POLISH SOURCE INSTITUTE IN LUND Trelleborg, 22 May 1946

Testimony received by Institute Assistant Luba Melchior transcribed

Record of Witness Testimony 314

Here stands Mr Natan Kapłan born on 1 August 1912 in , occupation tailor religion Jewish , parents’ forenames Mojżesz and Hinda last place of residence in Pionki current place of residence leaving for Poland

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 [note written above crossing-out] labour [/note] camp in Pionki from [not completed] to 19 October 1944 as a political prisoner bearing the number [not completed] and wearing a [not completed] -coloured triangle with the letter [not completed] I was later interned in Oranienburg from 19 October 1944 to 26 April 1945. I wore a red-coloured triangle with yellow stripe and bore the number 104351.

Kapłan

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 six pages of handwriting. Pionki Forced labour at a factory, the factory Wache [watch (i.e. guards), Ger.], accommodation conditions, diet, contact with , an epidemic and executions ensuing therefrom, exchange of exhausted labourers for healthy ones, the Jewish settlement in Szydłowiec, expulsion, a transport from Kielce, labour in Pionki, medical care, a transport from Płaszów, help among the prisoners, bonuses, executions, children in the camp, contact with partisans, evacuation, transports to Auschwitz and Oranienburg Oranienburg Bathhouse, change of clothes, quarantine [stamp]

POLISH SOURCE INSTITUTE

IN LUND BLOM’S PRINTING, LUND [/stamp] 1945

[stamp] POLISH SOURCE INSTITUTE IN LUND [/stamp]

Testimony of Mr Natan Kapłan, born on 1 August 1912 Prior to 1942, there were no major operations in Pionki. In 1942, the ghetto was liquidated and everyone was sent to Zwoleń, where there was a collective camp. Only healthy people remained in Pionki, and they were employed at Państwowa Wytwórnia Prochu [State Gunpowder Mill (Pol.)]. Out of 1,000 Jews, 180 remained. Jews were tasked with pulverizing coal. [The authorities] placed Jewish workers in a specially created camp. The camp was located on the factory grounds. Ukrainian Werkschutz [industrial security (Ger.)] guards kept watch. The accommodation conditions at the camp were dire. The camp had no fittings or furnishings at all; it was up to us to finish it. The official diet was very meagre, but we had contacts among the Polish labourers from whom we would obtain food items at rather high prices. At first, we were paid for our labour according to the official rate. We worked eight hours of work [note written above crossing-out] a day [/note]. When the need arose, we would work as many as twenty hours a day. After three weeks at the camp, several people fell ill. Two Polish doctors were brought in: a powiat [approx. ‘county’, Pol.] doctor named Majchszak and his assistant, Węglewski. Upon [note written above text] examining everyone [/note], they pronounced sixty people sick and claimed they were untreatable (which was untrue, because most of these people had already recovered). As a result They also claimed that these cases risked turning into a general epidemic that could spread throughout Pionki. As a result of this pronouncement, Polizei- and SS-Führer Böttcher issued an order for all [note written above text] the supposedly ill [/note] to be shot dead. Thanks to the intervention of the factory director, a German civilian engineer by the name of Brandt, some of these people were saved and placed in the epidemic hospital. Twenty-six were shot dead; the rest later returned to health. The epidemic subsided completely and the epidemic hospital was shut down. [The victims] were buried in a common grave on the grounds of the Dunit section. The execution order was issued by Roder, the deputy Werkschutzleiter, and it was carried out by Zugführer [platoon leader, Ger.] Schenk. [The victims] were driven away by lorry, supposedly to another hospital in . Transports from other towns were brought to Pionki. The newcomers were supposed to replace exhausted labourers. After segregation, weaker labourers were sent to a collective camp in Szydłowiec. Meanwhile, in Szydłowiec healthy ones were selected and brought to work in Pionki. In November 1942, Governor Frank issued a decree establishing four collective Jewish settlements. Amnesty was officially granted to anyone who was on the Aryan side if they came to the designated settlements. I remember the locations of three of them: Sandomierz, Radomsko, and Szydłowiec. I myself was in Szydłowiec. The settlement was established in the former ghetto, only the ruins of which remained. Five thousand Jews were quartered in those ruins, mainly elderly people, mothers with children, and exhausted labourers from various German companies who had been segregated out. Under orders from Hauptsturmführer Weinrich and Untersturmführer Schippers at the Pionki factories, I obtained permission for an exchange of labourers: exhausted ones from Pionki for healthy ones from Szydłowiec. On 9 January 1943, I myself was present as the Szydłowiec settlement was being liquidated. The settlement was made up of two sections. Everyone was herded into a single section for the expulsion. In the process, [note written above text] approximately [/note] 400 people were shot dead – mainly children. We arrived with the Lagerführer [lit. ‘camp leader’, Ger.] of our camp, Schenk, to collect the labourers, but the settlement was surrounded by Ukrainians and they would not let us in. After communicating with Schippers, we learned that everyone from the settlement had to be executed owing to a raging epidemic. On 12 January, the entire settlement was transported to Treblinka, where they were executed. In August 1943, a transport of 500 Jews arrived [note written above text] in Pionki [/note] from Kielce. Aboard the transport were seventy children who had been taken from their mothers in Kielce, and on the order of Hauptmann Geier, the Schupoführer [chief of Schutzpolizei (protection police), Ger.], all the children were executed. Right before their mothers’ eyes, they were blown to pieces by hand grenades. Jews worked at Pionki in the manufacturing of gunpowder. The work was dangerous. There were frequent explosions resulting in deaths. The medical care was first-class. We got medicines from Jüdische Soziale Selbsthilfe [Jewish Mutual Social Assistance (Ger.)] in Cracow.

The medicines came from the Joint [Distribution Committee]. The work was hard and it ravaged people’s health. The Polish labourers were transported to Germany, and in their place Jews were brought in from various camps. The Płaszów concentration camp supplied two transports (400 people). They were completely exhausted and stood out from our people. Their clothes had ladder-like markings painted on them. At our camp, we wore civilian clothes. Towards the end of 1943, our camp also we re-attired these people in civilian clothes so that they would not stand out. This was done by way of a collection we held amongst ourselves. The new arrivals were searched, and everything they possessed was taken from them. They were assigned the hardest work; since they were so exhausted, we set up a committee amongst ourselves which provided these workers with extra food. The Lagerführer knew about this privately. Officially, we provided an additional 120 grams of bread per day to hard labourers. Roller operators received bonuses in the form of bre vari food items. The Pionki camp remained a labour camp up until the very end. In 1944 came a new Werkschutzleiter by the name of Widner. He wanted to implement new directives making the camp similar to a concentration camp, but he was opposed by factory director Brandt. Nevertheless, discipline did become more severe. For example, if one man escaped, another was to be hanged. A gallows was erected in the yard for this purpose. No such sentences were carried out, thanks to the influence we had with the director. Things were worse when it came to recaptured escapees, who were hanged right in front of all the camp residents. Two sentences were carried out. Five people fled to Kielce; they were caught by the Gestapo and brought to the camp, where they were hanged. The second sentence was carried out for theft of vodka. It happened at the direction of a Gestapo man named Kop. On that occasion, three people were hanged. Pregnant women were not treated differently; the newborn babies were executed. There were older children in the camp on a semi-official basis. They would be hidden whenever the SS commission was visiting. The death rate in the camp was quite low. This was because people there were young and healthy, selected from among many. There were a few deaths. The corpses were buried. News on political developments would make its way into the camp. I had the opportunity to listen to the factory director’s radio. Thanks to the news, we were able to keep abreast of the situation. We knew the front was drawing nearer and the camp was to be evacuated. Two hundred people organized an escape into the surrounding woodlands. Unfortunately, no one the lion’s share of them died there. We maintained contact with partisans from AL (Armia Ludowa [the People’s Army, Pol.]). In the event of danger, they were going to rescue us the entire camp. The factory director took my family and my brother from the camp before it was evacuated. On 19 August 1944, we were taken from work to the camp and the evacuation began. It took place in two stages. An initial group of 1,800 people was sent to Auschwitz. Our camp was supposed to be sent in its entirety to Germany – to a company called Wasach [sic, presumably HASAG] of which our company was a subsidiary – but an SS general was opposed to this. At Auschwitz, this group did not undergo selection. The director gave the opinion that they were highly skilled specialists, thanks to which elderly people and children were saved. A second group was sent to Oranienburg on 15 September 1944. The gunpowder mill director had us (the men) taken from Oranienburg to Wassak [sic, HASAG], where we found employment at a gunpowder mill. Our group that had been hiding in the woods for two months was denounced, and in November 1944 we were sent to Oranienburg; from there, at the director’s request, we were sent to Wassak [note] Oranienburg [sic], and from there we were to go to work for Wassak [sic, HASAG]. [/note] We arrived in Oranienburg with women and children. At the entrance to the camp, we were separated from the women. The women were sent to Ravensbrück. Kapłan

[stamp] POLISH SOURCE INSTITUTE IN LUND [/stamp]

Testimony of Mr Natan Kapłan, born on 1 August 1912, cont’d First, we were sent to the bathhouse, where we were bathed and reclothed in striped uniforms without underwear or shoes. They let us into a block. The accommodation conditions were passable; we were treated better, as skilled workers. We had come there to undergo quarantine. The Appells [roll call assemblies, Ger.] were quite long, lasting from 4 a.m. to 9 a.m. I saw how political prisoners were treated. Next to our block was Block 35, where so-called saboteurs were held. There were roughly sixty of them. From 4 a.m. they would be chained to one another; their faces were painted black, with the letter ‘T’ (Totenurteil [sic, death sentence, cf. Ger. Todesurteil]) written on their foreheads. They were tormented until they dropped dead. The abuse took place as follows. They would be made to run in circles while being beaten from 4 a.m. to 9 p.m. Thus were they all killed. They were Russians and Poles. After one group was killed, the next was brought in. The camp personnel was made up mainly of German Berufsverbrechers [career criminals, Ger.]. They tormented us; there were cases where prisoners were [beaten to death]. During this period, Oranienburg was a model camp where order and structure prevailed. Prisoners were not badly treated on the whole. Only Jews were tormented. After fourteen days, we were sent to the Wassak [sic, HASAG] company’s Arbeitskommando [lit. ‘labour detachment’, Ger.] in Glöwen, where there was a labour camp. The accommodation and sanitary conditions were good. The camp was organized [note written above crossing-out] furnished [/note] by us. The German camp authorities were made up of SS men. At the head was the Lagerführer, Unterscharführer Knirch [sic]. For the most part, they did not treat us badly or beat us. At work, we were watched by Postens [guards, Ger.]. The factory was located some 500 metres away from the camp. It was set in woodland, underground. It had not yet been made operational. We were still just setting up the machines. The factory extended over an area of five kilometres. The bombing did not begin until around the end of March. By order of the commandant at

Oranienburg, we were evacuated. From there, we were transported in groups to Bergen-Belsen. I stayed behind at Oranienburg. At this point, Oranienburg completely changed in appearance. The main difference was the huge accumulation of people. We were sleeping eight people to a bunk. The bread [note written above crossing- out] daily [/note] ration was seventy grams of bread and one litre of watery soup. On 20 April, we were evacuated on foot. The Russians were making their way into Berlin. We were being led towards Hamburg [illegible crossing-out]. Anyone who was weak got shot and killed along the way. Of the 28,000 of us who had marched out, approximately 3,000 were killed. It was only after 25 April that the shootings ceased, thanks to the public address by Truman, Churchill, and Stalin where they made the entire German nation responsible for any executions. On 26 April we were liberated by the Red Army in Rathenow. Kapłan

At Oranienburg, I met German Jews who had been there since 1941. There were 2,200 of them, yet there are only three left. They were tortured to death by SS men and then incinerated in a crematorium. There was no gas chamber there. Kapłan The witness’s testimony about Pionki is completely trustworthy. I would only add that he pointed up the positive aspects of the camp. This can be explained by the fact that the witness was made a privileged person by the director of the gunpowder mill. Unquestionably, Kapłan helped alleviate the plight of prisoners at Pionki. Conditions at the camp are known to me through accounts from other prisoners. The testimony regarding Oranienburg is not entirely accurate. The witness spent a short time there and did not have an objective view of the camp. These inaccuracies have been corrected by Institute Assistant Józef Nowaczyk, a former veteran prisoner of the Sachsenhausen-Oranienburg camp. Institute Assistant [stamp] Luba Melchior POLISH SOURCE INSTITUTE

IN LUND

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With regard to witness K.’s testimony on the fate of Jews at Sachsenhausen and the gas chamber there, I – as someone who was interned at that camp from 1941 to 1945 – have the following to add: In the years 1941–2, there were approximately 600 Jews at Sachsenhausen. They were placed in Blocks 38 and 39, which were at maximum capacity. In 1942, these people were transported en bloc to Auschwitz. It is not inconceivable that a few individuals remained. In that same year and in 1943, printers and other such skilled workers were brought to Sachsenhausen and placed in the isolated Blocks 18 and 19, where a printworks had been set up to produce forged American banknotes. In 1945, the Germans shut down the printworks and transported the people (of whom there were 12 120) and printing equipment to an unknown destination. Therefore, the thesis that 2,200 Jews were tortured to death, as Kapłan claims, is inaccurate, but this is not to say that the total number of Jews who perished at Sachsenhausen might not be even higher. The years 1943–4 saw the establishment of several permanent labour camps that were subordinate to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp and whose prisoner populations were made up exclusively of Jews transported there directly from Auschwitz (Lieberose, 4,000; Königs Wusterhausen, 250; Spreenhagen; Schwarzheide). The fate of these people requires a chapter unto itself and cannot come within the scope of any competent testimony from Kapłan, who spent too short a time at Sachsenhausen. K.’s claim that the Sachsenhausen concentration camp did not have a gas chamber is irresponsible and indicative of his ignorance regarding the conditions and relations that were prevalent at that camp.

Lund, 11 June 1946 [stamp] Józef Nowaczyk POLISH SOURCE INSTITUTE IN LUND [/stamp] cont’d overleaf

In supplement to the opinion given on the previous page, I will add the following to the section concerning ‘saboteurs’: The execution method described by K. does not correspond to the truth. ‘Saboteurs’ were interrogated several at a time in the politische Abteilung [political department, Ger.] and then, every few days, were taken away to the gas chamber for execution under orders issued [note written above text] on a case-by-case basis [/note] by the RHSA (Reichssicherheitshauptamt [Reich Main Security Office, Ger.]) or its agencies, such as the SD (Sicherheitsdienst [Security Service, Ger.] or Gestapo. Condemned prisoners had to march five abreast from the camp to the gas chamber with hands clasped on their necks. On their cheeks they had dark painted crosses in the shape of a multiplication sign, and on their foreheads – perhaps – the letter ‘T’. While in Block 35 (which, nota bene, was fenced off from the rest of the blocks in a group with three others – Nos. 13, 14, and 36), they were treated certainly brutally by the so-called ‘Luftschutz’ [lit. ‘air raid protection’, Ger.], whom the camp authorities had assigned to supervise them. It is not inconceivable that one or other of the ‘saboteurs’ died of exhaustion brought on by starvation, illness, or beating, yet these cases could only have been sporadic. The direct killing of these people, however, took place only and categorically as described above. The ‘Luftschutz’ was a group of several dozen German prisoners hand-picked by the Luftschutz ‘commandant’, a criminal prisoner by the name of Waschke. They were selected among prisoners in the ‘SS- Sonderkommando’ (SS members who had been [note written above text] temporarily [/note] sentenced to a concentration camp by SS courts) and prisoners in the SAW (Sonderabteilung Wehrmacht – Wehrmacht soldiers who had likewise been transferred to the camp temporarily for certain offences). Small groups of ‘saboteurs’ began trickling into Sachsenhausen in roughly mid-1944. This coincided with the intensified bombing of Berlin and the assassination attempt of 20 July 1944. As far as I know, there were no Germans among them; rather, they were one hundred per cent Russian and Ukrainian. In fact, the only reason these people had been placed in the camp was so that they could be sent to the gas chamber after interrogation. They were not listed in standard prisoner registers. Nor did they receive prisoner numbers, as far as I am aware. The figure of sixty ‘saboteurs’ given by K. can be taken as an average for the time period from mid- 1944 to early 1945, because those who were killed were regularly replaced by newcomers.

[stamp] Lund, 17 June 1946 Nowaczyk POLISH SOURCE INSTITUTE IN LUND [/stamp]