Record of Witness Testimony 351

POLISH SOURCE INSTITUTE IN LUND Trelleborg, 13 June 1946

Testimony received by Institute Assistant Bożysław Kurowski, LL M transcribed

Here stands Ms Zofia Figlarz born on 19 May 1916 in Cracow , occupation shop assistant religion Roman Catholic , parents’ forenames Wiktoria and Wincenty last place of residence in Poland Cracow, ulica Wąska 12 [lit. ‘12 Wąska Street’] current place of residence Cracow, Łęg District, No. 25

who – having been cautioned as to the importance of truthful testimony as well as to the responsibility for, and consequences of, false testimony – hereby declares as follows: I was interned at the concentration camp in Auschwitz from 19 January 1942 to August 1944 as a political prisoner bearing the number 29675 and wearing a red -coloured triangle with the letter ‘P’. I was later interned in Ravensbrück for a six-month period, prisoner no. 183161. from Lastly, I spent the rest to of the war in Magdeburg at the Polte munitions factory. As the war was ending, I spent two weeks marching to Ravensbrück. After three days there, I left for Sweden on Red Cross buses in a group of 173 Polish women. I was arrested on 15 January 1942 during a large-scale round-up aboard a train on the Kazimierza Wielka–Jędrzejów line. Asked whether, with regard to my internment and my labour at the concentration camp, I possess any particular knowledge about how the camp was organized, how prisoners were treated, their living and working conditions, medical and pastoral care, the hygienic conditions in the camp, or any particular events concerning any aspect of camp life, I state as follows: The testimony consists of seven pages of handwriting and describes the following: 1. Montelupich Prison – Transport of 1,200 (one thousand two hundred) people to Auschwitz. 2. Auschwitz – Induction of transport on a frosty day (19 January 1942) – 800 women having their hair completely shorn off, beating and other forms of harassment – Working straight away without undergoing quarantine – Food once daily, in the evening after returning from work – Non-working prisoners having to stand outdoors all day long – Revier [infirmary, Ger.] Block 24: countless numbers of people dying – Raw grated potato three times a day as medicine for diarrhoea – Schwester Klara [Sister Klara, Ger.] – Induced miscarriages – Killing of babies – Vermin and large rats among the sick, gnawing at the ears and noses of the dying – Cruel delousings which claimed lives in the Revier and the rest of the camp and which were ineffective against the lice Cont’d overleaf

BLOM’S PRINTING, LUND 1945

Cont’d from page 1

– Dogs being set upon a Polish woman, mauling her to death, in punishment for wearing two dresses – Selections and crematorium pits in a wood 3. Evacuation of the camp in cattle wagons to Ravensbrück 4. Munitions factory in Magdeburg – Hanging of a Russian woman on charges of sabotage, and 4,500 (four thousand five hundred) prisoners marching past the hanged woman – Prisoners compelled to march in flight from the Allies – Men and women executed by shooting during the march – Air raid by the Allies and resulting death of approximately 400 men and women – Conclusion – Comments of the assistant receiving the testimony affirming the witness’s credibility [stamp] POLISH SOURCE INSTITUTE IN LUND [/stamp]

[stamp] Trelleborg, 13 June 1946 POLISH SOURCE INSTITUTE IN LUND [/stamp]

Eyewitness testimony of Zofia Figlarz, born on 19 May 1916 in Cracow, shop assistant by occupation Montelupich Prison and transport to Auschwitz I was only held at Montelupich Prison overnight. Once my personal information had been recorded and my money and valuables confiscated (with no receipt issued), I was taken to Auschwitz on a transport of 1,200 men and women. We travelled in sealed cattle wagons. It was the month of January and temperatures were well below freezing. Before we set out, however, word went round that they were taking us to work in Germany. The camp in Auschwitz Upon arriving at the station in Auschwitz, we immediately found ourselves within an SS cordon. I remember five frozen children being carried out of the wagons, as well as several women debilitated by the cold. We were taken to the baths, where we washed ourselves in cold water, having received neither soap nor towels. All the women – of whom there were approximately 800 in the transport – had their hair shorn off completely. When my hair grew back, it was shorn down to the scalp on two more occasions. We were given striped prison clothes and for our feet only wooden clogs, no stockings. While all this was going on, we were forbidden from looking around or saying even a word, and almost every woman was beaten. We were assigned to unlit barrack blocks. We slept on bunks, eight women to a bed, crammed so closely together that we would end up kicking one another at night. For a one-week period, there were no mattresses of any kind. We would prop up our heads with our dresses and cover up with a blanket. We received one blanket for every two people. During the initial baths, [illegible crossing-out] our camp number was tattooed on the left arm; it was like getting an injection. We underwent no quarantine but rather had to work straight away. It wasn’t until 1943 that quarantine was instituted for new transports coming into the camp. I, along with everyone else, was given a work assignment the day after arriving at the camp.

In a Kolonne [labour detail, lit. ‘column’, Ger.] of one hundred women, I would go to work demolishing houses twelve kilometres away from the camp, in the direction of Katowice. We went there on foot, oftentimes [illegible crossing out] spending more time getting there than actually working. We were escorted by aufseherkas [women guards, from Ger. Aufseherin] with dogs, which they set upon prisoners who would or could not keep marching. There was much beating en route. We received food once a day, only after returning from work in the evening. It was dark inside the block and the distribution of food was accompanied by shouting, clamouring, and insults from the block authorities. Unbelievable scenes would unfold among that mass of women, who were frozen and exhausted by starvation and all-day labour. We got up at 3 a.m. We would often stand for several hours at a time in the Appellplatz [yard where prisoners were mustered for roll call, Ger.]. However, women who did not go to work – regardless of whether or not they were ill – had to stand in the Appellplatz all day long, arranged in ranks of five and guarded by aufseherkas. In these conditions, going to work became the lesser of two evils – even for women who were sick and feverish. I myself went to work with a fever for a week. Afterwards, it turned out that I was suffering from typhus and Durchfall [diarrhoea, Ger.], and I was admitted to the Revier. There was generally nothing for breakfast, but sometimes herbal tea would be provided. Whoever managed to elbow their way to the front would get some, bitter though it was. Revier Block 24 I was laid up in the Revier for five months, in Block 24. Countless numbers of people died in that block. Medical care was non-existent and washing water in short supply; no one washed themselves. Women lay without nightdresses, naked underneath a single blanket, four to a bed. Unbelievable though it is, that was how things were. One woman’s head would be on top of another woman. I myself was once kicked so hard by a French-Jewish bunkmate that I almost passed out from the pain. There were in fact beds with only two or three women, but these [note written above text] places [/note] were considered comfortable. Now and then pills were given out, but I always used to throw mine away because I believed that rather than help me they would only poison my body. Care

for the entire block was provided by Schwester Klara, a German prisoner who wore a red triangle. She also gave injections, but her patients would generally die afterwards. Durchfall sufferers would each receive one tablespoon of raw grated potato three times a day as well as one hardtack biscuit. No soup was provided, nor anything to drink.

Schwester Klara – Induced miscarriages – Killing of babies During my time in Block 24 [illegible crossing-out], I saw women give birth on the stove that ran lengthwise from one end of the block to the other. Schwester Klara attended to every birth, and she would tear the babies away from their mothers in a brutal manner and carry them outside. The women hadn’t even got to see their children, and they never would. I was bedridden, so I don’t know what happened to the newborn babies afterwards. However, it was said that they were killed by [Schwester Klara], who either left them to die of exposure or drowned them in a bucket. Furthermore, there was no block for infants at that time even though as many as five to ten babies a day were being born in Block 24. Women who reported as pregnant in the Revier at that time would be directed to Block 24, where Schwester Klara would in many cas usually induce miscarriages. In late spring or early summer 1943, a ban was placed on killing Aryan children. Then special blocks for mothers were established; milk was provided along with better food. Relatively few Jewish babies were born, as pregnant Jewish women would usually go straight to the gas chamber with the transport they came in on; they would also be taken from the Revier during selections. Vermin and large rats among the sick Block 24 was heavily infested with vermin; the blankets were seething with lice. The beds were stacked three high. Moreover, in 1942 there was not yet a floor, but only bare earth. Rats the size of cats would roam amongst the sick

4. and gnaw at the ears and noses of the dying. There were great packs of them and items food couldn’t be left unattended for even a moment. Later, starting in mid-1943, conditions gradually changed for the better. Cruel delousings in the Revier and general camp I was laid up in Block 24 in February 1943 as well. One night at 2 a.m. the entire block of sick prisoners was woken up. A special Kommando [labour detail, Ger.] made up of Jewish women set about confiscating all blankets, nightdresses (if any woman had one), towels, and rags of any kind, which were then taken away for steam treatment to rid them of lice. Meanwhile, the sick women, over one thousand in number, were washed in cold water and left, still dripping wet, to sit naked on wooden boards until 12 midnight the following day. The block wasn’t heated at that time, apart from the blokowa’s [chief prisoner of the block, from Ger. Blockälteste] private quarters. As a result of this delousing, a large number of women were gone by morning; they had died. In the evening, the blankets and stuffed mattresses were brought back to the block. The steaming, however, turned out only to have invigorated the lice and made them even more voracious. The entire delousing process seemed to have been carried out with the sole purpose of tormenting and eliminating people. All day long, women were shivering with cold. Speaking to one another was forbidden; conversing or groaning attracted sudden blows from the German flegierkas [nurses, from Ger. Pflegerin]. Women lying on bare boards would squabble with one another, driven by pain, cold, and nervous agitation. I remember a German flegierka using a patient’s face to wipe up faeces from [note written above text] the woman’s [/note] bed, heaping insults on her all the while. I saw that woman, unable to move, simply devoured by maggots; her body consequently rotted away and within a few days she was dead. At that time, a disease called pemphigus was raging through the camp, as was scabies, leading to sores all over prisoners’ bodies. I also remember women being taken naked to the bathhouse during another general delousing; afterwards, the entire women’s camp spent all day naked outdoors. Read, signed, and accepted by Zofia Figlarz B. Kurowski

[stamp] 5. POLISH SOURCE INSTITUTE Trelleborg, 13 June 1946 IN LUND [/stamp]

Eyewitness testimony of Zofia Figlarz, born on 19 May 1916, shop assistant by occupation, from Cracow Cont’d Meanwhile, everything – dresses, clothing, etc. – was tossed into a tub where men washed it in acid. That delousing also included head-shaving and washing. A Polish woman set upon by dogs and mauled to death There was a period at the Auschwitz camp when dogs were set on prisoners while they worked in the bogs and cut peat near Babice. I worked in that Kommando and I know that the dogs bit prisoners severely, in one case killing a Polish woman right in front of the aufseherkas. Because of the cold weather, she was wearing a warm civilian dress underneath [her camp-issue clothes]. The aufseherkas had viewed this as preparation for an escape attempt and punished her by setting the dogs on her, with a fatal result. At the same time, it was announced to everyone that dressing more warmly was forbidden and anyone who failed to abide by these orders would die in similar circumstances. Selections for the ‘chimney’ and crematorium pits I also passed through a number of selections both in the Revier and general camp. I remember we were once marching back from work in formation, and at the gate we had to run through one by one. As we did, aufseherkas and SS men, by hooking a cane round the neck, selected women who had in any way run afoul of them. Thus, according to their whims, they marked women for death and had them sent to the ‘chimney’, i.e. the gas chamber and crematorium. The largest selections were in 1943 and 1944. Day and night, bodies were burned in special pits in the woods. People would simply be tossed alive into the fire. Entire transports would be herded into the pits of [note written above text] Jews [/note] unaware of their fate would be herded into these pits, where there were branches drenched in tar and petrol that would then be set alight. I myself witnessed SS men tossing Jewish children into the flames amid the terrified screaming of the

6. victims. I used to walk past the place where all this happened, on my way to the Kommando I worked in. All day long, I could hear the screams of the thousands of people who died there. The sky was completely filled with smoke. The Germans weren’t the least bit bothered that we saw this. They knew that the old prisoners at the camp already knew about everything that was going on in Auschwitz and its environs. Tens of thousands of Jews as well as a certain number of Aryans perished daily in the fire and smoke, amid unbelievable screaming. Evacuation of the camp to Ravensbrück in cattle wagons Owing to the fact that the front line had shifted and the Russian army was advancing westwards with increasing speed, the camp was evacuated. As part of this, I ended up on a railway transport of over one thousand women sealed inside cattle wagons. We were taken to Ravensbrück. At this camp, I was able to relax a little, even though we spent the first two days and one night outdoors. Hanging of a Russian woman suspected of sabotage and march past of 4,500 prisoners Six weeks later, I was transported to a munitions factory in Magdeburg, where I worked for eight months. The aufsherkas were very bad. It was a mixed camp; altogether there were approximately 4,500 women and men. From this period, I recall that a Russian woman, following the breakdown of a machine, was hanged on charges of perpetrating sabotage. Before her death, she was fed and assured that she would go free; in the event, however, she was publicly hanged by Block 6, right in front of the entire camp. Once the execution was done, one by one each prisoner had to march past the gallows and look at the hanged woman, who remained suspended for twenty-four hours. Prisoners being herded along in flight from the Allies – shooting executions along the way [illegible crossing-out] In the final phase of the war, when the English were reportedly only two hours away from

7. our camp, it was evacuated and for two weeks we marched to Ravensbrück. On the first day there were sixteen kilometres which we quite simply ran; the sick and those who could not keep up the pace were shot dead in a roadside ditch, men and women alike. During this time we slept in ditches but got little actual rest, because the SS men were constantly driving us onward. We weren’t given any food either, except during the last five days of the march. Farmers had prepared food for retreating German soldiers. If any farmers came outside to bring us so much as water, SS men would sometimes shoot at them too. While we were halted in a clearing, the Allied air force, evidently mistaking us for an encampment of German soldiers, carried out a raid. As a result of the bombing, more or less 400 male and female prisoners died. This was during the first day of the march at a distance of sixteen kilometres from Magdeburg. We completed one leg of the journey to Oranienburg by train. I have experienced life but lost my health. Very few of us who were on the transport from Cracow to Auschwitz are still alive – only four out of approximately 800 women. I am overcome with homesickness after all these years away, which is why I am departing today for Poland, even though I know that things will be hard there. I submit the testimony above in accordance with my recollections of what I personally experienced and witnessed. Read, signed, and accepted by

Bożysław Kurowski Zofia Figlarz Institute Assistant Witness [stamp] POLISH SOURCE INSTITUTE IN LUND [/stamp]

Comments of the Institute Assistant receiving the testimony: Ms Figlarz’s eyewitness testimony regarding the conditions which prevailed at the camp in Auschwitz, and in particular in Revier Block 24, corroborates circumstances already known to the Institute from interviewing many other witnesses. The criminal activities of Schwester Klara, terrible childbirth conditions, killing of infants, presence of large rats among the sick, cruel delousings, selections, crematorium pits – these circumstances, as described by the witness, are in complete agreement with extensive testimony provided on 18 January 1946 by the supremely reliable witness Ms Anna Jachnina, who was a nurse in Block 24 for an extensive period that included the time that witness Figlarz was a patient there. With regard to the circumstances they mention, each testimony – Ms Jachnina’s and Ms Figlarz’s – attests to the truth of the other. Therefore, if the majority of circumstances described by witness Figlarz are confirmed beyond any doubt, the remaining unconfirmed details should be taken on faith, especially as they pertain to facts of a nature known to the Institute through numerous accounts, differing only in terms of location or time or facts which round out a pre- established picture of an event (such as prisoners marching past the publicly hanged woman, or the execution of men and women unable to keep up the pace during the evacuation march), or to facts which merely round out an already established picture of a given event. Furthermore, the witness provides her testimony in a direct, clear, and credible manner.

Bożysław Kurowski Institute Assistant

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POLISH SOURCE INSTITUTE

IN LUND

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