblinka amounts
to at least 731,600. Taking into consideration the great caution with which the
investigators assessed the number of train-loads and the average number of persons
per wagon, this must be accepted as probable, that in actual fact the number of
victims was even larger1. (1It should be pointed out that from pertinent documents
such as telegrams, time-tables and way-bills it appears absolutely certain that more
than two thousand wagon-loads of Jews were brought to Treblinka; yet these
documents constituted but a small part of all the railway documentary evidence, the
greater part of which is lost.)

VI.

It w a s mostly Jews Polish citizens from the central parts of the country (Warsaw,
Radom, Czcstochowa, Kielce and Siedlce) who were killed at Treblinka; though there
were Jews from the vicinity of Bialystok, Grodno and Wolkowysk; German, Austrian,
Czech and Belgian Jews from the west, and Greek Jews from the south.
The railway documents have enabled a number of localities to be identified from
which the trains were originally dispatched. We read that on August 6, 1942, a
transport

p.105

arrived from Warsaw; on September 1 others from Wloszczowa and Sedziszow; on

September 27, one from Kozienice; on October 4, 1942, one from Czestochowa; on
February 14, 1943, one from Grodno; on March 23 and April 1, 1943, one from
Vienna; on March 26 one from Salonica; on March 29 one from Skoplje (Jugoslavia);
and on August 23, 1943, one from Bialystok.
This is the last transport to Treblinka of which we have definite data.
Among the evidence is a collection of coins, Polish, Soviet, German, Austrian,
Czech, Greek, Belgian, French and even American, dug up during levelling
operations at Treblinka. A German-Jewish identity card issued at Göttingen, the
remains of a Soviet passport, and a collection of Polish documents were also found.
One of the witnesses, called Strawczynski, stated that his brother, who worked in the
camp sorting the clothing, told him that he also found English documents. The
witness Rajzman saw a certificate issued by Cambridge University.
Besides the Jews who were murdered in this extermination camp, there were a certain
number of Gipsies and Poles, but it is impossible to establish exactly how many.

VII.

The belongings of the victims were systematically collected and sorted, before being
sent to the Reich. Specialisation in the sorting of this Jewish property even extended
to eye-glasses and fountain pens. Gold, jewels and money were collected and sorted
with particular care. From time to time lorries were dispatched from the camp loaded
with goods of every kind. Among the proofs of this there is a collection of military
tickets (Wehrmachtsfahrscheine) dated September

p.106

2-21, 1942. They relate to 203 freight-trains loaded with clothing (described as
Bekleidung der Waffen SS). The lists were stamped with an official seal inscribed Der
SS Polizei-führer SS Sonderkommando im District Warschau.
A typical Nazi proceeding was to pack the wlomen’s hair, after it had been steamed,
in bales, and send it to Germany.

The eradication of all traces of the crime by wholesale burning of corpses began after
Himmler’s visit in the early spring of 1943 and lasted till the Warsaw Rising, or even
later. The camp was finally closed in November, 1943.
During the investigation when the ground was levelled, no collective graves were
found, and this together with the evidence given by the witnesses leads to the
conclusion that almost all the remains were burnt; the German authorities having had
plenty of time to do it since the camp was closed. The site of the camp was ploughed
over and sown, and on it Ukrainians were settled. They fled, however, on the
approach of the Red Army.

THE EXTERMINATION CAMP AT CHELMNO (KULMHOF)

p.110

I.

The extermination camp at Chelmno was a typical death camp, i. e. a place designed
exclusively for killing all who were brought there. The only ones to be saved were a
small group of workers selected by the Germans for work connected with their
criminal activities.
The extermination camp at Chelmno demands special attention, because during the
German occupation only a very few people in Poland ever knew of its existence and
the hundreds of thousands of its victims.
The village of Chelmno (district of Kolo) is situated 14 km. ; (8¾ miles) from the
town of Kolo, through which runs the main railway line from Łodz to Poznan, and
which is connected with the village of Chelmno by a branch line. Łodz, the ,second
largest city of Poland, which in 1939 had a Jewish population of 202,000, was
relatively near (60 km or 37½ miles); the road to it was good and little used.
In the village there was a small country house surrounded by an old park, which was
owned by the State and stood empty. In the vicinity was a pine-wood, sections of
which, densely planted with young trees, were almost impenetrable.
This site the German occupation authorities selected for their extermination camp.
The park was enclosed by a high wooden fence which concealed everything that went
on behind it. The local inhabitants were expelled from the village, only a few workers
being left to do the necessary jobs.
Inside the enclosure were two buildings, the small country house and an old granary,
besides which the Germans constructed two wooden hutments. The whole enclosure
where

p.109

hundred of thousands of people were done to death measured only 2 ha (5 acres).

Those who were brought here for destruction, were convinced till the very last
moment that they were to be employed on fortification work in the East. They were
told that before going further they would have a bath, and that their clothes would be
disinfected. Immediately after their arrival at the camp they were taken to the large
hall of the house, where they were told to undress, and then they were driven along a
corridor to the front door, where a large lorry, fitted up as a gas-chamber, was
standing. This, they were told, was to take them to the bath-house. When the lorry
was full, the door was locked, the engine started, and carbon monoxide was
introduced into the interior through a specially constructed exhaust pipe. After 4-5
minutes, when the cries and struggles of the suffocating victims were heard no more,
the lorry was driven to the wood, 4 km (2½ miles) away, which was enclosed with a
high fence and surrounded with outposts. Here the corpses were unloaded and buried,
and afterwards burnt in one of the clearings.

II.

The aim of the Chelmno camp was the extermination of the Jews from the
Warthegau, i. e., the part of Poland, which consisted of the 1939 province
(voivodship) of Poznania, almost the whole province of Łodz, and a part of the
province of Warsaw, inhabited altogether by 4,546,000 people (including 450,000
Jews.)
The camp was established in November, 1941. The extermination process began on
December 8, with the ghetto population of the cities and towns of the Warthegau, first
from the neighbouring Kolo, Dabie, Sompolno, Klodawa and many other places, and
later from Łodz itself.

p.111

The first Jews arrived at Chelmno .from Łodz in the middle of January, 1942. From
that time onwards an average of 1000 a day was maintained, with short intermissions,
till April, 1943.
Besides those who were brought by rail, others were delivered at the camp from time
to time in cars, but such were comparatively rare. Besides those from Poland. there
were also transports of Jews from Germany, Austria; France, Belgium, Luxemburg
and Holland; as a rule the Łodz ghetto served as a distribution centre. The total
number of Jews from abroad amounted to about 16,000.
Besides the 300,000 Jews from the Warthegau about 5.000 Gipsies and about a
thousand Poles and Russian prisoners-of-war were murdered at Chelmno. But the
execution of the latter took place mostly at night. They were taken straight to the
wood, and shot.
In 1943 4 lorries filled with children aged from 12-14 without Jewish emblems were
brought. The witnesses took the impression that they were "Aryans". It was just at
this time that the Nazis were expelling the Polish population from the neighbourhood
of Zamosc, and as a rule separating children from their parents.

III.

According to the evidence of three witnesses (Podchlebnik, Srebrnik and Zurawski)

who succeeded in escaping from the camp of Chelmno1, as well as to that of Polish
witnesses drawn from the population of the neighbourhood who had been able to get
in touch with the inmates of the camp, and, finally, that obtained from the railway
transport records, the follow-
p.112

ing preparatory phases in the process of mass execution can be distinguished:

Jews who ,were taken were told that they were going for military work in the East.
Except for those from Łodz, it was the practice to surround the town at dawn with
gendarmerie, police, SS, army, and Nazi party units in order to prevent the escape of
the Jews. The latter were collected at appointed places, and were allowed to take
hand-baggage with them; having been told that they were going to be taken for work
on fortifications in-the East. Only small numbers of craftsmen, such as tailors,
furriers and shoemakers, were selected and sent to the ghetto at Łodz.
At the same time, all that was going on at the camp was kept so secret that the Jews
taken there had no notion whatever of what was awaiting them. Many, indeed,
applied voluntarily to be sent to Chelmno and the East.
The railway trains which used to bring the Jews from Łodz consisted as a rule of 20-
22 wagons. At Kolo the transportees, usually about 1000 at one time, were reloaded
and sent by the branch line to Powiercie, the rail-head whence their baggage was
dispatched straight to Chelmno, while they themselves were taken under an escort of
6-8 gendarmes to the neighbouring village of Zawadki, and left for the night in a
large mill building.
The next morning three lorries used to corne for them from Chelmno, about 2 km (a
mile and a quarter) away. Not more then 100-150 were taken at a time, that being the
number which could be gassed in one operation. The whole process was so arranged
that the next batch of victims remained till the last moment ignorant of the fate of
those who had preceded them. The whole thousand were disposed of by 1 or 2 p.m.
The loaded lorries entered the camp grounds and stopped before the house, where the
new-comers were addressed

p.113

by a representative of the Sonderkommando, who told them they were going to work
in the East, and promised them fair treatment, and good food. He also told them that
first they must take a bath and deliver their clothes to be disinfected. From the court-
yard they were sent inside the house, to a heated room on the first floor, where they
undressed. They then came downstairs to a corridor, on the walls of which were
inscriptions: "to the doctor" or "to the bath"; the latter with an arrow pointing to the
front door. When they had gone out they were told that they were going in a closed
car to the bath-house.
Before the door of the country house stood a large lorry with a door in the rear, so
placed that it could be entered directly with the help of a ladder.
The time assigned for loading it was very short, gendarmes standing in the corridor
and driving the wretched victims into the car as quickly as possible with shouts and
blows.
When the whole of one batch had been forced into the car, the door was banged and
the engine started, poisoning with its exhaust those who were locked inside. The
process was usually complete in 4 or 5 minutes, and then the lorry was driven to
Rzuchow wood about 4 km (2½ miles) away, where the corpses were unloaded and
burnt.
Meanwhile lorries were bringing from Zawadki the next batch of 100-150 persons,
destined to be disposed of in the same way, all traces of the previous batch having
been removed and their belongings, (clothing, shoes etc.) taken away.
When the camp was "liquidated" in 1944 the gas-chamber lorries were sent back to
Germany. At the inquiry it was established that they had originally been brought from
Berlin.There were 3 of them, one large enough to hold about 150 persons, and two
with a capacity of 80-100 each. Their official name was Sonderwagen.

p.114

As the Sonderkommando of the camp had no repair shops, and the cars often needed
overhaul, they were sent to the Kraft und Reichsstrassenbauamt repair shops at Kolo.
8 Polish mechanics who had worked there were examined at the inquiry described
their construction as follows: the large lorry measured 6X3 metres (20X10 ft.); and
the smaller ones 4.5 or 2,3X2.5 metres (15 ,or 16X8 ft.). The outside was covered
with narrow overlapping boards, so that it looked as though it were armoured. The
inside was lined with iron plates and the door fitted tightly, so that no air could get in
from outside. The outside was painted dark grey.
The exhaust pipe was placed underneath and discharged its gas through a vent in the
middle of the floor, which was guarded by a perfsorated iron plate, to prevent it from
choking. On the floor of the car was a wooden grating.
The engine was probably made by Sauer. By the driver’s seat was a plate with the
words: Baujahr 1940-Berlin. In the driver’s cabin were gas-masks.

IV.

In Rzuchow wood 4 klm (2½ miles) from Chelmno, the camp authorities enclosed
two sections and posted sentries on the adjoining roads.
Here the gas-lorries brought the corpses from Chelmno. After the door was opened 10
minutes were allowed for the complete evaporation of the gas, and then the bodies
were unloaded by the Jewish Waldkommando, and carefully searched for concealed
gold and valuables. Gold teeth were pulled out, finger-rings torn off.
Until the spring of 1942 the remains were buried in large common graves, one of
which measured 270X9X6 metres (885X30X20 ft.).

p.115

In the spring of 1942 two crematoria were built, and after that, all the dead were burnt
in them (and the bodies previously buried as well).
Details about the furnaces are lacking, for the investigator could find no witnesses
who had been in the wood in 1942 or 1943. Those who lived near had only noticed
two constantly smoking chimneys within the enclosure.
The furnaces were blown up by the camp authorities on April 7, 1943. Two new ones
were, however, constructed in 1944, when the camp activities were resumed. The
witnesses Zurawski and Srebrnik, and the captured gendarme Bruno Israel, who saw
them in 1944, describe them as follows:
They were built deep in the ground and did not project above its surface; and were
shaped like inverted cones with rectangular bases.
At the top on the ground level the furnaces measured 6x 10 m (20x33 ft.) and they
were 4 m (13 ft.) deep. At the bottom by the ash-pit they measured 1.5X2 m (95X6
in. ft.). The grates were made of rails. A channel to the ash-pit ensured the admittance
of air and permitted the removal of ashes and bones.
The sides of the furnace were made of firebrick and faced with cement.
In the furnace were alternate layers of chopped wood and corpses: to facilitate
combustion, space was left between the corpses. The furnace could hold 100 corpses
at a time, but as they burned down, fresh ones were added from above. The ashes and
remains of bones were removed from the ash-pit, and ground in mortars, and, at first,
thrown into specially dug ditches; but later, from 1943 onwards, bones and ashes
were secretly carted to Zawadki at night, and there thrown into the river.

p.116

V.

The number of people killed at Chelmno could not be calculated from reliable data or
railway records as the camp authorities destroyed all the evidence.
The investigators were therefore obliged to confine them-selves to the evidence given
by witnesses concerning the number of transports sent to Chelmno. In order to obtain
as accurate an estimate as possible, witnesses were called from various points through
which the transports passed (Łodz, Kolo, Powiercie, Zawadki and Chelmno) or on
individual observation and the counting based on the collective railway tickets which
they had seed (e.g. that of the woman Lange, a German booking-clerk at Kolo
station), or finally individual observation and the counting of transports; or finally on
what the members of the Sonderkommando told them about the number of victims.
All the witnesses agree that the average number of persons brought to the camp was
at least 1000 a day.
There were times when the number was larger, but 1000 may be accepted as a
reliable average – exclusive of those who were brought in cars.
These latter were not a negligible proportion, coming as they did from numerous
small towns.
As to how many railway-trains arrived during the whole time of the camp’s existence,
investigators found that the extermination activities at Chelmno lasted from
December 8, 1941, to April 9, 1943. From April, 1943, till the final "liquidation" of
the camp in January, 1945, strictly speaking the camp was not functioningthe
total number of transports in this period amounting only to 10, bringing
approximately 10,000 people.
Considering only the time from December 8, 1941, to April 7,1943,480 days, we
must allow for a break of two months in the spring of 1942, when transports were
stopped, as well as for certain interruptions due to merely technical causes,

p.117

which, it was found, did not exceed 70 days altogether. This gives (61+70), or 131-
150 days lost.
The remainder, 330 days of full activity, may be unhesitatingly accepted, and if 1000
victims were murdered a day, the total was 330,000.
To this number must be added the 10,000 killed in 1944. The final total therefore is
340,000 men, women and children, from infants to old folk, killed at the
extermination camp at Chelmno.

VI.

This mass destruction was carefully planned, down to the smallest detail. The victims
were kept in ignorance of their fate, and the whole German staff did not exceed 150-
180 persons.
Sonderkommando Kulmhof consisted only of a party of 20 SS-men, n.c.o’s of
gendarmerie, and over 100 members of the German police, who served as sentinels,
helped in the camp and in the wood where the corpses were burnt, and guarded the
neighbouring roads.
At the head of the camp was Hauptsturmführer Hans Bootman. (For the first few
months the Commandant of the camp was a certain Lange, who had come, like all the
SS-men, from Germany). The assistant of the Commandant was first Lange, then
Otto Platte and Willi Hiller. All activities in the camp were managed by
Untersturmführer Heffele. In charge of the works in the wood was Wachmeister Lenz.
The crematoria were superintended by Hauptscharführer Johann Runge, who had
directed their construction with the help of Unterscharführer Kretschmer.
Hauptrscharführer Gustav Laps, Hauptscharführer Bürstinge and Gilow served as
drivers of the gas-wagons.

p.118

The investigators cited the names of 80 Germans who were members of the
Sonderkommando. In addition to their wages they received hush-money
(Schweigegeld) amounting to 13 RM a day. The Canteen was well stocked with food
and spirits.
The inquiry showed that Greiser Gauleiter of the Warthegau, during one of his visits
to the camp at the beginning of March, 1943, handed each of the members of the
Sonderkommando 500 RM at a banquet specially given for them, and invited them to
his estate when on leave.
It should be pointed out that when, in January, 1945, in view of the Soviet offensive,
arrangements were being made for the final "liquidation" of the camp, the camp
authorities waited till the last minute for Greiser to give the evacuation order
(evidence of Israel Bruno, the arrested gendarme from Chelm).
The camp was also inspected personally by Himmler, and Dr. Bradfisch, chief of the
Gestapo at Łodz, and Hans Bibow, the manager of the Ghettoverwaltung at Łodz,
were constant visitors.
It was found that Greiser and the higher functionaries of the German administration
who were in contact with the camp had received valuables which had belonged to
murdered Jews. But the gendarmerie and police were very severely punished if they
appropriated such things.
Apart from the Sonderkommando some 70 Jewish workers and 8 Polish prisoners
from concentration camps were employed in the camp on searching and burning the
corpses.
They worked in two parties: the Hauskommando in the camp enclosure, and the
Waldkommando in the wood.
As a rule, after several weeks of work, these Jewish workers were killed, and
replaced by fresh ones, newly arrived. They were fettered to check their movements.
The workers at the ashpit in the wood as a rule did not live longer than a few days.
The attitude of members of the Sonderkommando towards the Jewish workers was
cruel. Members of the SS used them as living targets, shooting them like hares.

p.119

Besides this members of the Sonderkommando very often killed infants and small
children, as well as old people, although they knew that they would be gassed
anyway within the next few hours.
VII.

A further important factor inspiring the destruction of the Jews by the Nazi authorities
was economic. The value of the property owned by 340,000 people amounted to a
large sum.
The majority of things had been already taken from the Jews at the time of the
evacuation of the ghettoes, but many valuables and gold were stolen in the camp
itself.
The things which were seized were sent to different centres, mostly to Łodz, where
they were collected and underwent a final examination before being sent to the Reich.
It was stated for instance, that on Sept. 9, 1944, 775 wrist-watches and 550 pocket
watches were sent from Chelmno to the Ghettoverwaltung at Łodz.
At the inquiry it was stated that the clothing of the victims was sold for the benefit of
the winter assistance (Winterhilfe) fund. Among the documents of the case there is a
letter of Jan. 9, 1943, to the ghetto administration at Łodz, sent by the
Winterhilfswerk des Deutschen Volkes: Der Gaubeauftragte Poznan. It runs as
follows: "Concerning the supply of textiles for NSV by the ghetto authorities.
According to a personal understanding (between you, my principal local Manager
Kichborn and the local Manager Koalick, clothes, dresses, and underwear are to be
provided after cleaning. The 1,500 suits supplied do not correspond in any way to the
textiles which we saw at Chelmno (Kulmhof), which were put at the disposal of the
ghetto authorities: Your consignment contains various assorted articles of clothing,
but no whole suits.
Many articles of this clothing are badly stained and partly permeated with dirt and
blood-stains. (Ein grosser

p.120

Teil der Bekleidungsstücke ist stark befleckt und teilweise auch mit Schmutz und
Blutflecken durchsetzt). In one of the consignments sent to Poznan containing 200
jackets, on 51 of them the Jewish stars had not been removed! As they are mostly
Polish workers in the camps of the district, the danger is that the settlers
(Rückwanderer) who receive this clothing will become aware of its origin and WHW
will be discredited (und das WHW somit, ih Misskredit kommt).
From the above it may be concluded that German philanthropic institutions knew that
the clothing sent from Poland had been owned by murdered Jews.

VIII.

The final activities of the camp at Chelmno in 1944 differ from those of 1941-1943 in
this, that the victims were brought from Kolo by a local branch railway line direct to
Chelmno, where they were left for the night in the church, and the next day were
taken directly to Rzuchow wood.
In this wood, at a distance of only 150 metres from the crematoria, two wooden huts
were constructed, one of them designed, as was previously the country house at
Chelmno, to be a dressing room for those going to the bath, and the other as a
clothing and baggage store.
The general procedure was exactly as before, the victims, completely naked, being
forced into gas-lorries and told they were going to the bath-house. After gassing the
victims the lorries were driven to a near-by clearing, in which stood the crematoria
where the corpses were burnt. The total number of persons murdered in 1944 was
about 10,000. According to the testimony of the witness Peham, the wife of a
gendarme from the camp at Chelmno, train-loads of Hungarian Jews in 1944 were to
be directed there. In the end, however, they were not sent there, but to Oswiecim.

p.121

In the autumn of 1944 the camp in the wood was completely destroyed, the
crematoria being blown up, the huts taken to pieces, and almost every trace of crime
being carefully removed.
A Special Commission from Berlin directed, on the spot, the destruction of all the
evidence of what had been done.
But up to the last moment January, 17, 1945, the Sonderkommando and a group of 47
Jewish workers stayed there.
In the night of January, 17/18, 1945, the Sonderkommando shot these last remaining
Jews. When they tried to defend themselves and two gendarmes were killed, the
Sonderkommando set fire to the building in which they were. Only two Jews,
Zurawski and Srebrnik, survived.

EXTERMINATION OF THE POLISH JEWS IN THE YEARS 1939-1945

PART I

Statistics of the Jewish population in Poland

I. German Occupation
II. Phases and methods of the "solution of the Jewish Problem" under German
Occupation.
III. The Period of the "Small terror" and the "Cold pogroms".
IV. The period of the "Liquidation Activities" in Ghettoes and camps.
V. General Conclusions

p.125

Statistics of the Jewish population in Poland

The number of Jews within the boundaries of Poland before 1 Sep. 1939 can be only
approximately established. The last official census before the war was on Dec. 9,
1931 and recorded 3,113,900 persons of the Jewish faith and moreover 18681
soldiers in barracks. If we assume an average yearly increase of population of 9 per
thousand (or 28,000 in a year), we find that during the eight years (up to the end of
1939) the Jewish population had increased by 224,000. That is to say that the total on
Sep. 1, 1939 amounted to more than 3,356,000.
This figure, however, must be considerably increased, for investigations carried out
by Prof. St. Szulc, in charge of the Chief Statistical Office, show that the number of
births among the Jewish population in Poland was at least 50% larger than that given
in the official birth tables (Prof. Stefan Szulc, "The Accuracy of the Registration of
Births and Deaths", Statistics, Series C. Pt. 41, p. 150).
If the necessary correction is made, we obtain the figure of 3,590,000 for the Jewish
population in Poland. If from this we subtract 116,000 for Jews who migrated across
the frontier between December, 1931, and September 1, 1939, it results that the actual
number of Jews in Poland must have been about 3,474,000.
Assuming therefore as a basis this figure after taking into consideration the above
mentioned changes resulting from natural increase of population and emigration, we
obtain the following data for the end of September 1939:

p.126

I. German occupation

1. The General Gouvernement (Provinces of Cracow, Warsaw, Lublin, Kielce, the city
of Warsaw,
Lwow to the river San)
1,639,000
2. Territories incorporated in the Reich (Provinces of Poznan, Pomerania, Silesia,
Lodz, Bialystok)
678,008
2,317,000
III. Territories annexed by the U.S. S. R.
1. of Lwow (Eastern part), Tarnopol, and Stanislawow
573,500
2. Volhynia
242,000
3. Western White-Russia and Lithuania, Provinces of
Polesie, Nowogrodek and Wilno
341,500
1,157,000

The above figures represent only theoretically the actual number of Jews. Actually by
Sep. 1, 1939, they had been already modified.
The invasion by German motorized tanks and aircraft and their lightning advance
caused vast movements of population all over Poland. Great masses of the civil
population fled to the East and South. For example during the first days of September
about 10,000 people fled from Cracow; among them 5-6,000 Jews. (Bericht über die
Tätigkeit der jüdischen Gemeinde in Krakau.
Cracow 1940, p. 69. hectograph).
Strictly speaking, already at the outset of the Second World War, after the end of the
Polish Campaign in September 1939, great changes ensued in the territorial
disposition of the Jewish population. Demographic changes were also caused by the
material losses they sustained. In the fight for Poland against

p.127

the German invader 32,216 Jewish ,officers and soldiers were killed and 61,000 taken
prisoner (Communique of the Polish General Staff of Oct. 9, 1939 cited by Isr.
Cohen. The Jews in the War. London 1943, p. 67).
We must consider these Jewish prisoners-of-war also as casualties because only a few
survived till the end of the war; the rest were murdered by the Germans. For instance
only 449 Jewish prisoners released by the Germans returned to Cracow, during the
period from Sep. 13, 1939 to Sep. 30, 1940 (Bericht der jüdischen Gemeinde in
Krakau p. 13).
Some number of Jews perished also in air raids at the time when the Germans were
bombing the civil population in the towns and the refugees on the roads (Black Book
of Polish Jewry. N. York 1943, p. 200, Hitler’s Ten Years’ War against the Jews N.
York 1943, p. 148).
Immediately before the outbreak of war, in the last weeks before and during the
storm, only a few individuals, succeeded in escaping to neutral countries: Hungary,
Roumania and the Baltic States, before the Nazi invader. Their number amounted
to 20,000-25,000 (Black Book p. 169, Hitler’s Ten Years’ War, p. 155).
After the cessation of military operations, and the establishment of a frontier between
Germany and the Soviet Union, the exodus of the Jewish population continued. They
were fleeing from the Germans, who had begun their rule with a series of unheard-of
outrages against the Jews and Poles; the Jews found peace, safety and advantage on
the territory of the Soviet Union. As a result of these migrations to the East, which
were most intense in the autumn of 1939, the German-Soviet frontier was closed in
November. At least 300,000 Jews had fled from the German occupation and settled in
Soviet territory.
The question arises how many Jews could remain in German-occupied territory
during the period of relatively stable political relations, about Jan. 1, 1940. The losses
due to emigration

p.128

and military casualties, as well as to the murders among the civilian population
during the Polish Campaign, must be divided between the Jewish population in the
German area, (66.6%) and that in the Soviet area (33.4%). The losses in German
occupied territory thus amount to some 120,000. If we add to these 300,000 who
emigrated to the U. S. S. R., it will be seen that the Jewish population under German
occupation fell to 1,900,000.
Very serious changes also occurred in the interior distribution of Jews in the German
zone. In the first year of the German occupation large-scale moves to the East took
place. About 60,000 Jews fled in September 1939 from the Western parts of Poland to
Central Poland (i.e. the so called General Gouvernement) and were unable to return
to their own part of the country, where the total expulsion of the Jews had been
enacted. So up to July 1, 1940, the Germans expelled a further 330,000 Jews from the
territories incorporated in the Reich into the territory of the General Gouvernement
(H. H. Seraphim, “Die Judenfrage im G. G. als brennendes Problem”, Die Burg
Monthly. Vol. X-1940, p. 61).
In this way the Jewish population in the incorporated territories was reduced to
250,000 (after emigration and civilian and military casualties). The Jews however
from the General Gouvernement made up for these losses; and the figure once more
rose to about 1,650,000. Moreover a great many Jewish settlers were brought in by
the Germans from the West (mainly from Germany, Austria and Czechoslovakia; but
also from Holland, Belgium and other countries).
About 200,000-300,000 Jews had been deported into the General Gouvernement by
the end of 1942. But this expulsion by no means made up for the demographic losses
of the Jewish population.
Meanwhile, due to hunger, persecution, executions

p.129

and "special action", many Polish Jews perished, and the fate of many settlers from
the West was no better.
It may therefore be taken that the number of Jews in the General Gouvernement did
not surpass one and a half million notwithstanding the immigration from the West. In
the Summer of 1941, after the Germans had overrun the territories evacuated by the
Soviet Army, the number of Jews in German occupied Poland amounted to 2,800,000
persons.
The Polish Jews were mostly assembled in the larger and smaller towns. The census
of 1931 showed that 77% of the Polish Jews lived in the cities, and only 23% in the
country. According to Seraphim, in the middle of 1940 88% of the Jewish population
in the General Gouvernement were living in the towns.
This urbanization and concentration of the Jews was very convenient for the
Germans, and facilitated their policy of persecution. At the time of the outbreak of
war the Jewish population was scattered over the whole of Poland in about 1000
urban and rural localities. It was to the advantage of the Germans that at the end of
1942, when the large-scale exterminations began, the Jews were already concentrated
at a number of points in not more than 54 urban settlements, to which they had been
deported from the country districts.
This tendency to concentrate the Jews in big urban centres (Zusammenballung) is
more obvious if we analyse the growth of several of the larger Jewish communities in
Polish territory. The most typical examples is Warsaw, where the Germans organised
a super-Ghetto. At the end of October 1939 (the registration carried out by the Jewish
community in Warsaw on Oct. 28,1939, according the Black Book p. 32) Warsaw was
inhabited by 359,827 Jews, and by the middle of 1942, notwithstanding the high
mortality and deportations for forced labour, this

p.130

number had risen, according to certain authors, to 540,000 including about 150,000
immigrants from other localities. The Germans expelled 72,000 Jews to Warsaw from
the left bank of the Vistula in the Spring of 1941 (Du Prel: Des General-
gouvernement, Cracow 1942, edition, pp. 348-9, Zwei Jahre Aufbauarbeit in District
Warschau, Warsaw, 1941, pp. 72-73).
A similar concentration was made, but on a smaller scale, in other cities. So for
instance at Cracow, which in 1931 had 56,000 Jews, but in 1939, owing to natural
increase, about 60,500. By the Spring of 1940, owing to military events and
expulsions (Krakauer Ztg. 14. XII. 1941), this number had risen to 70,000. The
official number of registered Jews in the Summer of 1940 amounted to 68,482
(Bericht der Jüd. Gemeinde in Krakau p. 87).
The official statistics of the Jewish community at Cracow show that on June 1, 1940
(first incomplete census of the Jewish population), there were 54,517 in Cracow, of
whom about 11,000 were newcomers (Berichf d. Jüd. Gemeinde p. 99).
In Lublin, which in 1931 had 38.900 Jews, and in the year 1939 had 37,034
(according to the Official Register of the Jewish Community of Oct. 25, 1939), the
Jewish population amounted in round numbers to 50,000 in 1940 (Seraphim p. 61,
Du Prel, G.G. 1st ed., p. 169).
In Czestochowa, which had about 25,600 inhabitants in 1931, the Jewish population
increased to 30,000. (Du Prel, GG., 1st ed. p. l00), including of course the many who
had been expelled. The records of the Municipality of the town of Czestochowa at the
end of 1940 give the following data: in January 1940 28,714 Jews, in December of
the same year 33,635 (Statistical Annual of the Town Council of Czestochowa vo. II
p. 134. Archives of the Municipality of Czestochowa, section III No. 5044/689, Bur.)
Of the 13,800 Jews in Piotrkow, 3,625 were exiled (Jewish Gezette, June 30, 1940).

p.131

At the end of 1941 23,035 Jews were deported to Lodz, among them about 20,000
from Germany, Vienna, Prague and Luxemburg, and 3,082 from Wlocawek and its
vicinity.
In the first part of 1942 7,649 Jews were expelled from the so called Warthegau
Districts of Lodz and Poznan, and part of the district of Warsaw (Non edited printed
proof sheets "Statist Jahrb. d. Juden in Litzmannstadt" as well as other statistical
material possessed by the Central Arch. of the Jewish Histor. Comm. of Lodz).
Kielce, which had 18,000 Jews in 1931, had about 25,400 Jews in 1940 (Du Prel,
GG., 1st ed., p. 100).
Bialystok, which had 39,165 Jews in 1931, had about 56,000 Jews in the years 1942-
1943 (Dr. Simon Datner: The Fight and Extermination of the Ghetto in Bialystok,
published by Centr. Jew. Histor. Comm. Lodz, 1946).
These examples suffice to prove what an influence German policy had on the changes
in the distribution of the Jewish population.
In normal conditions the statistical outline of the demographic development would
not be complete without the registration of population movements. But in our case,
Jewish migrations have a special character; these migrations were compulsory, and
were accompanied by loss of property, health, and often life. We cannot speak of any
natural movement of the Jewish population, as the number of deaths rose to an
incredible degree, and the birth-rate fell catastrophically till finally there were no
more births at all.

II Phases and methods of the "solution of the Jewish problem" under the German
occupation

In the political programme of Nazi Germany not only the military conquest of
Poland, and other countries on her Eastern

p.132

border were included, but also a partial extermination of the native population in
order to facilitate German colonization of the depopulated areas. Simultaneously with
the programme for the destruction of a larger number of Slavs (according to the
testimony of witnesses at the Nuremberg Trial, Hitler planned the destruction of
30,000,000 Slavs) the Nazi authorities purposed the total extirpation of the Jews.
According to evidence given by witnesses at the Nuremberg Trial (evidence of
Lahausen concerning the plan accepted by Ribbentrop and Keitel at the conference in
Hitler’s car on Sep. 12, 1939), as well as to official German documents (particularly
the order issued by Chief-of-Police Heydrich at Berlin on Sep. 21. 1939 to the Chiefs
of all the special-service Groups of the Security Police concerning the Jews in the
Occupied Territories. This document sets forth both the final aim of anti-Jewish
policy, and the gradual phases of its execution) and the pronouncements of Hitler and
Streicher, and the articles of Goobbels (Hitler’s speeches of Dec. 31, 1939. Jan. 30,
1941, Jan. 30, 1942, A Speech of Streicher of Oct. 31, 1939 (Records of
the Nuremberg Trial No. 2583 PS.), Articles by Goebbels in Das Reich of July 20,
1941, and June 14, 1942), this policy of physical extirpation had already been
decided upon at the outbreak of war in 1939.
The Nazi Germans began to carry out their programme for the destruction of the Jews
as early as the first day after the outbreak of war; but it is not quite certain if the plan
for the complete extermination of the Jews existed at that time. It appears that there
were differences of opinion among the leaders of the Third Reich regarding this
problem, in 1939 and 1940 and even at the beginning of 1941 (speech by A. Rosen-
berg of March 28, 1941, and at the opening of the Research Institute for Jewish
Problems - Institut zur Erforschung der Judenfrage at Frankfort on Main). In some
circles plans for a less cruel solution of the Jewish problem were put forward: by way
of emigration and the assembling of all Jews in a land

p.132
outside Europe, far from any white people, but near to the black races, under strict
police supervision (Speech by A. Rosenberg: Die Judenfrage als Weltproblem -
Dokumente der deutschen Politik. H. Erich Seifert: Der Jude zwischen den Fronten
der Rassen, der Völker, der Kulturen. Berlin 1942. p. 154-155).
While these plans were being debated and discussed, the slow and gradual
extermination of the Jews by all possible means had already been undertaken. The
Jews were put outside the law.
Though the Poles were considered as citizens of an inferior class (Schutzangehörige
des Reiches) in the districts incorporated in the Reich, the Jews and Gipsies were
excluded even from this category; i. e. they were deprived of
the protection of the State (Order dated March 3, 1941, Reichsgesetzblatt I, 118 7 an
order dated Jan. 31, 1942, Reichsgesetzblatt I, 51).
This contempt for the Jews and their exceptional legal situation was manifested in a
series of regulations. By an order dated Nov. 23, 1940 they were compelled to bear
special marks. By an order dated Jan. 26, 1940, they were deprived of the right to
travel or to change their place of residence. By an order of Jan. 24, 1940 (Vdgbl. T.
VII. 5), their right to hold property was limited, and it was finally abolished by orders
of Sep. 22, 1939, and Jan. 24, 1940, and, for the incorporated area, by an order of
Sep. 17, 1940.
Further, the Jewish communities had to make contributions of gold, silver, furs and
other precious objects. The ration of food allowed to the Jewish population was much
smaller and far worse than that of the other inhabitants of the country.
From 1940 onwards ghettoes or Jewries were instituted in different Polish cities and
towns. For this purpose the worst districts of the towns were chosen without gardens
and squares, and there was consequent overcrowding, dirt and disease.

p.133

The German authorities were easily able to control the import of food into the
enclosed ghettoes, as well as their property, hygiene, etc. The Jewish population, thus
massed in one place, was an easy target for persecution of every kind, and could the
more easily be exterminated. Accordingly the ghettoes in the hands of the German
authorities became the main instruments whereby the destruction of the Jewish
population was carried out.
Besides the ghettoes Nazi Germany created other instruments of extermination: the
forced labour camps, and training camps (Zwangsarbeitslager, Erziehungslager).
At the very beginning of its occupation, an order was issued on Oct. 26, 1939,
providing that Jews from the age of 14 to 60 must perform forced labour. The first
camps were organised at the end of 1939, and in them Jews, regardless of age,
education or profession were forced to do heavy work of all kinds, such as cultivating
the fields, or damming rivers, in excessively bad working conditions, and under
Draconian discipline, with frequent corporal punishment. The whole scheme was
merely another means of exterminating the Jewish population; some of the workers,
owing to the terrible conditions, perishing in the camps; while those who returned
home were in most cases sick and unfit for further employment.
During the whole of this period, from the beginning of the German occupation, the
Jewish population were constantly terrorized and severely punished for minor
offences. Sometimes huge fines were levied; sometimes there were mass executions.
Leaving the ghetto was punished with death. Hundreds of death sentences were
passed for this offence by the German Special Courts, and all of them were carried
out. The same penalty was exacted for not wearing the Jewish markings, for buying
food illegally, for using means of transport forbidden to the Jews, as well as for
absenteeism and sabotage.
The Jewish population, being outside the law, no one was held responsible for killing,
wounding or robbing a Jew.

p.135

All these measures - restriction of rights, ghettoes, starvation, labour camps and
terrorism, were causing large casualties among the Jewish population, but did not
result in their complete extirpation. A plan had already been hatched in the minds of
the leaders ,of the Third Reich before the outbreak of war with Russia. At the outset
of the Russian Campaign Hitler and his advisers decided first of all to destroy the
Jewish population in the area overrun.
Later this plan was extended to the Jews of Poland, and afterwards to those of Europe
in general.
The execution of the task of finally "liquidating" the Jews was entrusted to the XIVth
Section of the RSHA1 (Reichsicherheitshauptamt), at the head head of which stood
Adolf Eichmann. In order to carry out this work on the Eastern Front four special
groups (Einsatzgruppen) were organized from the members of the SS and SD,
distinguished by the successive letters of the alphabet A, B, C, D, and created in
agreement with the Headquarters of the German Army. The A-group was entrusted
with the destruction of the Jews in the Baltic countries. The D-group was given a
wide field of activity, extending from Cernauti in Roumania to the Caucasus. The B-
and C-groups were active in the central sector of the eastern front and its rear,
including Poland. One of these groups, the Reinhard group famous for its crimes,
dealt with the province of Warsaw, Lublin, Cracow and Lwow, in the General
Government (Data based on the statements of major-general Otto Ohlendorf, chief of
the Office No. III in the Chief Security Court of the Reich (Nuremberg trial Jan. 3,
1946)).
All this action against the Jews went on from the middle of 1941 to the end of 1942.
Besides Polish Jews, the Germans brought to Poland for extermination hundreds of
thousands of Jews from other countries in Europe. In the years 1943 and I941

p.136

activity began gradually to decrease, the bulk of the Jewish population having by that
time been exterminated.
The orders of the Chief Commanders of the SS provided quite clearly for the
extirpation of the Jews, with the exception only of such as were to work. These men
and women were sorted out and taken to camps. This did not mean, however that
their lives were saved. The regime in the camp grew more and more severe during the
progress of liquidation outside the walls of the camps. For the aim of labour camp
policy was not so much to squeeze the last ounce of work out of the Jews as to kill
them by overwork and physical torture.
But besides the original type of labour camp, a new type was organised - the
extermination camp, designed only for the quick killing of the victims who were
brought there, and provided with special technical arrangements in the form of gas-
chambers and crematoria.
We may accordingly divide the gehenna of the Jews under the German occupation
into two periods: In the first the Germans used different methods to speed up the
process of extermination of Jews; while in the second afterwards for contrast called
the small terror period, no more than a few hundreds being murdered the Germans
proceed to the extirpation of the Jews in the ghettoes and camps.

III. The Period of the "Small terror" and "Cold pogroms"

At the very outbreak of war, after the German armies had crossed into Polish
territory, the fate of the Jews who were unable to escape from the onrushing Nazi
armies was indeed wretched.
The soldiers got up exhibitions of Jewish refugees, often beating and robbing them,
and in many cases shooting them.
Often they would drive together a great crowd of Jewish refugees, several thousands
in number, and put them in quarantine. After being detained in locked premises
without food or

p.136

drink, the Jews were finally released, with rude mockery, bare-footed and nearly
naked When they at last returned home, new troubles awaited them. In most cases
their shops and flats had been plundered, and in consequence they sank to the lowest
depths of misery. In some localities the Germans re-arrested them, for trying to
escape, and treated them as enemies of the "New Order" (see Kalisz Black Book p. 6).
Although the idea of exterminating the Jewish population was accepted by the Nazis
clearly and without any ambiguity long before the outbreak of war, the Germans
persisted in hypocrital attempts to deceive their victims.
They tried to lull the vigilance of the Jews, giving lavish promises which they did not
intend to keep. Thus the German officers sent to discuss terms for the capitulation of.
Warsaw gave a promise that not a single hair should fall from the heads of the Jewish
population. This assertion was repeated by wireless in good faith by the Mayor of
Warsaw, St. Starzynski. Even Field-Marshall and Commander-in-Chief Walter von
Brauchitsch in his speech delivered over the wireless on Sep. 4, 1939, assured the
Polish Jews that they need have no anxiety about their fate; and General Blaskowitz,
Commander of the forces besieging Warsaw, issued a proclamation on Sep. 30, 1939,
which was posted up in the streets of Warsaw, repeating the same assertion and
ordering the Jews to return quietly to their occupations.
None of these promises was kept by the Germans, even temporarily.
From the first moment of the German invasion fierce attacks on the Jews began. In
the first weeks of the German occupation their outrages already showed all the
elements of the future German extermination policy, save only perhaps the gas-
chambers and crematoria. There were already robberies, "searchings", contributions,
confiscations, the taking of hostages, beating and torture, mockery and derision,
humiliation, organizations of insulting performances and shows and then

p.138

their reproduction for the cinema, Jew-hunts, compulsion to do hard and humiliating
labour, violation of women, the desecration of objects held sacred by the Jews, the
burning of synagogues and Jewish libraries, expulsions, executions, and murders
individual and collective.
In a number of localities, immediately after the German invasion, the Jews were
ordered to reopen their shops (not only at Warsaw or Lublin, but even in such small
towns as Belzyce and Gorlice). This was to make it easier for them to be plundered.
Any traders who disobeyed this order were severely punished.
Methods, however, differed in different places. Sometimes, immediately after the
Germans arrived, all Jewish shops were sealed and put at the disposal of the
authorities (in Wloclawek, Radziejow, Czestochowa, Przemys. Central Arch. of the
Jewish Hist. Comm. rep. No. 375, 30, 32, 676). At Rzeszow the German commander
ordered the confiscation of Jewish shops, at the same time, according to the principle
divide et impera, promising non-Jewish pensioned employees managerial posts in
them. In the larger estarblishments the expropriation of Jewish property was at once
put on an organized basis. All the larger Jewish factories were immediately taken
over by the State.
The German army confiscated Jewish stocks of textiles, leather and ironware. Large
military lorries drove up to Jewish stores in Warsaw, Lodz, and other manufacturing
towns and carried away all the goods. They often ordered even the owners and
employees to act as porters, while frequently they were aided by the mob and the
Volksdeutsche abetted by the German police and army. In almost all localities the
demolition and robbery of Jewish flats, as well as plundering under the pretext of
searching for incriminating evidence without any pretext at all, were everyday
occurrences. Gold rings were often violently torn from their wearers fingers and ears
(see Protocol from Oksza Centr. Arch. of the Jew. Hist.

p.139

Comm. No. 43; Prot. from Belchdow C.A. of the J. H. C. No.8 4 ).

Jewish flats were often taken over. In many cases a Volksdeutscher would rush into a
Jewish-owned flat and with watch in hand would order the owner to leave within
from 5 to 20 minutes. Sometimes the latter would be allowed to take some small
hand-baggage with him, but generally even this was forbidden. In rare instances the
time allowed for leaving the flat was extended to several hours, or even longer.
Again, contributions were levied from the Jews on every possible pretext or
sometimes without any pretext at all.
The amount and conditions of payment and the penalties if they were not paid were
enormous. Each local authority demanded its own according to its individual whim.
In some localities contributions had to be paid in instalments. Sometimes they were
very high, amounting to tens of millions of zlotys.
Besides money the Germans demanded gold, and articles of value, silver and
jewellery, which they extorted by terrorism, beating and tortures. Hostages were
taken, but were not released after the contribution had been paid. If the sum
demanded was not raised in time, employees and members of the Jewish Council
would be shot, and hostages taken; or the defaulters were sent to concentration
camps. From the findings of the local German authorities there was no appeal, for
there was no law to protect the Jews.
The Germans did not limit themselves to the theft of Jewish property. During the first
weeks of their invasion they organised pogroms in almost every Polish town and city,
giving model lessons in the market places before audiences which were gathered by
force from the non-Jewish population. During these lessons the Jews were illtreated,
derided .and finally killed (at Siedliszcze, Minsk Mazowiecki, Wegrow, Radziejow
etc.).

p.140

In other places the Jews were forced to dance and sing, to shout and recite silly self-
accusations (at Belzyce, Belchatow, Wegrow, Oksza, Zgierz etc.).
There were organized Jew-hunts in the streets, the hunters pretending to take them for
work. They were ordered to assemble at an appointed hour in large numbers, and then
were driven to another town, or to an improvised camp.
Jewish rabbis were particularly derided. Their beards were cut or torn, often even
with strips of skin attached; or they were set on fire and the owners were not allowed
to extinguish them (for instance at Warsaw in the Garden of the Diet, at Oksza,
Zgierz, Wegrow, or Piotrkow). The rabbis and orthodox Jews were forced to dance
and sing in public, or were driven mockingly along the streets in their liturgical
vestments. At Cisna the Germans burnt their vestments and sacred books in the
market place; they forced the Jews to set fire to the pile, and then to dance round it
singing and repeating in chorus: "Wir freuen uns, wie das Dreck brennt" ("How glad
we are the filth is burning"). They were forced to sweep the streets wearing their
vestments, or to scrub floors and clean latrines with them.
At Kalisz the Jews were forced to jump over a fire of books and vestments (Black
Book, p. 7).
The Germans set the synagogues on fire or forced the Jews to do it themselves.
During this period several hundreds of synagogues were burnt or blown up. In the
first fortnight after their arrival the Germans burnt all the synagogues at Bielsko (in
the middle of September, 1939). The first building which was burnt by the Germans
at Bydgoszcz was the local synagogue. From the 5th to the 10th of September the
Germans burnt synagogues at Piotrkow and Aleksandrow. At Zgierz after the burning
of the synagogue they forced the rabbi to sign a certificate to the effect that the Jews
themselves had burnt their house of prayer. On Dooms day (Sep. 24, 1939) the
Germans burnt the Jewish synagogues at Wloclawek; the

p.141

fire was filmed; and then 25 Jews were arrested and forced to sign a declaration that
they had burnt the synagogue themselves. A fine of 100,000 zl was then imposed on
the Jewish population. At the same time the synagogues were burnt at Gruriziadz,
Torun, Zamosc, Mielec, Czestochowa, Tarnow, and Katowice. At Grojec the Jews
were forced to bum their synagogue, and afterwards some of the "incendiaries" were
murdered. At Radziejow the Germans set fire to the synagogue and afterwards
arrested the Jews as incendiaries, because a match-box had been found in the pocket
of one of them.
Between Nov. 11 and 15, 1939, about 10 synagogues were burnt at Lodz. At
Sosnowiec the Germans burnt three synagogues and arrested 250 Jews. At
Siedliszcze they placed a bomb in the synagogue. At Poznan they burnt several
synagogues and desecrated the chief one ceremoniously during the festivities of the
Hitler Jugend and the Nazi party, and laid out a swimming-pool on its site. At
Cracow and Bedzin the destruction and burning of Jewish synagogues and beth-
hamidrashes was assigned to special brigades, called Brennkommandos. The
Germans deliberately picked the most solemn Jewish holidays for this kind of
activity. (At Wloclawek, Plonsk, Bel-zyce, and Mielec.) In many cases the Germans
turned the synagogues into stables (At Gniewoszow and Makow), into factories (at
Przemysl), into swimming-pools (at Poznan), into places of entertainment (at Nowy
Tomysl), into health centres (at Gora Kalwarya), into prisons (at Kalisz), and even
into public latrines (at Ciechanow) (Krakauer Ztg. of June 16, 1942 Brenner:
Chronicle of the town of Czesfochowa, ms. at the Centr. J. H. C. Black Book p. 226,
29, 7, Jews in Europe p. 26, Jews’ Survivors Report No. 1. The German New Order in
Poland, London 1941 p. 246); Centr. J. H. C. Prot, No. 2BO.458, 826, 818,372, 133).
The ill-treatment and abuse of the Jews applied not only to the male population, but
also to the female.
Notwithstanding the Nuremberg Act there were violations of Jewish women

p.142

and young girls by the Germans (Belzyce, Centr. Arch. J.H.C. Diary of Mrs.
Ferstmann, Black Book p. 8).
The work which the Germans forced the Jews to do had in most cases the character of
penal servitude. The hardest and most humiliating labour was assigned to them: the
removal of corpses, removal of rubble from the streets, carrying of loads, digging of
ditches, and cleaning of water-closets. The amount and kind of labour demanded of
an individual was usually too much for his strength, and if he found it impossible to
finish, he was beaten unmercifully (Jews were harnessed to carts and ordered to draw
loads).
Sadistic orders were often given, Jews being made to clean out latrines with their
hands (at Cisna, Kalisz and other localities); to collect horse-droppings in the market-
place with their hands and to put them into their caps and pockets (at Cisna); or to
clean out latrines with their hands and then to smear their faces with the excrement
(at Kalisz, Black Book, p.6).
In towns situated in the area which the Germans intended immediately to incorporate
in the Reich the expulsion of Jews began as soon as the Germans arrived. This was
chiefly in the provinces of Poznania, Pomerania, and Silesia, and on the borders of
East-Prussia (Bielsko, Wysokie Mazowieckie, Kalisz, Torun, Bydgoszcz, and
Suwalki. Centr. Arch. J. H. C. Prot. N o. 969).
Expulsions also took place on the Soviet-German border, the Germans trying to .drive
the Jews across to the Soviet side. For instance, they were driven from Chelm and
Hrubieszow to Sokal near the Soviet frontier, and during a march of several days
many were shot (Jews in Europe, 26: New Order 220, evidence of S. Turteltaub,
Centr. Arch. J. H. C. No. 640). Also at Jaroslaw, Lancut, Przemysl, Tarnobrzeg and
other towns on the frontier the Germans drove the Jews over it, and then boasted in
their newspapers that these places had been ren-

p.143

dered completely judenrein (Krakauer Ztg. Nov. 16, 1939 and July 17; 1940. Centr.
Arch. 1. H. C, Ret, No. 694 and 840).
At Jaroslaw, a week after their invasion, the Germans ordered the Jews to leave the
town within half an hour (Centr. J. H. C. Rec. No. 837). How the crossing of the river
San was made is described in a report by a witness, deposed at Lancut:
"We arrived at the river San on the third day of our exile, What happened there is
difficult to describe. On the bank of the river Gestapo-men were waiting and driving
people into a boat, or rather raft of two unbalanced boards, from which women and
children fell into the river. We saw floating corpses everywhere; near the bank
women stood in the water, holding their children above their heads and crying for
help, to which the Gestapo-men answered by shooting. Blood, masses of floating
corpses. It is impossible to describe the despair, shouts and helplessness of people in
such a situation (Documents of crime and martyrdom, Cracow, 1945 p. 143 p. 143
publ. by Centr. J. H. C.).
Yet the Germans invented still crueller ways than these of cleaning out the Jews.
According to a report by an English journalist, Miss Baker-Beall, in the vicinity of
Bydgoszcz this "cleaning" took the form of extermination; several thousands of
Jewish men, women and children were driven into Bydgoszcz and there shot in a
stable which was converted into a latrine (New Order, p. 137, Black Book, p. 6).
A report by the S. D. Einsatzkommando Bromberg of Nov. 14, 1939, to the
Headquarters of the Security Police and to the Security Service in Berlin says: "The
Jewish problem does not exist any longer at Bydgoszcz, as the city is quite free from
Jews. During the cleaning up all Jews who did not think it suitable to disappear
before were removed". The style of this report gives a good idea of the spirit of the
SD (Sicherheitsdienst) in relation to the Jews (quoted from the Illustrated Polish
Courier, Bydgoszcz Dec. 25, 1945).

p.144

During these first weeks there was hardly a single town in Poland where the Germans
did not shoot or torture Jews. Here are a few examples: in the small town of
Wieruszow immediately on entering the Germans killed 20 Jews in the market place
(Bl. Book p. 5); at Czestochowa on Sep. 3, 1939, and the following day they killed
over a hundred Jews; at Aleksandrow after their entrance on Sep. 7, 1939, they shot
60 Jews: and on Sep. 14, 1939, after torturing them they shot 45 more. At Ostrow
Mazowiecki they murdered five hundred men, women and children (Jews in the War,
p. 36; New Order, 200). At Trzebinia 150 Jews were killed; at Laskarzew almost
every male; at Warta and Sosnowiec a certain number of Jews were arrested and
afterwards decimated. (The Jews in the war, p. 35-37). At Przemysl in 1939 several
hundred Jews were shot. At Lodz on the occasion of a visit by Goebbels on Oct. 8,
1939, a pogrom was organised, many Jews were murdered, and children were thrown
by the SS-men from windows into the streets. At Wloclawek the Germans organized
a pogrom on Doomsday, and afterwards the wounded were buried alive together with
the dead at 69. Dluga Street. At Zgierz 7 Jews perished, one of them (Zysman) being
burnt alive, as having probably offered resistance (Bl.B., p.10, Jews in the War, p. 36).
At Lipsk (district of Ilza, near Kielce) a whole group of Jews was burnt alive in a
synagogue. In Mielec on the Eve of the Jewish New Year, Sep. 13, 1939, the
Germans drove 35 naked Jews from the bath, locked them in an adjoining butcher’s
shop, and then burnt it down. This was stated by eye-witnessess (Jews and Poles
Centr. Arch. J. H. C. Prot. No. 217; Bl. B., p. 12).
In 1941 after the occupation of Bialystok by the Germans the same kind of events
were repeated, only on a larger scale and with greater cynicism. The Germans burnt
about a thousand Jewish men and boys June 27 1941. (Centr. Arch. J. H. C. N .

p.145

546; Dr. S. Datner: Fight and Destruction of the Ghetto at Bialystok).

Witnesses mention pogroms on a larger scale in the following towns: Chmielnik,
Konskie, Kutno, Lask, Lowicz, Lukow, and Sieradz. (Jews in the War, p. 35; Jews in
Europe, p. 26).
In several cities such as Cracow, Lodz, Warsaw, Tarnow, and Kielce the Germans
arrested or murdered outstanding Jewish social workers and representatives of the
intelligentsia.
In the German-occupied area in 1941, immediately after the entrance of the German
Army, pogroms were organised everywhere on a scale larger than that of the "blitz-
pogroms" of 1939. They will be described in the next chapter.

EXTERMINATION OF THE POLISH JEWS IN THE YEARS 1939-1945

PART II

IV. The period of the "Liquidation Activities" in Ghettoes and camps

V. General Conclusions

IV. The period of "Liquidation Activities" in Ghettoes and camps

During the first two years of the occupation the German extermination activities were
not yet "total".
All the above mentioned pogroms, executions, individual or group murders,
accounted for the deaths of probably about 100,000 Jews.
The losses resulting from the so-called "cold pogroms" were much higher.
Deprivation of civic rights, exclusion from all sources of livelihood, seclusion of
ghettoes, hunger, and disease were decimating the Jewish population. In the larger
cities especially mortality among the Jews greatly increased, and natural increase of
population ceased almost entirely. Compulsory labour and bad living-conditions
also caused many thousands of Jewish deaths.
All this obviously pointed to the gradual but complete extirpation of the Jews, but the
tempo was too slow. The Germans realized that the old-fashioned pogroms alone
could not "solve the Jewish problem". Dr. Stahlecker, ‘head of a special-service
Einsatz group A, writes clearly on the subject in a report to his superiors of Oct. 15,
1941. It was easy to foresee from the beginning that the Jewish problem in the

p.146

East could not be solved by pogroms. According to instructions received, the

"cleansing" activities of the Police had as their aim the complete extermination of the
Jews (Document No. 180 Records of the Nuremberg Trial).
The Germans now put their hopes, not on individual pogroms, but on a policy of
pauperization and starvation of the Jews. These expectations were expressed in
August 1942 quite clearly by Hans Frank, the Governor General, himself.
Speaking of the reduction by half of the food rations of the Poles, Frank said that "it
must be done in cold blood and without pity; the fact that in this way we condemn
1,200,000 Jews to death by hunger is only of indirect importance. If the Jews should
not starve I sincerely hope that it will inspire further anti-Jewish regulations". That is
to say that if hunger and pogroms prove ineffectual for the "solution of the Jewish
problem", more effective means must be applied (Records of the Nuremberg Trial.
Frank Diary. Dot. No. 2233).
The idea of the extirpation of the Jews probably took shape in the spring of 1941,
before the Soviet campaign. It was decided first to root out the Jewish population of
the territories conquered in the East from the U. S. S. R. as they were "infected with
Communism" and therefore specially dangerous. This was decided, as the witnessess
at the Nuremberg Trial stated, at a meeting not of the Reich Cabinet, but of some
Hitler’s closest collaborators. At staff conferences which Hitler held several weeks
before the opening of the Russian Campaign, he informed the High Command of the
German Army of his plan to extirpate the Jews. The four special service groups
(Einsatzgruppen) created during this period received definite instructions in this
connexion, as is proved by the abovementioned report of Dr Stahlecker.
The entire propaganda apparatus of the Third Reich was set in motion to work out a
programme in preparation for this crime.

p.147

In Hitler’s speech of Jan. 30, 1941, one hears for the first time the gloomy forecast of
mass slaughter:
"Und nicht vermeiden möchte ich such den Hinweis noch darauf, den ich schon
einmal, nämlich am 1. September 1939, im Deutschen Reichstag tat, dass näimlich,
wenn wirklich die andere Welt von dem Judentum in einem allgemeinen Krieg
gestürzt würde, das Judentum damit seine Rolle in Europa ausgespielt haben wird.
Sie mögen auch heute noch lachen darüber, genau so, wie sie früher lachten über
meine inneren Prophezeiungen. Die kommenden Monate und Jahre werden erweisen,
dass ich auch hier richtig prophezeit hatte.
"Schon jetzt aber sehen wir, wie unsere Rassenerkenntnis Volk um Volk ergreift, und
ich hoffe, dass auch die Völker, die heute noch in Feindschaft gegen uns stehen, eines
Tages ihren grösseren inneren Feind erkennen werden, und dass sie dann doch noch
eine grosse gemeinsame Front mit uns eintreten werden: die Front einer arischen
Menschheit gegenüber der internationalen jüdischen Ausbeutung und
Völkerverderbung". (Der Grossdeutsche Freiheitskampf, . 11 Band, Reden Adolf
Hitters, p. 222).
Hitler’s speech on the day of the invasion of Russia, June 22, 1941, gives the
direction to further anti-Jewish propaganda: "Nicht Deutschland hat seine
nationalsozialistische Weltanschauung jemals versucht, nach Russland zu tragen,
sondern die jüdisch-bolschewistische Machthaber in Moskau haben es unentwegt
unterzunommen, unserem und den anderen europäischen Völkern thre Herrschaft
aufzuoktroyieren, und dies nicht nur geistig, sondern vor allem auch militärisch
macht-mässig". (Der Grossdeutsche Freiheitskampf, Reden Adolf Hitters p. 53).
The war with the Soviets is proclaimed as the "Jewish War" a war against the Jewish
and Bolshevist authorities of the Kremlin. The same thesis is repeated in further
speeches by Hitler on Oct. 2, 1941, and Nov. 8, 1941. The finishing touch is given by
the Minister of Propaganda, Goebbels, in an article

p.148

in Das Reich of July. 20, 1941, promising a "merciless and irrevocable judgement
between us". This article is full of hatred and is entitled characteristi,cally: "Die
Juden sind schuld" ("The Jews are guilty") and it clearly foretells the extirpation of
the Jews.
Articles in the newspapers published for the German police emphasize the thesis that
"the Russian Jews are a poison which may be got rid of only by destruction" (Cited
after HitIer’s Ten Years’ War, p. 289). and declare that the aim of this war is “das
judenfreie Europa” (a Jew-free Europe) (Mitteilungsblätter für die weltanschauliche
Schulung der Ordnungspolizei, Hg. v. Chef der Ordnungspolizei Gruppe:
Weltanschauliche Erziehung, .l. Dezember 1941 Gruppe A, Folge 27. Nur für den
Gebrauch innerhalb der Ordnungspolizei".)
But although in the summer of 1941 the declarations of the leaders of National
Socialism announce only the coming annihilation of the Russian Jews, already at the
end of 1941 a systematic campaign for the extirpation of the Jews was initiated far in
the rear of the Eastern Front, extended later to the General Gouvernement, and finally
to the area incorporated in the Reich - the so-called Warthegau.
In a speech delivered at the end of the year 1941 Governor-General Frank laid his
cards before his closest collaborators, when announcing a big conference to be held
in Berlin in January, 1942, under the chairmanship of the Chief of the Central
Security Office of the Reich (R. S. H. A.) Heydrich, during which important decisions
concerning the Jewish problem were to be taken. Frank indeed anticipated them:
"What are we to do with the Jews? Do you think that we shall settle them in the
Ostland?... Why all this prattle? We have nothing to do with them, either in the
Ostland (the Baltic provinces) or in the Reichskommissariat Ukraine. In
short, liquidate them by your own means... We must take steps to extirpate them...
The General Gouvernement must be as free from Jews

p.149

as is the Reich" (Doc. No, 2233, Frank, Diary. C. V. 1941. Oct. to Dec. p. 76-777).
Frank, one of Hitler’s most intimate advisers, showed himself no false prophet. The
Berlin Conference gave results quite in accordance with his forecast. In April, 1942,
Himmler issued an order concerning the "final solution of the Jewish problem"
(Endlösung der Judenfrage). Only such Jews were to be left alive as were able to
work, and these were to be concentrated in camps. This order was extended to all
countries under German occupation, and minister Goebbels expressed the hope that
the extirpation (Ausrottung) would spread not only over the whole of Europe but
even to countries outside "In Europa und vielleicht weit darüber hinaus..." (Article in
Das Reich of June 14, 1942).
With their characteristic efficiency the Germans began to realize their plan of
destruction.
In the summer and autumn of 1941 the main blow was struck, at.the Jews living in
the territories newly conquered from Soviet Russia. The second blow, in the winter of
1941, fell upon those Jews living in the lands incorporated in the Reich (Warthegau
and Ostpreussen); and the third, in the first months of 1942, struck those who
remained in the General Gouvernement.
The advance of the German Army into the territory of the U. S. S. R. was
accompanied by a series of bloody actions against the Jews. They differ from the
planless pogroms of 1939 in that they now were systematically organized. The
number of victims in the larger cities amounted to thousands; in the smaller towns all
the Jews were "liquidated" at once. The worst terror reigned in the districts of Wilno
and Bialystok. The Jewish population of Wilno (65,000) paid a heavy tribute in
blood, action against them lasting without interruption from June 22 to Sep. 5 (the
date of the establishment of the ghetto). Afterwards it was renewed in the middle of
October and went on until Christmas Eve.

p.150

The Germans pretended that they took the Jewish male population for labour, and
drove them to a small wayside halt called Ponary 10 km from Wilno on the railway
from Wilno to Landwarowo.
There they were shot in masses and buried in the ditches dug to contain petrol by the
Red Army.
From October, the time of the "Cleaning" in the ghetto, onwards women and children
were also brought to be killed. This monstrous mass action, which lasted half a year,
accounted in the first period after the establishment of the ghetto for the deaths of
about 30,000 Jewish victims; and in the second period for those of more than 15,000.
(G. Jaszunski, Dos Naje Lebn Nr. 6, M. Balberyszki, Dos Naje Lebn Nr. 9, Sz.
Kaczerginski: "Ponary", Archives of the Central Jewish Historical Committee.
Records from Wilno.)
The 56,000 Jews in Bialystok were also attacked. Immediately after the advance of
the Germans about 1000 were burnt in a large synagogue; on July 2 about 300
representatives of the Jewish intelligentsia were murdered; and on July 11 about
4000 Jews were taken outside the city and shot on the so-called Pietrasza (S. Datner:
Fight and Destruction of the Jews at Bialystok).
In the summer of 1942 in several parts of the region of Bialystok, at Szczuczyn,
Grajewo, Tykocin and Wasilkow, the Jewish population were massacred, as they were
likewise in the smaller towns of White Russia.
At Sluck, for example, the Commander of the XIth Battalion of the Security Police
carried out mass murders on two successive days at the end of October 1941. Jews
were shot in houses and in the streets, and their corpses left lying where they fell. The
Commander of the battalion refused the request of one of the Commissars of the
District to delay these activities for one day, ostensibly because he was instructed to
commit these murders in a11 the towns of the District and therefore was in a great
hurry. About 9,000 Jews perished at Slonim.

p.151

At Lwow, which had a population of about 150,000 Jews during the first three
months after the German invasion, three pogroms were carried out between June 30
and July 3, July 25 and 27, and finally again at the end of the month. Each outbreak
ended with the murder of several thousands of Jews (Dr F. Friedman: The
Destruction of the Jews in Lwow, p. 6-8). In other towns of the province of Galicia
similar outrages took place; for instance at Kolomyja, where 3,400 Jews were shot in
Szczepanow wood; at Drohobycz and Boryslaw, at Kamionka Strumilowa, Zloczow
and Stanislawow. Hungarian troops who were quartered in this last town did not
persecute the Jews; the first outrage was after the entrance of the Germans on Nov.
12, 1941 (Centr. Arch. J. H. C. ,Prot. No. 545, 515, 679, 1068, 1162, 801).
In Volhynia there was much bloodshed at Rowne, where some 16,000 out ,of 25,000
Jews were done to death on Nov. 5 and 6, 1941 (Centr. Arch. 1. H. C. Prot. No. 1190,
Black Book, p. 113). During the winter months of 1941 and 1942 fresh measures were
directed against the Jews in the area incorporated in the Reich. Their numbers had
already, by the end of 1939 and the beginning of 1940, fallen from 680,000 to
240,000 as a result of the intensified policy of expulsion with all its attendant
brutality, which, indeed, at Kalisz and Bedzin, in the towns of Silesia, and at
Wloclawek, (seeCentr. Arch. J. H. C. Prot. No. 375) passed over into outright
massacres (Bydgoszcz, Kalisz etc. Centr. Arch. 1. H. C. Prot. No. 559).
The second phase of the so-called Judenreinigung (cleaning up of Jews) began in this
area in the winter of 1941-1942. In contrast to their behaviour in the East, the
Germans refrained from mass shootings and carried out their murders in a more
discreet way. The first object of their fury was the Jewish population which still
remained in the province of Lodz. A special extermination camp for Jews was
established at Chelmno near Kolo, and started working on Dec. 8, 1941,

p.152

when the first transport of Jews from Debie, Sepolno and Kolo arrived. Other
transports followed from Turek, Poddebica, Wlodawa, Bellchatowo, Pabianice and
elsewhere. The ghetto of Lodz too was to pay its tribute of blood (Jan. 15, 1942, and
Apr. 29, 1942). The Germans killed their victims by gassing them in specially
constructed wagons. The camp at Chelmno was not the first scene of this kind of
activity on Polish soil. It was about Sep. 15, 1941, that the first experiment in
wholesale murder by gas was carried out with success in the concentration camp at
Oswiecim (Auschwitz) in Silesia, when a group of Russian prisoners-of-war and
another of Polish political prisoners were "liquidated". It is not known when the first
transports of Polish Jews were similarly treated there.
It was in February and March, 1942, that large-scale "liquidations" of this kind were
first practised in the area of the General Gouvernement. Previous cases there had
been rather in the nature of courses of training as for instance at Rejowiec, in the
province of Lublin, at Easter, 1941, (Centr. Arch. J. H. C. Prot. No. 89) in Dabrowa
near Tarnow in July 1941 (rep. 1209); at Wegrow on Doomsday (Prot. No. 38); small-
scale activities at Radom in October (Prot. No. 28); again at Radom and several
small-scale activities at Lwow, on Dec. 3, (Dr. F. Friedman: The Destruction of the
Jews at Lwow p. 13).
The proceedings at Mielec were particularly dramatic. Preparations for "expulsion"
had begun in January 1942, as the official correspondence of the German authorities
shows (Centr. Arch. J. H. C. - Records of Mielec). On Mar. 7-9 a very cruel expulsion
of the Jews from Mielec began. Some were shot in the town or on the airfield and
about 4,500 were taken to different localities in the province of Lublin (Centr. Arch.
J. H. C. - Records of Mielec and Prot. No. 217).
The months of March and April abound in shootings and expulsions (Rzeszow:
Centr. Arch. J. H. C. Prot. No. 678; Brzesko: Prot. No. 611; Zamosc Records J. U. S.;
Krasnik; Prot. 275; Sanniki Records of the Centr. Arch. J. H. C.; Kielce;

p.152

Prot. 65, 64 - a and 67; liquidations at Wloclawek; Prot. 375; Lwow, Lublin,
Ostrowiec, Lodz, Nowy Sacz and elsewhere). It is noteworthy that proceedings were
taken against leaders and members of the Jewish Radical political groups in several
localities almost at the same time, in April 1942 (for instance at Warsaw, Nowy Sacz,
Prot. No. 1203; Ostrowiec, Prot. No. 270 and 146; Rzeszow, Prot. No 678).
The massacre of 15,000 persons at Lwow finished just before the Jewish festival of
the Passover.
One of the bloodiest and most cruel episodes of this period was the massacre at
Lublin, which began on the night of Mar. 16/17, 1942, and lasted till April 20. The
Jewish colony there was almost wiped out; about 2,500 to 3,000 Jews being killed
and 35,000 being taken to the concentration camps at Belzec and Trawniki, while
some were sent to the region of Poltawa and Krivoj Rog (U. S. S. R.).
The remainder about 3,000 in number, were taken to Majdan Tatarski, where in
primitive and shabby buildings they too were soon killed. (Memories of Ida
Glückstein p. 11 Centr. Arch. J. H. C. Prot. 6. evidence of S. Turteltaub, Bl. Book, p.
95).
The requirements of mass murder inspired the idea of establishing special plants
which were to serve Eastern Poland, as the camps of Chelmno and Oswiecim on the
left bank of the Vistula served Western Poland. So the labour camp at Belzec and the
concentration camp for prisoner-of war at Majdanek near Lublin were transformed
into extermination camps. The larger transports of Jews from Lublin and Lwow were
directed to Belzec, while smaller ones were taken to Majdanek (for instance from the
town of Belzyce in May 1942). An extermination camp with gals-chambers was
also established at Sobibor (first victims sent from Siedliszcze).
These spring activities, however, were merely introductory. The wave of
extermination activities grew more and more threatening. "Liquidation", more
innocently termed "expulsion", was applied systematically and gradually in every

p.154

Jewish centre. On May 12, 1943, the authorities of the province of Lublin sent out a
secret circular
letter to the local administrative authorities (Srotasta powiatowy) to prepare for the
expulsion ‘of the Jews (Centr. Arch. - Records of Lublin) Undoubtedly similar
circulars were issued by the government authorities of other districts.
The summer of 1942 witnessed a series of expulsions in Silesia (at Jaworzno,
Sosnowiec, Dabrowa Gornicza, and Bielsko); in the General Gouvernement (at
Belzyce, Zolkiewka, Siedliszcze, Rabka, Cracow, Tarnow, Radom, Rzeszow, Mielec,
and Debica), in Galicia (Lwow, Przemysl and Tarnopol), in White Russia (Slonim)
and in Volhynia (Rowne). In some localities the Jews offered resistance (Rowno,
Slonim), in reprisal for which their houses were burnt down. (Prot. No. 1190, 141). At
Przemysl no less than 12,000 Jews were done to death (Centr. Arch. J. H. C. Prot. No.
676, 691).
The culminating point was reached in August, September and October 1942. The
destruction of the ghetto at Warsaw overshadows this whole period, going on, as it
did, for two-and-a-half months. It began on the Eve of the Jewish Fast-Day, July 22,
the anniversary of the destruction of the Temple and lasted till Oct. 3. According to
the official report of the SS-Brigadenführer Stroop, 310, 322 Jews were killed.
Probably the number of victims was even greater. The massacre was carried out
with exceptional cruelty.
At the same time the task of "liquidating" the Jews at Lwow was taken in hand.
Between August 10 and 22 some 40 or 50 thousand were slaughtered. And during this
same month of August about 60,000 Jews were murdered in the Dabrowa coal-
mining area.
At Radom about 20,000 Jews, including members of the Jewish Council, perished in
a massacre on Aug. 16; at Miedzyrzec about 10,000 (Aug. 28); at Piotrkow some 15
thousand; and at Kfolomyja the whole Jewish population of the town and surrounding
country. A series of mass murders was carried

p.155

out also in the vicinity of Warsaw (at Otwook, Falenica, Rembertow), at Cracow,
Lancut, Rabka, Rymanow, Rzeszów, Drohobycz, Borysław, Kielce, Szydłowiec,
Nowy Sacz, Wieliczka, Wolbrom, Lodz, Stanislawow, Buczacz, Brzezany, Brody,
Sokal, Borszczow, Kopyczynce, Skole, Zbaraz, Belzyce, and Dolina.
As the existing extermination camps could no longer cope with the number of
destined victims, a new one was opened at Treblinka B, near the railway station of
Malkinia, at the time of the Warsaw massacres.
It is impossible to say how many persons altogether lost their lives in the large-scale
executions which marked the autumn of 1942. According to a report by SS
Brigadenführer Katzman, in Galicia up to Nov. 10, 1942, 254, 989 Jews were
expelled; about 50% of the whole Jewish population. In other sections of the General
Gouvernement the numbers were much larger, amounting probably to 70 or 80% of
the Jewish population. It was much the same in the area incorporated in the Reich,
where except for small communities only the two ghettoes at Lodz and Bialystok
were left.
On Oct. 28 and Nov. 10, 1942, regulations were issued establishing 54 ghettoes in the
area of the General Gouvernement, of which 31 were in Galicia. But by this time the
majority of the Jewish population were already dead, and those who remained were
well aware that the end of their lives was rapidly approaching.
In the winter of 1942/43 activity lessened. One of the greatest massacres of this
period was that of the Jews at Pinsk, which lasted for four days (Oct. 28 - Nov. 1) and
accounted for about 16,000 persons (Record of 15 Reg. German policy, published by
Ilia Erenburg in the collection: The Slayers, Moscow 1944, p. 7-10).
At the same time the province of Bialystok was "cleansed", only two ghettoes being
left, at Bialystok and at Jasinowka; about 130,000 people perished.

p.156

Two pogroms (of Nov. 18-20, 1942, and Jan. 5-7, 1943) reduced the population of the
ghetto at Lwow by more than 20,000 (Dr. F. Friedman: The Destruction of the Jews
at Lwow p. 23).
During the pogrom of Jan. 18, 1943, the Germans combed out (auskämmen) 6,500
more persons at Warsaw. In a great pogrom at Bialystok on Feb. 1943, 11,000 persons
were killed and 12,000 were "expelled" - to the death-camp at Treblinka.
The Jewish population of Galicia was rapidly disappearing, in incessant small
"incidents". The camp at Belzec was no longer able to cope with the mass of
"material" sent for "liquidation".
Accordingly a camp was opened at Janow near Lwow for those expelled from the
ghettoes of Galicia. At the beginning of March Governor-General Frank stated with
satisfaction that in the whole of the General Gouvernement there were perhaps about
100,000 Jews left (Frank Diary. Nuremberg Trial, Dot. 2233. Vol.: 1. I to 28. II. Page
5).
It seems however, that the calculations of the Governor General were a little too low.
Warsaw had still about 60,000 Jews, Lwow 20,000, and Galicia about 100,000. There
still remained small numbers of Jews in several other towns of the General
Gouvernement, such as Czestochowa (in the labour camp "Hasag" and ,other camps)
at Skarzysko, Radom, Cracow and Plaszow. Probably the number of Jews in the
General Gouvernement at that time might have been estimated at between 1 and 2
hundred thousand.
There were also more than 100,000 still left in the incorporated area, about 70,000 of
whom were at Lodz, and the remainder at Bialystok and in the towns of the
Warthegau.
During 1943 and 1944 the Germans began the liquidation of the remaining 250,000
Jews. In 1943 the heroic defence of the Warsaw ghetto began on Apr. 19, 1943, and
ended with

p.156

the symbolical blowing up by the Germans of the Main Synagogue in Tlomackie on

May 16. In this uneven struggle some 50 or 60 thousand Jews perished (According to
the report by Brigadenführer Stroop, who had directed this action, the blowing up of
the synagogue marked the end of the action. In fact the mopping-up operations in the
ghetto continued for some weeks).
Resistance in the ghetto at Bialystok was overcome, after another unequal struggle,
on Aug. 16, 1943; and at Lwow during the first days of June, 1943, about 20,000
Jews were killed.
By 1944 there was only one ghetto left in Poland, namely that at Lodz with its 70,000
inhabitants; and this was now "liquidated", its population being dispatched in
successive transports to Oswiecim.
In August 1944, when the front was approaching Lodz, more than 60,000 persons
were sent to Oswiecim in one huge transport (Aug. 2-30), so that at Lodz there
remained only the so-called Aufräumungskommando, consisting of 870 persons.

The destruction of all the ghettoes in Poland and the expulsion of their inhabitants
still did not bring that complete "solution of the Jewish problem" desired by
Himmler. There still remained a few Polish Jews in various camps, since young men
and women able to work were-for the moment-kept alive.
Those thus selected were sent to labour camps. Not that their death sentence was
cancelled; it was only postponed. They were exploited to the utmost limit of their
endurance, with stern and severe discipline and very bad housing, sanitary and food
conditions. All this as well as the variety of tortures employed, both physical and
moral, is exemplified in the account of the almost incredible conditions of work at
Oswiecim and Janow. Conditions of work in the munition factories at Skarzysko were
likewise dreadful, and the mor-

p.158

tality in these camps was frightful. Notwithstanding this high "natural" death-rate,
however, and in order to quicken the tempo of destruction, the Germans from time to
time arranged roll-calls, and selections of Jews for unannounced execution.
During the German occupation the whole of Poland was dotted with camps, some for
prisoners-ofwar and some containing workers in local factories, coal-mines,
foundries, landed estates and farms, taken over by the SS (the so called SS
Liegenschaften); in these the percentage of Jews was very small.
More detailed information has now been collected concerning the 30 forced-labour
camps for Jews.
The first of this type were already established in the year 1939, but they usually only
existed for a short time. They were often closed down after l-2 years of existence,
after they had served their purpose in the damming of rivers, the construction of
fortifications, or the building of roads, and at the same time completely ruined the
health and lives of the majority of the workers in them. It was only rarely that the
latter survived till the time came for their release e. g. at "Hasag"(Hugo Schneider
Aktiengesellschaft) near Czestochowa, Aufräumungskommando at 16 St. James’s St.,
Lodz, or at Plaszow near Cracow.
As the anti-Jewish polcy became more strict, some of the labour camps were
transformed into concentration camps (e. g. Janow camp near Lwow; Plaszow near
Cracow; Poniatow and Trawniki in the province of Lublin; or Szebnie near Jaslo).
The Jews working in these camps were not treated as workers but as "work-
prisoners" (see the report of the SS Bnigadenführer Katzman to the Chief
of the SS and Security Police in the G. G.).
Hundreds and thousands of Polish Jews passed through camps of this type in their
march to martyrdom and death; the
p.159

relatively low number of individual camps being explained by the fact that an
enormous number of human beings perished in each of them. Thus at the Janow camp
near Lwow the number of inmates rarely exceeded 20,000 and sometimes fell as low
as 8,000 (for example, on March. 1, 1943, it contained about 15,000 Jews, on June 26
only about 8,000). Yet a total of some 200,000 people perished in this camp. Indeed a
much larger number of Jews even than this passed through the camp, including the
many murdered in the wood of Lesieniec near Lwow, and those deported for
execution to Belzec. The Jannow camp thus served as a transit camp, or so-called
Dulag (Durchgangslager).
On June 27, 1943, after the final liquidation of all the ghettoes in Galicia, there were
still 20 camps, in which were 21,156 Jews. (Report of the SS Brigadenführer
Katzman to the Chief of the SS and Security Police in GG. Krüger). "But" - adds
Katzman -" this number is constantly diminishing". The best known of these camps
were at Janow, Kurowice, Jaktorow, Lackie, Kozaki, Drohobycz, and Boryslaw.
The province of Cracow also had a number of concentration camps, the best known
of which were at Plaszow near Cracow, and in the district of Szebnie near Jaslo: in
both of these about 20,000 Jews, mainly from Cracow, perished. Things were similar
in Malopolska, at Pustkow near Debica, at Rozwadow and at Stalowa Wola, where in
each case several thousand Jews perished.
In central Poland the greatest number of camps of this type existed in Trawniki in the
province of Lublin and at Poniatow near Pulawy; in every one from 15 to 20,000
Jews perished. In the North there was another, at Stutthof near Gdansk; from 110,000
persons who passed through this camp 40.000 were Jews from different countries of
Europe; Polish and Lithuanian being in the majority. It should be mentioned that
before the evacuation of Stutthof the Germans drove several thousand Jews (men and
women) into the sea, where

p.160

they were drowned or killed by machine-gun fire. (Archives of the Centr. J. H. C.

Prot. No. 381. Diary of Aldo Coradello, Reminiscenses of L. Szeftel, late prisoner at
Stutthof).
But all these figures amount to nothing in comparison with the frightful number of
victims who were devoured by the "extermination camps".
This last type of camp was organized on Polish territory during the time when mass
exterminations were intensified, as the Germans could not accomplish their criminal
purpose with the existing means of destruction alone.
Several large concentration camps in Poland, such as Oswiecim and Majdanek, had
been used for killing the Jewish population since 1940; but now special new camps
were added.
The camp at Oswiecim was enlarged in 1942 and 1943 and adapted for mass murder,
large gas chambers and crematoria being erected. The numerous transports of Jews
arriving there were almost all directed to the gas-chambers; only a small number of
persons being selected for the labour camp.
But even of these only a small percentage was left alive by the end of war; about
5,000 Jews.
Besides Polish Jews there perished at Oswiecim hundreds of thousands of Jews from
Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Austria, Germany, Greece, Belgium, France and other
countries.
The total number of victims executed at the second large concentration camp, at
Majdanek near Lublin, is estimated at between 1½ and 2 millions, of whom the Jews
constituted a very large percentage. In both camps (Oswiecim and Majdanek) the
majority of Jewish prisoners were exterminated in gas-chambers by the use of the
very effective "Cyclon B."
In the concentration camps at Grossrosen in Silesia in which 100,000 persons
perished, the number of Jewish prisoner was small.
The extermination camps destined almost exclusively for Jews were those at
Treblinka (called Treblinka B), Chelmno, Belzec and Sobibor.

p.161

At Treblinka, in the vicinity of the district Sokolow Podlaski province of Warsaw,

between July 22, 1942, and the early autumn of 1943 from 760,000 to a million
persons were killed, almost exclusively Jews.
The camp at Chelmno, a village 14 km from Kolo on the railway from Lodz to
Poznan, continued working till January 1945, when it had destroyed about 350,000
Jewish victims, in special motortrucks, fitted up with gas-chambers.
The camp at Belzec near Rawa Ruska, established at the beginning of 1940 as a
labour camp, was developed into an extermination camp in 1942. Between the spring
of 1942 and that of 1943 several hundred thousand Jews, mainly from Galicia and the
Lublin and Cracow province were murdered there. Transports also came from the
districts of Radom and Warsaw. At the extermination camp at Sobibor, near Chelm in
the Lublin area, which was established in the spring of 1942, hundreds of thousands
more were killed, chiefly in gas-chambers. Here too, a certain number of Jews from
France, Holland, the U.S.S.R., and Czechoslovakia perished in addition to those from
Polard (It was stated at the judicial enquiry into German crimes committed in the
extermination camps of Belzec and Sobibor, that from these death camps only a few
persons escaped. It is therefore a matter of serious difficulty correctly to calculate the
number of victims, as the German authorities tried their best to wipe out all vestiges
of their crimes). On Oct. 14, 1943, a revolt was organised at Sobibor.
After killing about 20 SS-men several hundred prisoners escaped, but the majority
were killed by the bullets of the camp guards and by mines which had been laid in the
fields all round the camp.
It must be borne in mind that the above mentioned concentration camps were not the
only places of extermination of Polish Jews. In the vicinity of every large centre of
Jewish life in Poland temporary places of execution were to be found, in which
thousands and tens of thousands of victims per-
p.162

ished daily; e. g. Ponary near Wilno, Lesieniec near Lwow, Pietrasza near Bialystok,
Radogoszcz near Lodz, or Rakowice wood near Cracow.
Besides the better known camps, mentioned above, there were places of mass murder
by gas which remained unknown until quite recently; e. g.. Kazimierz wood (near
Kazimierz Biskupi, 40 km from Chelmno) where the Germans had used gas wagons
as early as Sep. 1941; or the so-called "Gesiowka" in Warsaw, i. e. the Jewish prison
in Zamenhof Street, where crematorium installations have recently been discovered.

V. General conclusions

I. How many Jews perished and how many were left alive?

The final "solution of the Jewish problem" in Poland ordered by the Nazi leaders was
accomplished almost in its entirety. This is proved by the following statistical data:
The number of Jews in Poland on Sep. 1, 1939, amounted to about 3,474,000. How
many of them are still alive?
The Central Committee of Polish Jews which was organized at Lublin in August,
1944, ordered a registration of the Jews who survived. This registration was carried
out by the Jewish Local Committees in different towns and gave the following
results: Up to June 15, 1945, it was found that 55,509 Jews had registered themselves
in Poland. To this number must be added 5,446 registered Polish Jews still in camps
in Germany, and 13,000 Jews on active service in the Polish Army, together 73,955
persons.
These statistics, do not however, enable us to determine how many Jews were finally
saved from destruction during the German occupation. For this a critical analysis and
explanation are required.

p.163

The number 55,509 must be reduced, as there were numerous mistakes in

registration, caused by the fluctuation and internal migration of Jews in the first
months after their recovery of freedom, the same persons being registered twice, or
even several times, in different towns through which they passed.
How many, it is impossible to check. Moreover, a certain number out of the 55,509
had returned from Soviet Russia.
The number of 13,000 officers and men of the Polish Army does not include such as
were saved in German-occupied territory, but is made up for the most part of Jews
who were in the U.S.S.R. during the war and voluntarily enlisted in the Polish Army
which was organised there.
But the number of 5,446 given for Jews still in camps in Germany is not final, as only
an insignificant proportion of the Jews in these camps have sent in their data to be
registered by the Central Committee of Polish Jews or to any Local Committee.
Later migratory movements after June 15, 1945, and territorial changes affecting
Jews who were living in Poland and Germany are not taken into account, as they are
not essential to the problem under discussion.
Of the 40,000-50,000 Polish Jews who are still alive in Poland, about 5,000 are
children (Data of the Chief of the Section of the Children’s Assistance, Dr S.
Herszerhorn, quoted from the Bulletin of the J.A.P. of Nov. 12, No 99/109). This is a
maximum number and includes those who returned from Western Ukraine, Western
White Russia and the Lithuanian Soviet Republic.
It must be borne in mind, however, that a certain number of Jews were saved by
escaping abroad in 1939 (mainly to the U.S.S.R.); while in 1941, after the German
invasion of Russia, some of the Polish Jews living in the U.S.S.R. saved themselves
by fleeing into the interior. Altogether about 250,000 Polish Jews from various
European and extra-European

p.164

countries were saved (U.S.S.R., England, Sweden, Switzerland, Roumania, Hungary;

Palestine, and the U.S.A.).
From the above it may be deduced that in German-occupied Poland the Jewish
population amounted to about 3,200,000 or 3,250,000 persons. Of this number at the
end of war only 40,000-50,000 remained alive.
In the territories occupied by the German armies only 1.3% or 1.6% of Jews were
saved.
As compared with the pre-war total, the losses of the Jews in Poland amount
therefore to 98%.

II. Different phases of extermination

With regard to the tempo and intensity of the exterminations during the different
periods, although definite data are lacking, the following approximate estimate can be
relied upon.

1. "Jewish losses in the first months of the German occupation, i. e. up to the end of
1939: soldiers killed in the September Campaign 32,000; prisoners of this campaign
murdered by the Germans, 60,000; Jewish civilians killed during the fighting, or
during the earliest stages of the German murdercampaign, in pogroms, about
100,000. Altogether therefore about 200,000.

2. Jewish losses during 1940 and the first six months of 1941: as the result of
executions, repressions and pogroms, expulsions, forced labour, and natural deaths
(deaths resulting from disease, epidemics and hunger), about 300,000.
Up to the middle of 1941, i. e. to the outbreak of the German-Soviet war, about
500,000 Jews had perished.

3. After the occupation by the German Army of Polish territories previously annexed
by the U.S.S.R. there were about 2,700000 Jews under German rule. From the
numbers previously given it will be seen that by the end of February, 1943, only l0%,
or 250,000, were still alive. If we add to this number the 150,000 Jews who were
murdered in

p.165

January and February, 1943, we see that on Jan. 1, 1943, about 400,000 Jews were
still alive. Thus for the last phase of Nazi rule in Poland (from Apr. 22, 1941, to the
end of 1942) we get 2,300,000 as the number of victims of German extermination
activities, disease and hunger combined.

4. In 1943 about 250-300,000 of the remaining Jews perished, this number including
the rest of the Jewish communities in Warsaw, Lwow, and Bialystok; the rest of the
Jews in concentration camps; Jews who had escaped to the woods; Jewish groups of
partisans; and Jews living in concealment as Aryans.

5. In 1944 about 100,000 more Jews perished at the hands of the Germans. The last
ghetto at Lodz was destroyed; many Jews passing as Aryans were caught, particularly
during the Warsaw Rising and afterwards, and finally a certain number of Jews who
had still been working in concentration camps succumbed.
Between 40,000 and 50,000 Jews were left, concealing themselves among the Poles,
or using false Aryan documents, or hiding in the woods as partisans; or in some
camps (Hasag near Czestochowa, and Oswiecim).

III. How many Jews from abroad perished in Poland?

Besides Polish Jews, the Germans murdered a great number of Jews from abroad on
Polish territory.
According to information published by the Institute of Jewish Affairs in New York, of
a total of 9,612,000 European Jews 5,787,000 perished during the Nazi occupation.
Of this number more then half (13,200,000) were Polish Jews. Of the second half
about l,000,000 perished in Poland, and the remainder in the Soviet Union,
Roumania, Bulgaria, Hungary, Jugoslavia, or Greece.
The million foreign Jews killed by the Germans in Poland are made up of about 3-4
hundred thousand from Hungary,

p.166

2 hundred thousand from Czechoslovakia, 1 hundred thousand from Germany, and

the rest from Austria, France, Holland, Belgium, Italy, Norway, Luxemburg, and
Denmark, in numbers varying from a few hundreds to several thousands.
Jews from abroad were sent to Poland by the Germans as early as the end of 1939
(from Czechoslovakia and Austria), ostensibly for colonization, or for work on
fortifications. Further transports during the years 1940-1941 were mainly sent to the
small towns of the district of Lublin and to the ghettoes of Warsaw and Lodz. Owing
to dreadful housing conditions and bad food, great misery and hard work, these Jews
died in large numbers. In the year 1942 it was noticed that the deportations to Poland
of Jews from West and Central Europe were intensified, but now they were not
deported for work, but sent straight to extermination camps to be instantly killed.
The Jews from Greece and Hungary were the last to be exterminated. Mass
deportations and executions of Hungarian Jews were not begun until the Summer of
1944; but owing to their specially cruel character they stood out even among the
German extermination activities of that time.

The murder of several millions of Jews in Poland is a crime distinguished from the
many other German crimes committed during the second world war both by its
wholesale character and by the criminal manner of its execution. We are faced with a
crime to which, strictly speaking, all those European peoples who were not "Aryan"
according to Nazi doctrine should have fallen victims. The ashes of millions of
people in Polish soil prove that German National Socialism realized to a great extent
its declared aim of destroying the European Jews. If the Germans could not
completely wipe out the Jews from Europe, it was solely due to the fact that they lost
the war before they had time to carry out their extirpation plans to the end.

p.167

We are faced with a crime executed by the agents of the Nazi rulers according to a
strictly conceived plan in which an active part was taken not only by the Gestapo, SS
and gendarmes, but also by the German military authorities, with whom were linked
up not only the political party, but also the German railway workers, and German
industry.
The vast majority of Germans who were living in Poland during the war knew
perfectly well about these crimes, and the extermination of millions of Jews. All these
Germans adopted at best a completely passive attitude towards them. Many Germans
in the Reich who profited by Jewish plunder did the same.
The destruction of the Jews in Poland was only the first attempt of the Nazis to find a
specific radical solution of the problems facing German imperialist policy.
The fate of the Soviet prisoners-of-war and that of the hundreds of thousands of
victims from among the Russian and Polish civilian population murdered by the
German authorities eloquently proves this truth.
The Jews were the first of a series of victims. The attempt did not succeed; but
undoubtedly the Poles and Russians were next on the list of candidates for mass
extermination, representing elements ethnically obnoxious from the point of view of
German expansion in the East.
Deliberately setting aside all basic principles of good and evil, of right and wrong,
profiting from the indifference and apathy of the German population, and applying
terroristic methods in the occupied countries, the Nazis could, had military events
taken another turn, have murdered still more millions of people in Poland and Russia
"for the good of the German nation and the New Order in Europe".
The annihilation of the Jews on Polish soil is an eloquent proof of the German
intention to go on until they had achieved the realisation of this plan.

GERMAN CRIMES COMMITTED DURING THE WARSAW RISING

BACKGROUND

p.186

The crimes committed by the Germans at the time of the Warsaw rising in August and
September, 1944, occupy a special place among those committed by the in Poland
during the recent war. These crimes, the victims of which were thousands of unarmed
citizens, men, women and children, were committed by army troops in fulfilment of
explicit orders given by the highest German army authorities; they were carried out
by the germane Army and the German General Staff, institutions independent of the
Gestapo.
The whole question is not essentially changed by the fact that the majority of these
troops consisted of a police brigade in which criminals and Volksdeutsche served and
of the Vlasow army composed of Soviet prisoner-of-war (Warsaw population usually
called them Ukrainians) for these were parts of the German army, under German
Command. They were thrown into action and committed common crimes by order of
the German High Command.
German soldiers and members of the Vlassov army in German unfirom together
committed atrocities on an unarmed civilianh poplation. It is not material that certain
of their criminal deeds, such, as the violation of women, were done principally by
Vlassov’s men; these facts were known to the German officers who allowed them to
happen. Vlassov’s troops were merely carrying out the crimes; they were pawns in a
general criminal scheme. Everything that happened in the tragic days of the Warsaw
Rising was know to and approved by the German Command.
Before we begin a detailed account of the German proceedings during the Rising,
supported by the testimony of German generals and the texts of military orders, we
shall first

p.187

publish a series of reports of German crimes given by eyewitnesses. These consist of

evidence taken from people who were present while the crimes were actually being
committed; some of it from persons who were themselves victims of these crimes,
but were lucky enough to remain alive.
These reports, which are undoubtedly truthful, cover only certain districts of the town
and do not by any means account for all the crimes that were committed. They give,
however, sufficient material to enable us to understand the methods employed and the
kind of offences perpetrated on the civilian population of Warsaw. Military operations
- in the proper meaning of the word - against the insurgents constituted only a small
part of the German misdeeds; military operations directed against a tiny group of
insurgents, which were justified from the military point of view, should not have
brought about the death of tens of thousands of unarmed men, women and children,
or the complete destruction and burning of the city. The crimes committed in Warsaw
during the Rising were deliberately directed against the inhabitants, who had nothing
to do with the activities of the insurgents; they were committed in districts where
there were no insurgents, and where no action was dictated by military
considerations. The following statements by witnesses and victims of German
crimes in Warsaw constitute irrefragable evidence, which is at the same time an
accusation against the German military authorities.

GERMAN CRIMES COMMITTED DURING THE WARSAW RISING

PART I

Crimes committed in the Marie Curie-Sklodowska Radium Institute.

Record No 45/II: "Between ten and eleven o’clock on the morning of August 5, 1944,
numerous military formations were seen approaching from the direction of the houses
of Wawelska Street. Soon

p.188

afterwards about a hundred soldiers in German uniforms, belonging to Vlasov’s

detachment (R. O. A.), rushed into the building of the Radium Institute, shouting and
shooting at random.
That gang of drunken soldiers, having first secured the exits, began searching and
plundering. There were at the time about 90 patients and 80 members of the staff with
their families in the building. They were robbed by the soldiers of all their jewels,
watches, and money and even of such trifles as fountain-pens, automatic lighters, or
pocket mirrors. The fact that the institution was a hosopital, which was explained to
the soldiers and was in any case obvious owing to the presence of the patients and the
staff in their white coats, left the soldiers indifferent.
After having been robbed, the whole staff were driven by threat of machine-gun-fire
into the hospital garden, where the stage was set for an execution.
Amid insulting and threatening shouts and shots fired in all directions, the victims
were lined up in rows of three and forbidden to look round; and then an order was
given to set up machine guns in their rear.
The husband of one of the patients, who slightly transgressed against the above-
mentioned order, was killed on the spot by a revolver shot.
The whole party were then led in this order from the hospital garden across the
Mokotow field and along streets in which lay dead bodies with skulls split open, to a
camp at "Zieleniak". There they were kept for four days and nights in the open air,
without food or water. Time and again women were assaulted, dragged out and
violated by the drunken soldiers. Some of the Staff of the Institute were then
transported via Pruszkow to Germany. Others succeeded in escaping from the
transport and stayed in the vicinity of Warsaw.
We must here mention the fact that when the Hospital Staff

p.189

were taken straight from their work, dressed very lightly, mostly in their white coats,
they were not allowed to take anything with them, and if anybody happened to be
carrying a parcel oar a small suitcase, it was immediately taken from him.
About 90 patients confined to bed remained in the hospital, and 9 members of the
staff had hidden in the chimney flues, and thus avoided expulsion.
That same day the plundering and demolishing of the buildings was begun. Doors
were broken down, stores, cupboards, safes and suitcases were broken open, and
glass was smashed. All the mattresses, pillows, blankets, and linen were ripped up
and thrown about in the corridors and wards of the hospital. The ether and spirits
were drunk and the store-rooms emptied.
More valuable things (clothing, linen, dresses, or silver) were stolen or thrown out of
the windows and destroyed. Female patients were assaulted and violated.
On the next day, August 6, 1944, the barbarity of the drunken soldiers reached its
climax. Some of the seriously sick and wounded, lying on the ground floor (about 15
in number), were killed with revolver shots, after which their mattresses were set on
fire under their dead bodies. As not all the shots hit their mark, and those that did
were not always fatal, some women who were too weak and ill to move were burnt
alive. Only one of them, although badly burned and very weak, dragged herself
out of bed and crawling on all fours escaped immediate death.
While these atrocities were going on, petrol was poured on the floors and the Institute
was set on fire, all the exits having first been covered by machine-guns. In spite of
this three women (an X-ray assistant, a nurse and a patient) managed to slip out of the
building. Two of them ‘were caught, and after having been violated many times by
the soldiers were brutally murdered. Their common grave has been found in the

p.190

hospital garden, where they were buried by those who were forced to dig trenches.
The remaining patients, on the upper floors, over 70 in number, and seven members
of the staff who had managed to hide themselves, remained in the burning building,
making desperate efforts to find some place where they could hold out against the
suffocating smoke and burning heat of the fire. That day the unfortunate victims
saved their lives for the moment, thanks to the fact that the Institute was burning
comparatively slowly, owing to the absence of any great quantity of inflammable
material and to the existence of fire-proof parquet floors. But later all the patients and
one nurse were killed.
No less terrible were the scenes which took place in the science building of the
Institute. It is true that the inmates were taken to the "Zieleniak" camp, but the
building was set on fire and the people from the adjacent building (belonging to the
Navy) were brought there. The women and children were separated from the men,
who were driven into the burning building under the threat of machine-gun fire.
In this way eleven men perished in the presence of their families.
After committing these revolting atrocities, the soldiers left the Institute for a while.
The 70 patients and the 7 members of the staff still remained in the building. The
nurses stealthily cooked hot food for the patients at night and looked after them.
Between August 6 and 9 Vlassov’s men returned from time to time to the hospital,
and took away girls of 13 or 14, whom they violated and then killed in the garden.
They repeatedly carried out executions in the grounds of the Institute, after driving
their victims to the spot from the city, and sometimes they set fire to the building
again.
Meanwhile the German soldiers also came with cans and carried away all the
valuable objects from the hospital, such as X-ray apparatus, laboratory outfits, or
furniture.

p.191

When ‘begged by members of the staff still remaining in the building to transfer them
to a safer place, they answered that they could not do so.
On August 19, Vlasov’s men came back again and the final destruction of the
Hospital began. The few members of the staff were ordered to leave the Institute and
to take out all the patients. Among the latter were three women very seriously ill, who
could not even walk. One of them was carried out into the garden by a woman
member of the staff, who however, did not succeed in saving the other two, for a
soldier rushed up and shot them, and then poured petrol over their bodies, which he
set on fire. One of them was the woman mentioned above, who on August 8 had
crawled from her burning bed and so saved her life - but only for a fortnight.
When everybody had left, the building was set on fire: 2 members of the staff had not
obeyed the order and were still hiding in a chimney.
When the soldiers noticed in the procession a very sick woman, staggering and
helped along by the others (it was the one who had ‘been carried out by a member of
the (staff), they ordered her to be laid down near the wall of 19, Wawelska Street,
where one of them shot her, and then set fire to the body.
In the "Zieleniak" camp only 4 members of the Staff survived. The remainder, about
70 patients and one nurse, were drawn up three deep, and marched into the Health
Centre Building, where an officer was waiting for them and shot them through the
head. Their dead bodies, - indeed probably some were still alive - were piled up in the
execution room, sprinkled with petrol, and set on fire. In this way, all the patients at
the Radium Institute were massacred.
Of the 9 members of the staff who remained in the building after August 5, 1944, two
nurses were murdered (one of them after having been violated many times), one
woman employee
p.192

escaped from the burning building and was saved, four were taken to the "Zieleniak",
and two stayed hidden in the chimney flues for a couple of months. They left as late
as October 1944. In this report of indescribable German atrocities, the following two
points should be stressed:
1) that the inmates of the Radium Institute had not by their behaviour given any cause
whatever for reprisals;
2) that the terrible crimes perpetrated by Vlassov’s men were carried out by order of
the German authorities to whom they were subordinated, and who knew of their
barbarity.
That the action was planned and premeditated by the German commanding is proved
also by the following circumstances:
1) that Vlassov’s men were purposely given drink before marching on the
city,
2) that one of the murderers stated on August 5 in the Institute: "The building won’t
be burnt today, for we haven’t any orders yet", and
3) that the German Chief of Hospital and Ambulance Services in the Warsaw sector,
Captain Borman, declared to a doctor, who begged him to intervene in the matter of
the Radium Institute: "It is of no importance if several old women with cancer perish
- the most important thing is to win the war".

Crimes in Other Hospitals.

Record No. 80: “In the summer of 1944, I was sent as a patient to Wola Hospital,
where I was still, suffering from sudative pleurisy, when the Rising began. The
Germans came to the Hospital on August 3 at 1 p. m. I was in the cellar with mlany
other sick and wounded. On entering the cellar, the Germans fired a round from a
machine-gun and several wounded men who were standing near the entmrance fell
dead. A few minutes

p. 193

later the order was given to leave the hospital. All the wounded and sick who were
able to walk went with the hospital staff, while the more severely wounded were
carried on stretchers. Our march was a nightmare. I felt very weak, still having
drainage tubes in one side. We were driven to a shed a few metres behind a tunnel in
Gorczewska Street. Many people were already there. After examining our documents,
they divided us into groups, and then began to drive us out. Soon the group to which I
belonged was taken out for execution. We were led towards a large house (already on
fire) near the tunnel: were ordered to form rows of twelve people, and were then
driven into the yard of this house.
At the entrance Ukrainians (six in number) shot from close range at every person who
entered, and thus the dead fell into the flames of the burning house. I saw clearly,
when waiting my turn in the first group of twelve people, doctors, assistants in white
aprons and also (if I am not mistaken) some priests being shot. Among the doctors
was Prof. Grzybowski; then the wounded and sick in the other rows were driven to
death, and when the turn of those on stretchers came, they were shot first and the
stretcher-bearers after them. It was only by a miracle that I escaped death. When I
was driven to the entrance in a group of twelve, I turned to one of the officers and
told him, falsely, that I myself and my two companions were Volksdeutsche (I speak
German well). So the German ordered us to fall back and follow him; he led us to a
German first-aid station, situated in the neighbourhood. About 500 persons were shot
in my presence, among them many from the Wola Hospital; others also, driven here
from other streets in the Wola suburb, were with us. The volleys lasted till late into
the night. At nightfall hand-grenades were thrown on the heaps of corpses and in the
morning a tank arrived, and demolished the burnt house, thus covering the corpses of
the murdered (already partly burnt) as well as the place of execution”.

p.194

"The frightful smell of burning corpses was unbearable. I saw it all quite well, as I
stayed in the German first-aid station (situated quite near), till the following
morning."
Record No. 94: "On August 5, 1944, at 2 p. m., the Germans broke into Wola
Hospital in Plocka Street. Robbing began; the staff and the wounded were searched,
and their money, watches and valuables were taken from them. At about 3 p. m. the
Germans broke into the Hospital Director’s office and shots were heard from there.
They shot the Director, Dr. Marian Piasecki, Prof. Zeyland and the Rev. Father
Kazimierz Ciecierski, Chaplain of the Hospital (who had been specially summoned to
the office).
Then the order was given for the Hospital to be evacuated. The staff and all the
patients who could walk were ordered to leave the premises. The procession was
dreadful: the doctors leading, then the assistants, then the patients, staggering along,
supported by those whom were stronger. Some had their arms in splints, others were
on crutches; all in their underlinen, often incomplete, moving on with almost super-
human effort. We were driven behind the railway subway to a shed or rather a factory
hall, called Moczydlo, where were already several hundred people; and there with
shouts and threats they divided us into groups. After some time four people were
called out, then twenty-five. At the entrance, they were ordered to give up their
watches. After a moment we heard shots. As there was no fighting near by we knew
that an execution was taking place near us; the well-known sound of machine - gun
fire was heard, and later single shots. There was no doubt that those who had been led
out had been shot. Being a priest, I told those present the fate that probably awaited
us and gave them absolution. After a moment the Germans called out 50 men. The
atmosphere of death had already spread in the hall; the men went reluctantly.

p.195
Then 70 men were called out and again shots were heard; then the last group; among
them the doctors, assistants and male nursing staff. To this group we also belonged,
that is to say myself and another priest, Antoni Branszweig (alumn). I succeeded at
the last moment in slipping away from the group which was coming out and hid
among some nuns. The party of doctors were led out to death before my eyes. I did
not see the execution itself, I only heard the volleys. I was told afterwards that the
executions took place inside and in the courtyards of burning houses, at several
places in Golrczewska Street. In the last group I saw Prof. Grzyblowski, Dr.
Drozdowski, Dr. Sokolowski, and Dr. Lemtpicki led out for execution.
“Next day, disguised as a nun, I was taken with the remainder of the women in the
direction of the Wola fortifications. During that march I escaped”.
“More than 200 people from Wola Hospital were then shot”.
“The crimlinale belonged to SS and Ukrainian detachments”.
Record No. 215: “On the night of August 5/6, 1944, the St. Lazarus Hospital was
taken. Owing to very intense artillery fire and air raids, the staff and the wounded
retired to the shelter. The Germans threw grenades and mines and poured petrol into
it and set it on fire. About 600 people were burnt. The whole hospital building was
also burnt down after they had first removed all the Germans, who had been given the
same care by the Poles as the Polish insurgents themselves”.
"When one of the nuns tried to intervene on behalf of the wounded, a German threw a
hand-grenade at her".
Record No. 189: "St. Lazarus' Hospital. On Aug. 6, 1944, the stronger patients and
the staff (200 persons altogether) were driven out of

p.196

the hospital. All were shot: among them 28 from the chief staff. Mrs. Dr. Barcz was
shot together with her husband (also a doctor). She was only wounded, and fell to the
ground, where she was found next day, together with some male nurses, and brought
to St. Stanislaus’ Hospital. Dr. Barcz was never found: probably he died. One of the
nurses who was saved, Mrs. Maciejewska, states that the severely wounded and the
old men were taken under her supervision to’ the shelter, but were murdered there
with hand-grenades when the hospital was captured. Not one of them was saved".

How the civilian population was murdered.

Record No. 95: "On August 5, 1944, I was sitting in the cellar of No. 4, Staszica Str.
with other inhabitants of the house, when suddenly the Germans broke in and drove
us out, at the same time grabbing the things we had with us. The women were
separated from the men and driven in the direction of Dzialdowska Str.
"I was led out with a group of men to the yard of No. 15, Staszica Street. Several
hundred men had been driven into this yard. The Germans began to fire machine guns
at the crowd. I had withdrawn to the rear, so that before the first rows had fallen, I
succeeded in lying down and concealing myself.
The shots did not reach me. After some time I crawled out from under a heap of
corpses. When, after some time, a German officer arrived, he did not give the order to
finish those who were still alive, but allowed us to join the people who were being
driven along the street. I thus got to Gorczewska Street and from there to Moczydlo.
When I was passing No 26, Staszica Street, I heard shots coming from the yard; an
execution was taking place".

p.197

Record No. 53: "I lived in the suburb of Wola, at No. 45, Gorczewska Street. On
August 2, 1944, SS-men ordered us to leave and go to the house opposite; our house
and the neighbouring ones were then burnt down. We got news on the 3rd that our
position was hopeless, and that we were going to be shot. Several hundreds of people
were gathered in the house. At 11 a. m. on August 4 the Germans surrounded the
house, and ordered us to get out; dreadful cries from the women and children were
heard. Some shots were fired at the entrance, and many people were killed or
wounded. We were driven out into the potato field and ordered to lie down in the
furrows. They guarded us closely, so that there was no chance of escape. After some
minutes we were ordered to get up. Then they led us under a bridge quite near. There
was no doubt about our fate. A woman asked where they were taking us. The answer
was: "German women and children are dying owing to you, so you must also die".
They regrouped us, separating a group of 70 people, who were sent over the bridge
towards a hill. They placed the others (among whom I was) near a wall, amid barbed
wire. In different places near us shots were heard: victims of the German persecutors
were being executed. We were herded together. I stood on the outskirts of our group,
while at a distance of about 5 metres (16 or 17 ft.) from us one of our tormentors
quietly made ready to fire a machine-gun, and another took photographs of us, as
they wanted to keep a record of the execution. Several were watching us. A volley of
shots rang out, followed by cries and groans. I fell wounded and lost consciousness.
After a certain time I recovered my senses. I heard them finishing off the wounded I
did not move, pretending to be dead. They left one German to keep watch. The
murderers set the neighbouring houses, large and small, on fire. The heat scorched
me, the smoke choked me, and my dress began to burn, I tried cautiously to put out
the flames

p.198

I was hidden by a potato basket, and when the German sentinel was looking in
another direction I pushed the basket in front of me and crawled along for a few yards
behind it. Suddenly the wind blew a cloud of smoke in our direction so that the
sentinel could not see me. I jumped to my feet and ran into the cellar of a burning
house. There I found several people slightly wounded who had succeeded in getting
out from under a heap of corpses. We set to work to dig an under-ground passage, a
difficult task amid fire and smoke. At last, after several hours of superhuman effort,
the passage was finished and brought us out in the courtyard of a neighbouring house,
not yet on fire.
This was about half past twelve at night. Someone led us out to the fields, away from
the fighting and burning. I could hardly keep on my feet. I am still in hospital. The
number of persons shot in my presence may be estimated at about 500, only 3 or 4
having been saved. The murderers were SSmen".
[The Polish text shows that the author is a woman, this cannot be shown in the
English translation save by the one word "dress". Note by the translator]
Record No. 73: "On August 5, 1944, between 12 and 2 p. m., I saw from a window on
the first floor of Wola Hospital Germans dragging women out of the cellars of No.
28, Plocka Str. They shot them in the courtyard with machine-guns. Almost at the
same time, I saw in the courtyard of No. 30, Plocka Str. the hands of more then 20
people raised and visible over the fence (the people themselves could not be seen).
After a volley of shots these hands fell down: this was another of the executions in
Wola".
Record No. 57: "I lived in the Wola district at No. 8, Elekcyjna Street. At 10 a. m. on
Aug. 5, 1944 a detachment of SS-men and Vlassov’s

p.199

men entered. They drove us from the cellars and brought us near the Sowinski Park at
Ulrychow.
They shot at us when we passed. My wife was killed on the spot: our child was
wounded and cried for his mother. Soon a Ukrainian approached and killed my two-
year-old child like a dog; then he approached me together with some Germans and
stood on my chest to see whether I was alive or not. I shammed dead, lest I should be
killed too. One of the murderers took my watch; I heard him reloading his gun. I
thought he would finish me off, but he went on further, thinking I was dead. I lay
thus from 10 a. m. until 9 p. m. pretending to be dead, and witnessing further
atrocities. During that time I saw further groups being driven out and shot near the
place where I lay. The huge heap of corpses grew still bigger. Those who gave any
sign of life were shot. I was buried under other corpses and nearly suffocated. The
executions lasted until 5 p. m. At 9 p. m. a group of Poles came to take the corpses
away. I gave them a sign that I was alive. They helped me to get up and I regained
sufficient strength to carry with them the body of my wife and child to the Sowinski
Park, where they took all the dead. After this sad duty had been performed they took
me to St. Laurence’s Church at Wola, where I remained till next day. I cannot state
the exact number of the victims, but I estimate that those among whom I lay
amounted to some 3,000 (three thousand). I met a friend in the church who had gone
through the same experience as I, having lost a boy of 8, who had been wounded and
died calling for his father. I am still in hospital and the image of death is constantly
before my eyes".
Record No. 63: "I lived at N’o. 18, Dzialdowska Street, Wola. The Insurgents had
built two barricades near our house, at the corner of Wolska and Gorczewska Streets,
with the help of the inhabitants, including even children. Machine-guns, ammunition
and
p.200

grenades were (placed in the neighbouring house. On August 1 at 3 p. m. heavy

fighting broke out in our district. The situation had been difficult from the beginning,
all the more because the Volksdeutsche, who were numerous here, shot covertly at the
Insurgents and betrayed their whereabouts to the Germans. Tiger tanks were brought
up, houses were broken into, and many people were killed; our house was hit several
times. The tanks attacked from Wolska and Gorczewska Streets. The Germans broke
in; they dragged the men out and ordered them to demolish the barricades. They then
began to set the houses on fire. I saw Nos. 35 and 8 in our street being set on fire;
bottles of petrol were thrown into the flats without warning, and so it was impossible
for the inhabitants to escape. I stayed in the cellar of No. 18 until August 5, when,
between 11 and 12 noon, the Germans ordered all of us to get out, and marched us to
Wlolska Street. This march was carried out in dreadful haste and panic. My husband
was absent, taking an active part in the rising, and I was alone with my three children,
aged 4, 6 and 12, and in the last month of pregnancy.
I delayed my departure, hoping they would allow me to remain, and left the cellar at
the very last moment. All the inhabitants of our house had already been escorted to
the "Ursus" works in Wolska Street at the corner of Skierniewicka Str., and I too was
ordered to go there. I went alone, accompanied only by my three children. It was
difficult to pass, the road being full of wire, cable, remains of barricades, corpses, and
rubble. Houses were burning on both sides of the street; I reached the "Ursus" work’s
with great difficulty. Shots, cries, supplications and groans could be heard from the
factory yard. We had no doubt that this was a place for mass executions. The people
who stood at the entrance were led, no, pushed in, not all at once but in groups of 20.
A boy of twelve, seeing the bodies of his parents and of his little brother through the
half-open entrance door, fell in a fit and began to shriek. The Germans and Vlassov‘s
men beat him and pushed him back,

p.201

while he was endeavouring to get inside. He called for his father and his mother. We
all knew what awaited us here; there was no possibility of escape or of buying one’s
life; there was a crowd of Germans, Ukrainians (Vlassov‘s men), and cars. I came last
and kept in the background, continuing to let the others pass, in the hope that they
would not kill a pregnant woman, but I was driven in with the last lot. In the yard I
saw heaps of corpses 3 feet high, in several places. The whole right and left side of
the big yard (the first yard) was strewn with bodies." (A sketch of the yard was made
by the deponent). "We were led through the second. There were about 20 people in
our group, mostly children of 10 to 12. There were children without parents, and also
a paralysed old woman whose son-in-law had been carrying her all the time on his
back. At her side was her daughter with two children of 4 and 7. They were all killed.
The old woman was literally killed on her son-in-law’s back, and he along with her.
We were called out in groups of four and led to the end of the second yard to a pile of
bodies. When the four reached this point, the Germans shot them through the backs
of their heads with revolvers. The victims fell on the heap, and others came. Seeing
what was to be their fate, some attempted to escape; they cried, begged, and prayed
for mercy. I was in the last group of four. I begged the Vlassov’s men around me to
save me and the children, and they asked if I had anything with which to buy my life.
I had a large amount of gold with me and gave it them. They took it all and wanted to
lead me away, but the German supervising the execution would not allow them to do
so, and when I begged him to let me go he pushed me off, shouting "Quicker!" I fell
when he pushed me. He also hit and pushed my elder boy, shouting "hurry up, you
Polish bandit". Thus I came to the place of execution, in the last group of four, with
my three children. I held my two younger children by one hand, and my elder boy by
the other. The children were crying and praying.
The elder boy, seeing the mass of

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bodies, cried out: "they are going to kill, us" and called for his father. The first shot
hit him, the second me; the next two killed the two younger children. I fell on my
right side. The shot was not fatal. The bullet penetrated the back of my head from the
right side and went out through my cheek. I spat out several teeth; I felt the left side
of my body growing numb, but I was still conscious and saw everything that was
going on around me. I witnessed other executions, lying there among the dead.
More groups of men were led in. I heard cries, supplications, moaning, and shots. The
bodies of these men fell on me. I was covered by four bodies. Then I again saw a
group of women and children; thus it went on with group after group until late in the
evening. It was already quite, quite dark when the executions stopped. In the intervals
between the shootings the murderers walked on the corpses, kicked them, and turned
them over, finishing off those who still gave any sign of life, and stealing valuables.
(They took a watch from my wrist, but I did not give any sign of life). They did not
touch the bodies with their bare hands, but put rags round them. During these
dreadful doings they sang and drank vodka. Near me, there lay a big, tall man of
middle age in a brown leather coat. He was alive, I heard his death-rattle; they fired 5
shots at him before they killed him. During this shooting some shots wounded my
feet. I lay quite numb for a long time in a pool of blood, the dead weighing on me. I
was, however, conscious all the time and fully realized what was happening to me.
Towards evening I succeeded in pushing away the corpses which lay over me. It is
impossible to imagine how much blood there was all round. Next day the executions
ceased. The Germans broke in 2 or 3 times during the day. Now they had dogs with
them. They walked and jumped on the corpses to see if any of the supposed dead
were still alive. On the third day I felt the child move in my womb. The thought that I
dare not kill this child made me look round to examine the situation and the
possibilities of escape. Several times, when I tried to

p.203

get up, I became sick and dizzy. At last I succeeded in crawling on all fours over the
bodies of the dead towards the wall and looked round for a way of escape. I saw that
the passage through the first yard which was there when we were being led to death
was now blocked by a pile of corpses. German voices were heard from the street; I
had to look for another way. I crawled into the third yard and found a hiding-place
there in a hall where I got through an open window with the help of a ladder. I hid
here, fearing the Germans might come to control the place, and spent the whole night
here. That night was dreadful. A Tiger tank stood in the street firing continuously, and
planes did not cease bombing. All the walls shook. I feared the factory with all the
dead would take fire any moment. In the morning all was quiet. I climbed up to look
through the window to see if there were any living people about and saw a woman".
(As stated later it was another victim who had escaped death by some miracle. She
also was an inhabitant of our house.) "Then a man about 60 years old came crawling
through the yard; he had also escaped death, but had lost one eye. They had both
spent these two days in some hiding-place. We began to search the whole yard for
some way out.
After a long search and many attempts to get free, we at last found a hole on
Skierniewicka Street and made our way out through it. The man, however, hearing
the voices of Ukrainians did not follow us. They were standing alt the corner of
Wolska Street and did not see us. We went through the debris and rubble into the
middle of the street. Then they saw us and surrounded us, though we begged them to
allow us to get to a hospital, as we were wounded, which was obvious. We were
soaked in blood. We were driven in the direction of Wola in a group with other
passers-by, picking up still more on the way. At a certain spot the younger and older
people in the group were separated.
Young men and women were put on one side and then marched towards a house of
execution. This was past Plocka Street in the direction of St. Stanislaus’

p.204

Church. The remaining group (including myself and my companion) were driven to
St. Stanislaus’ Church. I saw heaps of corpses on the road and parts of bodies, and
Poles carrying the bodies away under escort. German officers standing in front of the
church laughed at us, and kicked and beat us.
The church was overcrowded. People were being taken in and out. I was then so
exhausted that they laid me with the other sick persons before the High Altar. There
was no help. I only got a drop of water. After two days I was taken on a peasant’s cart
with the other sick and wounded to Pruszków, and from there to Komorow, and then
still further to Podkowa Lesna. It was only there - on August 11 - that I got medical
attention and help. On August 20 I gave birth to a little boy. I suppose I have lost, not
only my three children, but also my husband, for he told me that he was going to stay
in Warsaw to the end. I have no hope that he is still alive after all the dreadful things
that happened.
"The Germans were setting houses on fire; throwing people out; hunting and beating
them. In the yard of the "Ursus" works people were shot by Vlassov’s men under the
command of a German; they say he was from the SS. As far as I can judge, there
must have been 5-7 thousand dead in the yard of this factory. About 200 people were
driven there from our block alone, which had over 40 flats (with about 4 people in
each), and all were killed".
Record No. 58: "When I was endeavouring to get outside the town from Wola, I
passed through Gorczewska Street. This was on August 7,1944. When we passed No.
9, Gorczewska Street (a house which belonged to nuns), we were called into the
house and ordered to carry out and bury the corpses which were there. The courtyard
was a dreadful sight. It was an execution place. Heaps of corpses were lying there; I
think they must have been

p.205

collecting there for some days, for some were already swollen and others quite
freshly killed. There were bodies of men, women and children, all shot through the
backs of their heads. It is difficult to state exactly how many there were. There must
have been several layers carelessly heaped up. The men were ordered to carry away
the bodies - we women to bury them. We put them in anti-tank trenches and then
filled these up. In this way we filled up a number of such trenches in Gorczewska
Street. I took the impression that during the first days of the Rising everybody was
killed. Later on women and children were sometimes left alive, but the killing of men
still went on. I watched all this until August 7, when I succeeded some-how in getting
away out of this hell, having been saved by a miracle".
Record No. 59: "On August 5, 1944, at Warsaw at about 4 or 5 p. m., the houses Nos.
105,107, 109, Wolska Street immediately behind the railway bridge, the so-called
Hankiewicz-houses, were suddenly surrounded from all sides by Germans, who
threw hand-grenades and set then on fire by means of some white powder, which they
carried in bags. There were many inhabitants there and lots of people had come here
from town. No order to leave the houses was given. After the Germans had
surrounded them no one left them: everyone was burnt alive or else killed by hand-
grenades. No one could escape. Only those were saved who had left the houses at
some earlier hour. It was said that the Germans burnt all the houses in which
insurgents had stayed. In the Hankiewicz houses some 2,000 people or perhaps even
more found their death".
Record No. 60: "On August 7, 1944, about 9 p, m., at No. 15, Gorczewska Street, the
three and four-storeyed Wawelberg blocks were

p.206

surrounded by Germans (SS-men). They threw hand-grenades inside, surrounded the

houses with machine-guns, and set them on fire from all sides. Any persons who tried
to get out were killed.
People in flames ran to the windows. Nobody could escape from the fire; they were
all burnt alive. It was a miracle if someone escaped. I know of one woman who
jumped from the second storey and thus succeeded in saving her life. The front
entrance was full of the bodies of those who had tried to escape from the flames. I
saw among them women with babies at the breast. The houses were completely
surrounded, and I suppose there must have been about 2,000 people living in them.
No one came out alive unless by miracle, as in the case of the woman I have
mentioned above".

GERMAN CRIMES COMMITTED DURING THE WARSAW RISING

PART II

Evacuation of the inhabitants.

Record No. 1: (Editors’ note : Evacuatsion from Elektoralna Street, August 7, 1944,
through the Wola suburb. Fragment concerning Wola).
Walking through Elektoralna Street was difficult, as it was strewn with debris, and
pieces of burning wood. From Chlodna Street onwards we were awe-struck by the
incredible destruction. To the right every house had been burnt; to, the left they were
burning like gigantic torches. It sometimes seemed as though it was one great wall of
fire. Our personal experiences, driven as we were like cattle, haunted by fear, facing
endless danger from the continuous shooting among the ruins, and the huge fires -
took on terrible unearthly dimensions. The Germans did not for a moment give a
thought to the marching columns of defenceless people. They did not stop the fight.
Sometimes, when it was too difficult to proceed, we stopped

p.207

and then the Germans approached and robbed us of our valuables. I lost my watch in
this way. The officers and soldiers selected from among us people whose looks they
did not like, and proceeded to make a thorough search in the most brutal way, very
often kicking and abusing us. At some places they stood in rows on both sides -
Germans to right of us, Germans to left of us - abusing us and calling us thieves and
bandits.
“The procession, marching slowly from St. Charles Borromeo’s Church to Zelazna
Street, suffered terrible maltreatment and even torture. I dragged myself through
these streets helping to carry bundles and bags. For a time I carried a little girl, Basia,
two years old, in my arms. The child had lost both father and mother. The attitude of
the women was deeply touching. Grave and obstinate, only paying attention to their
children and bundles, they marched on like soldiers, taking care not to expose the
little ones to danger. During the whole time, that is, until we reached Zelazna Street,
where the women were separated from us, I heard not a single complaint, no bitter
weeping, no begging for help. The women were bent under the weight of their
bundles and travelling bags, and some also carried babies or small children in their
arms. There were moments when the heat from the burning houses made our progress
quite impossible. The wind blew up clouds of biting smoke which hid everything.
Suddenly when we were at a very difficult point and in immediate danger of fire and
shots, an air raid began. Panic and chaos spread among the raging Germans, and there
was an awful tumult, everyone being in fear of immediate death”.
“We left behind us in the streets all the sick, aged and crippled. I repeatedly saw
trembling old women, decrepit old men and sick people, quite stony in their
indifference and exhaustion, who, being literally pushed out of our ranks, remained
sitting on the heaps of stone and rubble. No one heeded them. The sight of these
people, amid all the unspeakable horrors,

p.208

remains in my memory as a picture of the uttermost misery”.

“I also saw in several places in Zelazna Street corpses of murdered people, lying in
the streets. They could not have been victims of bombing or of stray shots, for they
lay in groups”.
“In Zelazna Street the women and the children were separated from the men. The
women took nearly all the baggage with them. It was a most painful sight, firstly
because of the terrible exhaustion of the women who, notwithstanding, undertook to
carry the baggage, and secondly because of their uncertainty about the fate of their
dearest ones, fathers, husbands, brothers, or sons”.
“The Germans pushed us (the men) to the right side of Chlodna Street and led us
through Woska Street under the walls of burnt houses, treating us all as if we were
murderers, bandits and incendiaries. They ordered us first of all to keep our hands up.
Every moment, Germans with guns at the ready jumped at us, ,with insults, blows
and shouts, without any reason whatsoever. The most dreadful thing was that we
expected to be shot at any moment. Machine guns were aimed at us every few
minutes to make us hurry or when we were ordered to reform the procession. When
we saw before us the barrels of guns, revolvers or machine-guns, we hesitated, turned
our backs on the soldiers, and huddled closer to the walls as if death could thus be
avoided. We were close to it. There were so many moments of immediate danger
during our march that I do not even remember passing many parts of Wolska Street to
St. Stanislaus Church”.
“From Zelazna Street onwards the Germans began to rob us completely, as a rule
when we had stopped, or were near barricades. They took everything from us. Not to
speak of my watch, I lost all the small objects I had in my pockets, including my
scissors, electric torch and even a box of matches. I saw the Germans taking purses
and money from the group nearest to me, and as for documents and papers, they
ostentatiously threw them away in the street. Persons who spe-

p.209

cially displeased the Germans were ordered to hold up their hands very high; they
were forced to throw away even the smallest baggage. The Germans snatched off sur
hat’s or caps”.
“I tried several times to get in touch with the furious Germans in order to know what
fate was awaiting us. I also tried a few times to save my things, but I do not
remember any other answer but "Waaa?" "Looos" and so on. Inarticulate, animal
roars”.
“The attitude of our men was wonderful. A uniform, massive group, like one body,
flowing like a stream of lava through the street, in stony silence, stubborn, obstinate,
without any begging, any cries, or any manifestation of fear or anxiety”.
“Our group of several hundred men was pushed on to a spot situated between St.
Stanislaus’ Church and an unplastered house. It was, as we afterwards found, a police
station. Here the last robbery took place. We were forced to drop everything we had
in our hands. Before my eyes they tore a coat from the shoulders of an old man; and
the two soldiers busy at this task casually remarked "So and so, he won’t need this
any more". A heap of suit-cases, bundles, and things of all sorts lay near the place
into which they pushed us”.
“They drove us through the entrance door and up to the first floor. It was probably an
unfinished Polish school-building”.
“I found myself with about 100 men in an empty room about 5 metres (16 feet)
square. It was somewhere about 3 p. m. My companions in misfortune proudly
displayed the small objects they had succeeded in keeping. Somebody drew a watch
from his boot, another had succeeded in hiding his penknife. An old man pulled out a
piece of bread from his breast pocket. We divided this into tiny pieces, and these
again into crumbs and shared them among us. When I got a bit, I shared it with my
nearest companions and felt strangely touched. It was a sort of collective
Communion, and the association and feeling were so strong that we all felt it the
same”.

p.210

“We suffered very much from lack of water. Someone found a fire-bucket in the
passage, but it was empty; the water had probably been already drunk”.
“We were forbidden to leave the room. Every few minutes new groups were brought
in. We saw that in the adjoining rooms, in the passage and on the staircase, still more
people were packed”.
“We were still very strongly under the impression of the experiences we had
undergone and full of fear as to our fate. When they drove us to this empty room we
were sure that our end had come; that they would barricade the house and throw
hand-grenades into it, or shoot us all and then set fire to the building”.
“Our depression increased as every few minutes a drunken gendarme came to us and
made such speeches as: "You are all Communists; you will be all shot to-morrow".
After having threatened and insulted us, cursed us, and called us names, such as
"revolutionaries" or "insurgents", he would leave the room. This man terrified us
absolutely. He would then stagger down the stairs, but we had had hardly time to
breathe when up he climbed again and began the same sort of talk”.
“One of the gendarmes at last allowed us to bring in some water. Evening came.
Houses were burning in our neighbourhood. The heat of the fire and the smoke
reached our room, making it hardly possible to breathe. The sound of explosions and
shots coming from the town and the monstrous red glow of the flames completed the
horror of our situation. We spent the night lying down one on top of another. Some
slept”.
“In the morning of August 8 they drove us out of the house again like cattle, with our
hands up. We learned after some time that they were taking us to the Western Station
and were going to send us from there to the Reich to work”.

p.211

Living barricades of Poles.

Record No. 117: “On August 7, at 9 p. m., they hunted us out of the Ministry of
Commerce and Industry building, No. 2, Elektoralna Street. There were several
hundreds of us, driven here from various burning houses. They drove us through the
cellars of the Ministry. In the passage, a German dragged me aside and
tried to violate me, but after a moment he chose a new victim from another group.
Wanting to get rid of me, he took out his revolver and aimed it at my forehead. At this
moment someone else passed, and he ran after that person, shooting. I took advantage
of this and ran up to the Ministry of Finance, and then through the burning streets to
No. 5, Solna Street, where they kept us the whole night until 11 the next morning.
They then robbed us of all our watches and valuables, and drove us on through
Mirowski Square and Elektoralna Street towards the suburb of Wola. In the Square I
saw huge bomb-craters, and also burning corpses. The streets all round were on fire.
At the intersection of Chloldna and Wolska Streets, and Towarowa Street, and
Kercelli Place we stopped. From Kercelli Place the Insurgents were firing towards
Towarowa Street. The Germans who were going into the fighting stopped us and
made of us a living barricade, under threats of being shot, they ordering us to
lie down across the street from one side to the other. With our backs turned to the
Insurgents, we knelt or crouched and the Germans placed themselves on the ground
behind us, or knelt on one knee, firing over our heads towards Kercelli Place. There
were 23 of us including (two children), mostly young women. It is difficult to
describe what we felt during the two hours the fighting lasted. We were all prepared
to die and said the Rosary aloud. Bullets whistled over our heads, or past our
ears. The noise of the German guns nearly deafened us. As

p.212

if by some miracle, the bullets only hit the Germans. When the first German fell we
were paralysed with fear. My mother told me: "If I am shot remember not to shed one
tear; do not complain, preserve the dignity of a Polish woman Show no weakness in
their presence". Only the children wept bitterly and were greatly afraid”.
“The Germans were bewildered by the fact that only they were falling. They ordered
the men to drag the bodies aside. We thought they would take their revenge on us.
Stupefied and astonished they looked towards the Insurgent posts, and then at our
quiet, resigned attitude; and the children clinging to their mothers”.
"At last, they let us go".
Record No. 247: “On August 7, 1944, by order of the SS people from the entire town
district were compelled to leave their houses, which were at once set on fire. We went
in crowds of several thousands, driven and pushed by SS-men. When anyone fell,
struck by a rifle-butt, those who wanted to help were struck likewise. We went
through Bednarska Street ‘and Krakowskie Przedmiescie, towards Trebacka Street.
On Marshal Square the men were separated from the women; people wept and
despaired. In the Saxon Garden shots were heard from the Market Place. The
insurgents were firing. The SS-men began to make living barricades of us. They
ordered us to lie down, beat and pushed us. Soon a rampart of living bodies was
formed. People wept and cursed, but the SS-men began to fire from behind it”.
“The firing stopped. We went forward again under an escort of SS-men. The
Ukrainians robbed us of our watches and valuables, and tore our paper money into
pieces. On the Zelazna Brama Place we saw near the Market Hall a pile of
suit-cases and trunks. Whoever had a good suit-case had to

p.213

give it up, and it was added to the heap. We saw motor-trucks coming to take away
our belongings”.
“We continued our march. A car stopped and some SS-officers got out. They looked
attentively at the passers-by, took from our ranks three pretty young girls, the two
sisters R. and an unknown girl, and drove off. The girls cried and tried to escape from
their caresses. An old woman fell. An SSofficer shot her through the back of the head.
Again curses were heard; the spirit of revolt and thirst for revenge surged in the
hearts of thousands of people”.
“In the church at Wola they stole our remaining belongings. All young girls were
detained, even those of not more than 12 or 13. We older women were taken on with
the children in the direction of the Western Station and then by train to Pruszkow,
where they shut us up in a huge, dark, damp factory hall ankle-deep in mud. Moaning
was heard in the darkness; a woman gave birth to a child without any help, and
without a drop of water. A woman-doctor was among us, but what could she do
without instruments, water, or light. She had only matches. The child was born dead”.
“At the other end of the hall an old woman lay dying. Several people recited prayers
for the dying, while others sat listlessly, absolutely broken, and others again thought
of how to escape”.
“At daybreak they let us out of the hall. We went on. There were several thousands of
us, men, women and children. The SS-men fired over our heads. They took us to the
station. We started hungry and thirsty, on our journey to an unknown destination. At
wayside stations Polish people gave us coffee, bread and tomatoes”.
Record No. 71: “When I was wounded and in hospital, about the middle of August (I
do not remember the exact date), a group of 20 or 30 men and women were driven in.
They were dreadfully burnt”.

p.214
“They had been evacuated from the shelters under some houses in Wolska Street.
When they had been in the streets, Vlassov’s men threw inflammable liquid over
them and drove them among the burning houses. Their clothes at once caught fire,
especially the women’s light dresses, and several of them could go no further. The
others struggled on terribly burnt. As they could not walk any further, they were taken
to, the hospital. Their sufferings were awful; the eyes of some were burnt out, faces
were burnt, others had open wounds on the whole body. Only one-third of these
victims survived; the others died after inhuman suffering”.

Burning Corpses.

Record No. 506: “I was taken from Dlugosz Street (as a civilian) at 6 a. m. on August
6, 1944, and led to Sokolowska Street to the so-called Arbeitskommando head-
quarters. Next day I volunteered for work with 50 other thinking that in this way I
should be better off. We were sent to a house opposite St. Adalbert’s Church in
Wolska Street, where about six hundred bodies of men, women and children were
lying in heaps. Near by were a few dozen more, which we added to the heap. Then
we went to No. 60, Wolska Street, where, on both sides of the courtyard lay the
bodies of more than 100 men, as far was we could judge, victims of a mass execution.
In the garden of this same house we found in a thicket the bodies of more than a
dozen women, children, and babies, shot through the back of the bead. We carried out
from the house at the corner ,of Plocka and Wolska Street (a large yellow house)
several dozens of bodies of men, women and children, partly burnt, who had been
shot through the back of the head. From a house in

p.215

Plocka Street, between Wolska and Gorczewska Streets, we carried out about 100
bodies. In one of the houses we found the half-burnt body of a man holding two
children in the arms. When we returned to No. 60, Wolska Street, we made a wooden
platform on which we laid the dead; and then we cleared the ground of all traces of
the German crimes, such as documents, clothes, or linen, which we placed on the pile
of dead, sprinkled with petrol, and set alight. While we were thus burning the bodies,
a drunken SD officer arrived in a car. He picked out three men of about 20 or 30 from
a group of refugees passing by. He shot them through the back of the head in the
course of a "friendly" conversation. After having murdered the first man he ordered
us to throw him on the burning pyre before the eyes of the remaining two”.
“On Aug. 8, 1944, they led us to the yard of the "Ursus" works in Wolska Street. The
whole courtyard, about 50 metres (55 yards) square was strewn with dead bodies so
thickly that it was impossible to pass without treading on them. Half of them were of
women with children, often with infants. All the bodies bore traces of robbery. Their
position showed that they had each been murdered separately and in an especially
bestial way. The number of bodies burnt there amounted, as far as I could estimate, to
more than six hundred. Their clothes and suit-cases showed them to be refugees.
When we were transporting bodies from neighbouring houses I found a great number
of corpses in a flooded cellar in a house at the corner of Skierniewicka Street. We
could not get out more than a few dozen of them, as the water was too high. I suppose
they had been thrown in here after having been murdered in the courtyard, where we
still found more than a dozen bodies. Then they took us to the "Franaszek" works in
Wolska Street, where we burnt in the same way as before about the same number of
bodies as in the "Ursus" works, mostly of women and children. On one of the
following days they took us to work in Sowinski Park, where again the bodies were

p.216

mostly those of women and children; I found even pregnant women. The position of
these bodies lying in a row seemed to be proof of a mass execution. We then burnt
more than a thousand on two pyres. They made us search the bodies and give fall
valuables to the SD-men. As to paper money, we were ordered to burn it, together
with all other evidence of the crime. We worked there one whole day. Next day they
took us to No. 24, Wolska Street (the “Wenecja” playground), where we brought
bodies from the sector ,of Wolska Street between Mlynarska and Karolkowa and
burnt over two hundred. On the same day we burnt about 200 corpses at No. 4,
Wolska Street. In a house at the corner of Wronia and Chlodna streets we burnt about
fifty bodies which were there lying half-burnt. I then saw a non-commissioned SD-
officer murder an old woman off about 80 who was passing along Chlodna Street,
and whose body we added to the burning pyre. In the Machlejd factory building we
threw bodies brought from neighbouring houses into the burning cellars. All next
day we worked on the burning of bodies in the grounds of St. Lazarus’s Hospital in
Wolska Street.
We found the bodies of the murdered patients and of the staff in the hospital wards in
beds, on the staircases, in the passages and in the cellars. From what I saw there, I
suppose that all the patients and the whole of the staff were murdered. In most cases
their bodies had been burnt in the cellars.
After having partly burnt the bodies in St. Lazarus’s Hospital, we also burnt many in
houses the addresses of which I do not remember. After returning to the hospital
grounds, we found there the bodies of forty newly murdered men. On one of the next
days we burnt about one hundred corpses in the sector of Mlynarska Street between
Wolska and Gorczewska Street; about one hundred also in the courtyard of the
Michler works and about the same number in Ptasia Street. Towards evening we
removed all traces of crime from the grounds of St. Lazarus’s Hospital. Then I fell ill
and ceased working on the burning of bodies”.

p.217

“From the reports of my companions in other working parties I conclude that this
work of wiping out all traces of mass murder lasted until the middle of September,
1944. The work was organised as follows. A gang for the burning of bodies contained
one hundred men, divided into two lots of fifty, strictly segregated from the
remainder of the Arbeitskommando. The work was done under the supervision of
fifteen SD-men under the command of an SD-officer. Part of the men prepared and
arranged the pyre, and the others brought the bodies from the neighbouring houses. I
was informed at this time that an order to stop the executions had been given on the
morning of Aug. 6, 1944. During this period (I cannot give the exact date) I saw the
bodies of about 20 priests. At various times I saw individual old men and priests
being murdered. For instance, in Zelazna Street an SD-man shot down two sick old
women”.
“After the pyres on the "Wenecja" play-ground had burnt out, the ashes were thrown
into the air-raid-protection trenches there. Our party of 50 men worked from Aug. 6
to 15 at the intersection of Chlodna and Wolska Streets. The second party worked in
the sector of Gorczewska Street with cross-roads where there is an intersection, but I
have no precise information about their work”.
“I cannot guarantee the accuracy of the dates I have given above, and the number of
burnt bodies is only approximate, but it must certainly have been not less but rather
more than I have said”.

Crimes at Marymont.

Record No. 189: “At the time of the Rising I was in my own house, No. 29, Maria
Kazimiera Street, Marymont. On Sep. 14, 1944, the bombing of Marymont greatly
increased, and at about

p.218

2 o’clock the adjoining houses began to burn. The Insurgents retreated from our part
of the city, and only the civilian population was left.
I, with my husband and my parents-in-law and other inhabitants of our house, about
30 of us altogether, were in the shelter in the garden. From there I saw German
soldiers and soldiers from the army of General Vlassov knocking at a house at the
back of ours - No. 2/4 Dembinski Street. When the door opened, the inhabitants
began to file out slowly (men, women and children); a German soldier, standing a
few steps from the front door, shot them through the back of the head. In this way
about a hundred people were killed. The rest were driven into the field. Shortly after
we heard shots coming from the direction in which they had been taken. (Among
them was one priest). From the owner of this house I learnt afterwards that in this
group the men had been separated from the women and all shot. Later I saw
Vlassov’s men rush into a school building at No. 21, Maria Kazimiera Street, and
order all those who were there (many people) to go out into the yard.
Meanwhile our house began to burn; we came out of our shelter and went into the
adjoining school, from the windows of which we saw further incidents. The Germans
ordered people who were in the school yard to go out into Maria Kazimiera Street,
where they were joined by others from No. 21.
Some refused to go and began to turn back; then the soldiers fired at them from all
sides, killing them all. Among those who had been previously driven from the school
was a woman with a child in a perambulator. She was killed with the others in Maria
Kazimiera Street. A few moments afterwards I saw a soldier come over to the
perambulator and shoot the child.
We stayed in this school till the next day. On Sep. 15, 1944, a tank drove up to it and
opened fire, destroying the upper floors. We, with the exception of my husband, who
went I do not know where, then returned to the shelter at No, 21. For

p.219

three consecutive nights I tried to find my husband. While looking for him I saw the
corpses of the people who had been killed in front of No. 2/4, Dembinski Street.
About a hundred lay in disorder: men, women and children. Among them I
recognised my brother-in-law, his son, and many acquaintances, former occupants of
Number 2/4, Dembinski Street”.
Record No. 17/11: “On Aug. 1, 1944, I went to Zoliborz to buy some food, but owing
to the outbreak of the Rising could not return to Praga where I lived. For several
weeks I stayed with casual acquaintances. On Aug. 2, I went to Marymont, where I
stayed at No. 29, Maria Kazimiera Street, which at that moment was in the hands of
the Insurgents. On September 14 the Germans began to put down the Rising in that
section in the following way: About 20 tanks came from the direction of Bielany and
opened fire on various houses. The Insurgents retreated from the territory of Zoliborz
without fighting.
Thus the tanks came without difficulty to No. 29, Maria Kazimiera Street. Several
SS-men rushed into the courtyard throwing hand grenades into the cellars and in this
way forced the frightened civilians to come out.
Then we all were told to leave. I was in the uniform of a railway worker. One of the
Germans pulled off my cap and beat me for no reason. We were ordered to cross the
street to a house which had previously been burnt. There were 32 of us in all,
including men, women, small children and even an infant 6 months old. Here we
were taken into a burnt-out flat, and ordered to kneel down with our hands up facing
our persecutors. A machine gun was placed before us.
The execution began at 2 p. m. Several series of shots were fired into our group. I got
a superficial wound in my skull. I fell; the corpses of two young men immediately
fell on me. While lying I still got shots in my left arm, hand, fingers and

p.220

feet. When the execution was over SS-men came back three times, killing the
wounded and throwing two grenades each time. Owing to this I got (pieces of
shrapnel in my fingers.
So I lay for four hours, till 6 p. m. Then a WH soldier came in, probably to loot the
place of execution, and seeing that I moved, helped me to free myself from the
corpses, comforting me and telling me not to be frightened any more. He also pulled
out two women who had been saved by a miracle, though their hands were shattered,
and two children who had been saved because their parents had protected them with
their own bodies. The soldier who had helped us put us under the care of a wounded
soldier, also from the WH, who conducted us to an evacuation point at Zoliborz (in
CIWF). Here I parted from my companions in misfortune”.

Executions in the Market Halls.

Record No. 23/II: “During the Rising, on leaving the house where I lived, No 30
Ogrodowa Street, I found myself in a shelter of the Ministry of Industry and
Commerce, No 2 Elektoralna Street. This was on August 7, 1944. In the shelter there
were several hundred people, mostly women and children. In the afternoon of this
day, after the Insurgents had retreated from Elektoralna Street, a German outpost was
set in front of the gateway of the Ministry. About 9 o’clock in the evening 2
gendarmes entered the shelter and ordered all the men to go out. The soldier who
stood on guard assured us that we were only going to work. We were led out three by
three (we were about 150 men) to Mirowski Square, among the buildings of the two
Market Halls. Here we were ordered to remove the corpses, scores of which were
lying on the ground, and after that, rubble from the gutters and the

p.221

roadway. There were about a hundred Poles on the square when we came, all busy
cleaning it up, and some hundreds of German gendarmes, who behaved very brutally:
beating the Poles, kicking them, and calling them Polnische Banditen. At a certain
moment they stopped our work and ordered those who were not Poles to step
forward. One man who had White-Russian documents did so, and was immediately
released. After an hour and a half’s work, the gendarmes ordered us to form threes.
I found myself in the second rank. We were all made to stand with our hands up. An
old man in the front rank, who could not hold his hands up any longer, was cruelly
struck in the face by a gendarme. After 10 minutes five rows of three were marched
off under the escort of five gendarmes armed with tommy guns to the Market Hall in
Chlodna Street. By chance I heard the names of two of the gendarmes who shouted to
each other, Lipinski and Walter. When we entered the building after passing two gates
I saw, almost in the centre of the Hall, a deep hole in which a fire was burning; it
must have been sprinkled with petrol because of the dense black smoke. We were put
under a wall on the left side of the entrance near a lavatory. We stood separately with
faces turned to the wall and hands up.
After a few minutes I heard a series of shots and I fell. Lying on the ground I heard
the moans and groans of people lying close to me and also more shots. When the
firing ceased I heard the gendarmes counting those who lay on the ground; they only
counted up to thirteen. Then they began to look for two more who were missing.
They found a father and son hiding in the adjoining lavatory.
They brought them out, and I heard the voice of the boy shouting "Long live Poland",
and then shots and moans. Some time later I heard the voices of approaching Poles;
cautiously I lifted my head and saw the gendarmes standing beside the hole filled
with fire and Poles carrying the corpses and
p.222

throwing them into it. Their work brought them nearer to me. I then crept into the
lavatory and concealed myself behind a partition which formed the roof of the
lavatory. Sitting there I heard firing near by and the shouts of Germans from the
direction of the hole. At a certain moment another Pole who had escaped from below
through the lavatory found himself beside me. He was doctor Jerzy Łakota, who
worked in the Child Jesus Hospital.
We sat up there for many hours. The whole time we heard the crackling of the
burning corpses in the hole and of the fire itself. Besides, we heard series of shots
coming from the other side (nearer to Zimna Street). Dr. Łakota told me that after a
volley he had fallen along with the others. The gendarmes came over to see if he was
still alive, and beat him brutally; but he pretended to be dead. I might add that when I
fell after the volley, I saw a gendarme examining those lying on the ground; those
who were still alive he shot with his revolver. I had succeeded in escaping before this.
At about 2 o’clock in the night we descended and went out into the street through the
already empty Hall, in which the fire was still burning, and succeeded in getting to
Krochmalna Street”.
Record No. 33/II: “On August 7, 1944, I was in the cellar of a house in Elektoralna
Street in Warsaw. This day, at dusk, some German soldiers arrived on the premises
and ordered all men to get out of the cellar, and to dismantle the barricades within
two hours. I obeyed and went out of the cellar with about fifty other men. The
soldiers took us under escort to Zelazna Brama Square, and then to the place near
Mirowska Street which is opposite the small square between the two Market Halls.
On the pavement of Mirowska Street there lay about 20 dead.
We were ordered to carry these corpses from the pavement

p.223

of Mirowska Street to the little square between the Halls. With other men I carried the
corpses and noticed while doing so that all of then were of more or less middle-aged
men. After carrying these corpses we were ordered to remove the barricade which
was across the tram line from Zelazna Brama Square to Zelazna Street. Having
removed part of this barricade and thus enabled tanks to pass, we were brought in the
direction of Zelazna Street, where we were halted, and ordered to put up our hands.
We were asked several times if there were no Volks-or Reichsdeutsche among us.
Next we were searched; everything of value, such as rings, watches and cigarettes,
was taken from us. After being searched we were left standing on the same spot for
about an hour and a half. Not far from us were groups of soldiers, in all about 200
men; our prayers for release were answered by the soldiers with laughter and
derision. They spoke German, Russian land Ukrainian. One of them told us
repeatedly that we should be killed at any moment. Then (we were standing in rows
of three) the first three rows were driven into the Market Hall which is nearer to
Zelazna Street. Shortly afterwards I heard a series of shots. Then followed the next
three rows. I was in the second, or perhaps in the centre of the third. At the moment
when we were directly in front of the entrance, one of the soldiers who was escorting
us fired, and instantly my neighbour on the left fell to the ground before me, blocking
my way; I stumbled and fell, but got up immediately and rejoined my companions. I
did not notice what happened to the body over which I had stumbled. After rising,
when I reached my companions, who were then entering the hall by the second inside
gate, I saw a door leading to the right and immediately ran through it. I saw a hall,
entered it, and noticed stairs leading upwards. It was already dark, but the darkness
was lighted up by the reflection of the fires all round me. I thought my escape had
been

p.224

observed, as I heard a shout behind me, but no shots were fired. I ran to a gallery
where some of the wooden structure was burning and there I stayed. During that time
I heard separate shots from the interior of the hall. After some time, I looked down
from the gallery into the Hall and saw a big round hole, about 6-7 metres (22 feet)
across, in the floor of the Hall. In this hole a big fire was burning; its flames rose
several metres above the level of the floor. I also noticed that the soldiers were
leading a man to the edge of the hole. I saw this man making the sign of the Cross,
and then I heard a shot, and saw him fall into the fire. I might add that this shot was
fired in such a way that the soldier put his gun to the man’s neck and fired. Later I
saw many such scenes. I noticed that when the shot was fired the man did not fall at
once, but only after a few seconds. Having watched several murders of this kind I
could not look any more, but heard many more shots and moans, which grew weaker
and weaker, or even human howls. I supposed that they came from those who had
fallen into the fire and were still alive. From the number of shots I took the
impression that all those who had been brought with me from the cellar of No. 2,
Elektoralna Street were shot. I stayed up in the gallery for some time longer (at least
an hour), till the moment the shooting and voices stopped. Then, unnoticed, I ran
through the Small Ghetto in the direction of Grzybowska Street, and afterwards came
to Zlota Street, where I stayed for a month”.

Crimes at Praga.

Record No. 23111: “On Aug. 24, 1944, a gray-green car came to the corner of the
Jewish Cemetery at Praga from the direction of Nowe

p.225

Brodno, opposite Goledzinow. Four Gestapo men got out of it and began to dig a
hole. The car drove away leaving behind two of the Gestapo-men. After 10 minutes it
returned bringing our people, who were led to the recently dug grave and murdered
by revolver shots through the back of the head. Among them were a very tall priest, a
girl of about 12, a woman and a man dressed in black, who may have been a priest.
After they had been buried the car drove away, but in a short time returned with the
same number of people as before: three men and one woman, who met the same fate.
After they too had been buried in this grave the car drove away. This was at 1.30 p.m.
On Aug. 25 at the same hour the same car returned bringing four young men, who
dug their own grave. Then they were ordered to lie in the hole, and in this position
they were shot. This grave is about 400 metres (450 yards) from the first one.
On Aug. 26 - it was a Saturday - about 10 o’clock in the morning they again came
and dug a larger number of graves and this time ordered passers-by to help. At 12
o’clock they drove off, returning at three with four men who had to dig graves. Then
they went away, taking these men with them. There was no execution that day. On
Sunday, Aug. 27, a big dark-red lorry brought 15 people; they were led out in groups
of five. In the first group were three men and two women.
When they came to the graves I heard a cry and two men began to run away. One of
them was killed on the spot; the other succeeded in running about 50 metres (55
yards) when a revolver-bullet struck him; they were both thrown into the hole. The
rest of the people having heard their cries, did not want to get out of the car, but they
were driven out by force and shot immediately at the gate. While one party.

p.226

of Germans was burying the dead the other went away and brought about 13 more
people, who met the same fate. There were among them old men, women and young
boys. This day about 30 persons were shot.

Crimes in the centre of the city.

Record No. 8/11: “At the moment of the outbreak of the Rising I was at No. 62,
Marszalkowska Street. I tried to return home to No. 3, Staroscinska Street, and went
from one shelter to another in different houses in the vicinity of the Redeemer Square
(Plac Zbawiciela). This part of the city was then in Polish hands. On the evening of
Aug. 4 I found myself together with my brother-in-law in the Parish House of the
Church of the Redeemer, 37 Marszalkowska Street. On Aug. 5 some Gestapo-men
entered the court-yard of this house: before the house (in the street) they set up a
machine gun. They ordered all of us to leave. In the Parish House and in the cellars
were about 50 people - priests, church staff, inhabitants of adjoining houses, and
casual passers by. They were mostly elderly men and women.
There were no Insurgents among us. We all went into the court-yard. The Germans
drove us to the opposite side of Marszalkowska Street, where they separated the men
from the women and ordered us all to lie down on the pavement; men first, but some
of the women too. When we reached the spot, about 80 men and a large number of
women were already on the ground. Fighting was in progress.
The Insurgents were firing from Mokotowiska Street and August 6 Street. After 10
minutes a WH soldier came to me with a revolver and ordered me in Polish to "come
to work"; he

p.227
said the same to my brother-in-law and to another young man who was lying near us.
He ordered us to follow him in the direction of Litewska Street. Another Ukrainian
soldier with his gun at the ready walked behind us. At the corner of Litewska Street
they ordered us to cross Marszalkowska Street.
Here under the wall of S. Anc’s chemist‘s shop I saw about a dozen corpses lying.
They were all of men, and had machine- gun- shot wounds. The soldier told us to
throw them into the cellar. We began to do so through a window in M,arszalkowska
Street facing Oleander Street. When we had finished, we stopped, not knowing what
to do next. Then the Ukrainian ordered me to push in a corpse, which had not quite
fallen down into the cellar. When I approached the window I heard a shot behind me;
I turned and saw our third companion fall on the ground, and the Ukrainian standing
with his revolver pointed at my brother-in-law. I then jumped into the cellar, holding
the corpse of the murdered man, and fell on a heap of corpses lying under the
window.
I then heard many shots fired in the direction of the cellar and German and Ukrainian
voices. I thought that they were shooting at me. I hid under the window among the
corpses; there were about 30 of them. I lay there for several hours. At twilight I heard
steps approaching under the window and the sound as of running water. Some drops
fell on my head and I recognised the smell of petrol. After a moment I heard the
hissing sound of fire; the heap of corpses among-which I was began to burn. I
heard a Ukrainian say "Timov, I have started the fire".
Then I crept from the window to the centre of the cellar. By the light of the burning
fire I saw under the window in the direction of Oleander Street a pile of burnt human
bones, and ashes. I went into the adjoining smaller cellar. There, under the window
which looked on to Marszalkowska Street, I saw about 20 corpses of men only. I then

p.228

retreated to a cellar on one side of the court-yard. There, in the darkness, I saw a man,
Władysław Tymitiski. He told me that the Germans had taken him from No 19,
Marszalkowska Street, and had brought him to Anc’s shop from Oleander Street and
there ordered him to jump on to the burning staircase. When he did so they had fired
at him, but missed. This had happened one or two days before I found myself in the
cellar of the chemist’s shop. We spent the night in one of the cellars.
Next morning, Aug. 6, we met another man, Antoni Dudek, in the court-yard; he told
us that a Ukrainian had fired at him in Oleander Street in front of the chemist’s shop.
Dudek fell unconscious; after a while he felt the Ukrainian dragging him in the
direction of the chemist’s shop. When he moved the Ukrainian threw him through the
window into the burning cellar in Oleander Street. This was on August 2 or 3, 1934.
We three went together to the sixth floor. All the flats, with the exception of two,
were burnt out.
From these two we collected food, and then hid ourselves on the sixth floor. There we
met a fourth companion, Jan Latwinski. We stayed in this flat till Nov. 13, 1944. All
this time we heard sounds of the fighting which was going on, and of various
executions. Several times we heard voices of Poles shouting 'long live Poland', then
separate gun shots followed. One day we heard steps on the stairs and German
voices; after a while we saw fire coming out of a flat which had not yet been burnt.
After the Capitulation the house in which we were was twice mined by the Germans.
I saw mines being laid on the site of the chemist’s shop in Oleander Street; we then
hid ourselves under the staircase.
The explosion destroyed the ceilings of the lower floors of the house; but the upper
floors remained intact. We left this house on Nov. 13, 1944, creeping through the city
by night”.

p.229

Executions in the Opera-House.

Record No. 19/II: “On Aug. 9, 1944, at ten o’clock in the morning, about twenty SS-
men with revolvers rushed shouting into the courtyard of our house in Trebacka
Street and ordered all the people in the flats and cellars to go out into the yard. Our
street had been completely in German hands since the beginning of the Rising and
there had been no military activity in it whatever. The inhabitants had stayed quietly
in their flats or cellars. We came down men, women and children. In one of the flats a
paralysed old woman of about 70 named Ropelewska was left behind. Several SS-
men rushed into her flat after all the inhabitants had left and set fire to her mattress;
seeing this her son carried her into the yard. When we were in the yard SS-men
rushed into the flats and set them on fire one after the other. Then they took us into
the, next yard, at No. 2, Marshall Foch Street. As Mrs. Ropelewska could not walk
one of the armed SS-men shot her before our eyes.
At No. 2, Foch Street, the men were separated from the women. Then we went from
one house to another (Nos 2, 4, 5, 7, Foch Str.). We were brought through cellars and
court-yards into the Opera House; women and children into the cellars and men to the
first floor. Among the men were my father, 69, and my husband, a student, 26 years
old. What happened to the men I was told later by a schoolboy, Jerzy Szajkowski,
who had escaped death. The men were led upstairs to the first floor of the Opera
House, their Kennkarten were taken from them, and they were divided into groups: 1)
Those who had been working in German institutions, 2) foreigners, 3) the remainder.
Later this third group was brought out through the doors of the boxes and killed by
shots through the back of the head. The corpses

p.230

fell on the stage. Thus my father and husband were murdered. The number of people
killed then amounted to 500. The women, of whom there were several hundred, were
divided into groups: 1) above 60, 2) women with children, 3) the rest. I succeeded,
with 30 other women, in escaping from the last group. We came to the church at
Wola, from where we were taken to Pruszkow. I was recently in the ruins of the
Opera House. The remains of the burnt corpses are still lying there. They were
murdered on August 9. I saw bones, hair, teeth, and the remains of clothing, shoes
and documents. I think some women were also shot there, because there were also
remains of women’s dresses, and I fear that this was not the only execution there”.

GERMAN CRIMES AGAINST SOVIET PRISONERS-OF-WAR IN POLAND

p.261

One of the most shameful examples of German barbarity during the second world
war was the way in which they treated Soviet prisoners-of-war. Their cold-blooded
cruelty was the more repulsive as it was deliberately premeditated, and practised on
valiant soldiers who deserved the enemy's respect. The prisoners were kept in so-
called "Prisoners’ Camps" in the open air, on the bare ground in cold and rain,
without boots, overcoats, or blankets; they were starved, inhumanly treated, beaten
and murdered for the slightest disobedience, or for falling out on the march. The aim
was undoubtedly the wholesale murder of the prisoners-of-war. But not of them
alone. Male civilians caught by Germans trying to retreat with the Soviet Army to the
East, and boys and men from the age of 16 to 60 who were caught on occupied
territory, were treated in the same way as the prisoners-of-war, especially in the first
stage of the war.
This behaviour of the Germans cannot be put down exclusively to the impulse of
hatred expressed by Hitler in his speech of October 3, 1941, where he referred to
Soviet soldiers as "beasts and animals", but was clearly due to instructions issued by
the German High Command.
The attitude of the Germans towards the Soviet prisoners-of-war, was clearly
revealed in the trials of persons accused of atrocities, lately held in White Russia,
Latvia and the Ukraine. For our part, we should like to add a small amount of first-
hand information regarding the treatment of prisoners-of-war in the early stages of
the Russian campaign, when German cruelty towards them probably reached its
climax.
Intoxicated with their initial successes, the Germans felt certain of victory, and
equally certain that they would never be brought to book.

p.262

As the war, however, went on and on, their attitude underwent a change, specially
noticeable after their defeat at Stalingrad, when the German High Command had to
count on the possibility of Soviet reprisals.
The evidence which we give here is based either on facts reported by eye-witnesses
from among the population, or else on German information, contained in the
instructions of the German High Command, and numerous letters written by German
soldiers.
During the occupation, Polish military organizations carried on intense intelligence
activity among the Germans. With the assistance of Poles working in the German
East Post Service (Deutsche Post Osten), soldiers, letters were systematically
intercepted and read, and revealed many interesting facts concerning - among other
things - the treatment of Soviet prisoners. Unfortunately, only a small part of this
material was saved, the greater part having been burnt during the Warsaw Rising in
1944. A large collection of photographs (about 700) from prisoners’ camps, showing
really blood-curdling scenes, was also totally destroyed. These snapshots were taken
by German soldiers on duty in camps and the prints came into Polish hands through
the photographers who developed them.
Still, even the extant material, fragmentary though it is, casts a glaring light ,on the
German attitude towards the Soviet prisoners-of-war. The German behaviour in these
camps, and their acts ‘of deliberate cruelty, were aimed clearly at getting rid of the
prisoners in a manner hardly conceivable by normally thinking individuals. First of
all the Soviet prisoners were so starved as not only to render them quite useless for
work, but actually, in many cases, to cause their deaths. Political hatred was in these
cases stronger than the immediate practical interests of the Reich, which needed
workers.
In the summer and autumn o f 1941 Warsaw saw thousands of Soviet prisoners-of-
war driven barefoot through the town,

p.263

wrapped in torn blankets, staggering with exhaustion. They were followed by trucks,
into which those who collapsed and could no longer walk were thrown like sacks.
The escort did not allow the public to assist these unfortunates in any way.
Here is an eye-witness’s report:
“On October 13, 1941, two parties o f prisoners were driven along the streets of the
Embankment. The prisoners, pale and bare-footed, knocked about and struck by the
German guards with the butt-ends of their rifles, were in a state of collapse from
hunger and exhaustion. Any Poles who attempted to throw them food and cigarettes
were fired on by the Germans”.

We quote below the instructions of the German High Command concerning the
treatment of prisoners, translated from the original German text:

"Instructions for guarding Soviet Prisoners-of-War." Original German text of the

Merkblatt ftit die Bewachung Sowietischet Kriegsgefangener.
Auszug aus OKW A-z 2f. 24. 11 AWA Kriegsgefangenen (I Nr. 3058/41 Geh.) Der
bolschewistische Soldat ist politisch geschult. Jeder Deutsche ist sein Todfeind! Dem
Bolschewisten ist jedes Kampfmittel recht: Heokenschützenkrieg, Sabotage,
Brandstiftung, Zersetzungs-Propaganda, Mord’! - Es ist damit zu rechnen, dass die
Kriegsgefangenen Anweisungen für ihre Betätigung in der Gefangenschaft erhalten
haben. Drei Gebote für die Wachmannschaften sind deshalb vor allem zu beachten:
Äusserste Wachsamkeit! Grösste Vorsicht! Schärfstes Misstrauen! In einzelnen gelten
folgende Anweisungen:
1. Jeder deutsche Soldat hat den sowietischen Kriegsgefangenen gegenüber
schärfsten Abstand zu halten! Jede Unterihaltung mist ihnen ist streng verboten! Nur
die unbedingt notwendigen dienstlichen Anweisungen dürfen gegeben werden!
Jeder Verkehr der Kriegsgefangenen mit Zivil ist zu. verhindern, notfalls, unter
Anwendung von Waffengewalt - auch gegen die Zivilpersonen! Es gilt unbedingtes
Rauchverbot auf Marschen zu und von den Arbeitsplätzen. sowie während der Arbeit.

p.264

2. Rücksichtsloses Durchgreifen - notfalls durch schonungslosen Gebrauch der Waffe

– bei den geringsten Anzeichen van Widersetzlichkeit oder Ungehorsam ist
notwendig. Nicht mit der Würde des deutschen Soldaten vereinbar und deshalb
verboten sind Willkürakte und Misshandlungen, Knüppel, Stöcke. Peitschen dürfen
van deutschen Soldaten nicht verwendet werden.
Weichheit auch gegen arbeitswillige und gehorsame Kriegagefangene wird als
Schwäche ausgelegt und ist nicht am Platze!
3. Arbeitseinsatz darf nur kolonnenmässig und nur an Arbeitsstellen erfolgen um die
ständige Aufsicht zu ermöglichen. Auf der Arbeitsstelle ist ununterbrochen scharfste
Aufsicht erforderlich! Immer in einer Entfernung halten, die sofortigen Gebrauch der
Waffe ermöglicht!
Nie einem Kriegsgefangenen den Rücken kehren!
4. Auf fliehende Kriegsgefangene ist sofort - ohne Anruf - zu schiessen mit der festen
Absicht zu treffen. Keine Schreckshüsse abgeben!
Niemals darf eine scheinbare Harmlosigkeit der bolschewistischen Kriegsgefangenen
dazu führen, dass von vorstehenden Anordnungen abgewichen wird!

Extract from the order OKW A-z 2 f 11 AWA (1 No.3058-a/41).

“The Bolshevik soldier has had a political training. Every German is his deadly
enemy. The Bolsheviks consider every method fair in war: hedge warfare, sabotage,
destructive propaganda, and murder. It must be remembered that the prisoners-of-war
have received instructions concerning their behaviour when in captivity. It is
therefore necessary for the guards to preserve, when dealing with them, the utmost
watchfulness, greatest care and sharpest mistrust.
The following instructions in particular are to be strictly observed:
1. Every German soldier will keep strictly aloof from the Soviet prisoners-of-War.
Any intercourse with them is strictly forbidden. Only quite indispensable official
instructions are to be communicated to them.
Any intercourse between the prisoners and the civil population must be prevented - if
necessary by armed force, directed if need be even against the civilians. Smoking is
forbidden on the way to work and back, and also during work hours.

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2. Ruthless reaction is indispensable - if necessary by the use of arms, at the smallest

sign of resistance or disobedience. Arbitrary ill-treatment is incompatible with the
dignity of the German soldier, and is therefore forbidden. German soldiers should not
make use of clubs, sticks or whips. Any leniency shown towards even industrious and
diligent prisoners-of-war is to be regarded as a sign of weakness and is therefore out
of place.
3. Work must be done only in detachments and only in places where continuous
supervision is possible. At such places ceaseless vigilance should be observed.
Always keep at such a distance as permits of the instantaneous use of arms.
Never turn your back upon a prisoner.
In no case can the apparent docility of the Bolshevik prisoners justify
neglect of the above instructions.
4. Fire at once, without warning, at any prisoner-of-war trying to escape and
take care to hit your mark. No firing in the air”.

These instructions were a direct and shameless transgression of all international legal
provisions. Moreover, the second sentence of Para 2, forbidding any arbitrary or
abusive treatment of the prisoners, was disregarded, as will be seen from the letters
quoted hereinafter, this being probably the real intention of the German High
Command.
This is how these instructions were carried out at the Prisoners-of-War Camp at
Chelm:

Letter from Sergeant (Obergefreiter) F. P. (Field Post)

06100 Bz, Chelm, October 6, 1941 t o Corporal (Gefreiter) F. P. 95150 “We have here
an enormous Prisoners’Camp. In Lagers 1 and 2 in the town alone there are 90,000 of
this gang. In Lager 3 there are 60,000 including all ranks, from non-commissioned
officers to chief commanders. Unfortunately, we are not allowed to write everything”.

F. P. 00102 A, Chelm October 14, 1941:

p.266.

"In the local Camp some 150,000 Bolshevists prisoners are laid up. Of course, we are
not petting them. If they have to stay here during the winter, half of them will die".

F. P. 37813 E Chelm, October 14, 1941, to F. P. 27884:

"Jewish prisoners are shot at once, but first they are made to dig holes for themselves.
Then they are tied together in fives and shot so that they fall into the ditch. There are
from 300 to 400 such executions daily".

The following report was given by a Pole who was allowed direct access to the
Prisoners’ Camp:
"At first there were some 150,000 prisoners in the camp. The conditions in which
they lived were dreadful.
The marl soil on which the camp stands turns after rain into thick mud, in which the
prisoners must sleep, without even a handful of straw. Food is worse than poor. The
prisoners are actually dying of hunger and eat grass, straw and odd bits from the
refuse heap. An epidemic of dysentery is spreading alarmingly among them. They are
black with dirt, and eaten up by lice. No medical attendance is available. Their
treatment is barbarous. The German guards torture them, beating them with the butt-
ends of their rifles or with whips, and stabbing them with bayonets. Persecution goes
on in broad day-light, before the eyes of the people living in the neighbourhood of the
camp. Naked prisoners are fastened to the fence surrounding the camp in such a way
that they have to stand on their toes. Their hands are tied behind their backs and
fastened to the fence. A string is passed round their necks under their chins and
fastened to the fence. A man cannot stand long in such a position; he gradually sinks
down, his arms turn round, and the string tightens round his neck and slowly
strangles him. Such scenes may be observed every day. Prisoners are dying at the rate
of 400-500 daily. Every day some 500, under pretext of delousing, are driven to a
special hut, where they are gassed. The bodies are then carried to the forest on carts
drawn by parties of prisoners dropping with fatigue. On each

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cart some 50 or 60 corpses are piled at random, with legs and arms sticking out. In
the forest the bodies are thrown like rubbish into a large hole, which when almost full
is covered with a thin layer of earth".

What happened in Chelm happened also in other camps.

St. Grabowski, F. P. 29322 writes on October 6, 1941 to F. P. 35185 A:
"The Russians perish before our eyes like cattle. We are just about to shoot 4,000
Russian hedge-riflemen (Heckenschützen) [snipers -ed.]. A mass grave is being dug.
We do not know yet how it will be done - with machine-guns or rifles".
A sergeant (name unknown) F. P. 06686 writes on October 12, 1941, from Biala
Podlaska to Berlin:
"I was at the Prisoners-of-War Camp on Sunday. I wanted to take snapshots, but my
nerves got the better of me. Too much misery and abomination. Almost every night
some 200 or 300 of them die".
And here is another fragment of a letter. The same F. P.6686 writes on October 12
from Biala Podlaska:
"Our comrades in the East are having a very hard time, but we are not much better
off, guarding the prisoners. They are always escaping, throwing themselves wildly in
the line of our machine-gun fire, or throwing stones at us. It is a dreadful nation. You
complain of air-raids, but its is better for our nation to suffer from hundreds of air-
raids, than to be overrun by these savages."
Two days later, on October 14, 1941, a soldier F. P. 05405 writes from Biala Podlaska
to Berlin- Neukölln:
"You cannot imagine what is going on here, Every day many train-loads of wounded
arrive. Every day also prisoners are unloaded, collapsing from hunger; among them
boys of 13 to 15. Yesterday, when unloading, we found eight dead bodies, and we
shot ten prisoners who tried to escape".
The facts referred to in German letters are confirmed by the reports of the local
inhabitants. One of these says:

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"On October 1, 1941, in the camp, which is in fact simply a vast field enclosed with
barbed wire, there were some 150,000 prisoners, military and civilian, among them
thousands of old men and boys of 13 to 15. Some 200 to 300 of them are dying daily
of hunger, cold and dysentery. The prisoners try now and then to escape. Crowds of
them, stones in hands, throw themselves against the barbed wire and the guards, who
try to restore order by using hand-grenades and machine-guns."
The Prisoners-of War Camp at Biala Podlaska was transferred to Deblin. On this
occasion some of the prisoners, including several under age, were murdered, as
appears from a letter written by an unknown German soldier, F.-P. 06686 on October
12, 1941, saying:
"The local Prisoners’ Camp is to be transferred to Deblin. Already some 5000-6000
prisoners are leaving daily. The Jews however, and the Heckenschüzen are segregated
and guarded by SS-men, who tell us that among these hardened criminals
(Schwerverbrecher) are many boys of 15."
Of course, the prisoners were fed and treated in just the same way at Deblin as
before, as is shown by the following report, dating from the end of October, 1941:
"A train-load of Soviet prisoners has arrived. The Germans first threw out the bodies
of those who had died on the way. On top of these corpses they then threw those who
were dying, and finished them off with hand-grenades. The remainder were taken to
the camp. Whoever was too weak to walk was killed with a blow from the butt-end of
a rifle, or shot. In the camp the hungry prisoners eat grass. The guards arrange
shooting matches just for fun, aiming at the prisoners. Many of the latter try to
escape, and those who are caught are shot".
A Polish witness reports as follows about the Prisoners’Camp at Blizin, near
Skarzysko:
“The camp consists of four huts, situated in the fields near the village, so that
everything that happens there can be

p.269

observed by the neighbours. Train-loads of prisoners which arrived here had taken
over a fortnight to reach the new camp, and were without food or water. Each wagon
when opened contained scores of dead bodies. The sick who could not move were
thrown out. They were ordered to sit down on the ground near the station and were
shot by SS-men before the eyes of the rest. The camp contains about 2,500 prisoners.
The average daily death-rate is about 50. The ,dead bodies are thrown out on to the
fields and sprinkled with lime, often lying some days after that unburied. The bodies
in the field were seen by the villagers, who stated that some of them had been shot
through the head. They were sick prisoners whom the SS-men had finished off. Such
cases occurred frequently, especially at the morning roll-call, when those who were
too weak to stand were shot. All this could be observed by the Polish population. The
prisoners received l/4 kg (1/2 lb.) of bread made of horse-chestnut flour and potato-
skins, and soup made of rotten cabbage. The prisoners were well aware that in any
case they must die, so every night they tried to take refuge in the neighbouring
forests, where they were shot by heavy machine-gun fire from the watch-towers, if
the guards succeeded in giving the alarm in time by signal rockets”.
A witness describes the conditions prevailing at the camp in Karolowka near Zamosc,
containing about 20,000 men:
"The prisoners live i n the open air. At the camp the hunger is so terrible that 2 km (a
mile and a half) away they can be heard groaning and shouting "Food". They eat
grass. Dozens die from starvation. The dead are thrown into a large ditch quite close
to the camp, and are sprinkled with lime. The ditch is constantly open.
Used as they are for the hardest labour, the prisoners collapse like flies and are shot
by the guards. The guards fire at those who attempt to give the prisoners food".
As winter approached, the situation of the prisoners grew more and more tragic. This
is well depicted in a letter written

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by a non-commissioned officer F. P. 16265 on December 12, 1941, to Elisabeth

Hedergott, Primanerallee 19, Berlin N. O. 55.
"Spotted typhus is raging in the Prisoners’ Camp. Out of the 6,000 prisoners
transferred to us in October only 2,500 are alive. Appalling misery. Medical staff -
one doctor and three assistants - also sick. Lack of people for carrying out the dead.
They are scattered everywhere among the sick, on the berths, on the ground, on the
threshold, in a word - on every available spot. Medicines are entirely lacking. Every
week cases of cannibalism are reported. Of late three dead bodies have been eaten".
The attitude of hatred towards the Soviet prisoners shown by the Germans on every
occasion, (by murdering them and by the cruelty with which they treated them)
appears also in the correspondence of the German soldiers.
The following fragment of a letter dated October 6, 1941, addressed by a corporal of
unknown name F. P. 38354D to private F. P. 19045, is typical:
"I have been ordered with my 38 companions to organise a Prisoners’ Camp. During
2 days 10,000 prisoners arrived. The huts are not yet complete. You cannot imagine
what is going on here. This gang is terribly exhausted and famished. Recently we got
another transport - these were indeed mad savages. One evening they tried to raid the
kitchen. They even attempted to burn the building. They did not succeed however,
and six of them were shot. When clearing the debris of the house they got a thrashing,
and in the evening when driven home another, so that they had to give up all further
excesses. Anyhow, they demolished one of the buildings. This is a nation of nothing
but criminals. You would hardly believe what is going on here. Anyone who is not
here on the spot would think us crazy, if we ever told what we were doing. We often
have to fire at the prisoners. It is a gang of utter savages, only to be mastered by
force.
What would become of our cities and o f our women if this horde ever
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succeeded in invading Germany? Fortunately, our Führer has foreseen everything and
will prevent this evil".
No wonder that in such conditions, where the prisoners faced inevitable and terrible
death, they constantly tried to escape. These attempts were welcomed by the Germans
as a pretext for large-scale massacres.
Thousands perished, but still a certain number managed to escape. Those who did so
hid in the forests and villages and worked for the Polish peasants on their farms. The
Poles sheltered and fed them. As a result of this, the Warsaw Governor Fischer issued
an order on September 27, 1941, holding whole rural communities collectively
responsible for the concealment of escaped prisoners. The penalty was death or
long-term imprisonment. An order issued by Governor-General Frank dated October
23, 1941, forbade any intercourse with the prisoners. Prison with hard labour was the
punishment inflicted on all those who helped prisoners to escape - by hiding them,
providing them with clothes and food, or giving them information. Upon
communities whose inhabitants disobeyed the above order the local Governor was
authorised to impose additional collective or individual fines, up to an unlimited
amount.
In spite of the above drastic measures, the Poles helped escaped prisoners, Soviet,
British, or French, as far as they could. Hundreds of Poles - men and women - lost
their lives in the common cause - the struggle for freedom.