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Record of Witness Testimony 285 Witness Herself POLISH SOURCE INSTITUTE IN LUND Stockholm, 28 March 1946 Testimony received by Institute Assistant Krystyna Karier transcribed written directly by the Record of Witness Testimony 285 witness herself Here stands Ms Gustawa Winkowska, née Skowrońska born on 23 September 1905 in Ostrów Wielkopolski , occupation secretary (X-ray lab technician) religion Roman Catholic , parents’ forenames Hortensia Skowrońska and Władysław Skowroński Kasza [or Kasz] family residence, last place of residence in Poland ulica Nowotarska [lit. ‘Nowotarska Street’], Zakopane current place of residence c/o Ms MacDonald, Karlavägen 60 I., Stockholm 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 Ravensbrück from 13 September 1941 to 25 March 1945 as a political prisoner bearing the number 7454 and wearing a red -coloured triangle with the letter ‘P’. I was later interned in Aneby and Doverstorp (at camps in Sweden) from 1 May 1945 to 13 September 1945. 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: For three years of my time at the camp in Ravensbrück, I worked in the office of the camp infirmary and was therefore able to observe crimes being perpetrated against the sick. Dr Rosenthal and his assistant Gerda Quernheim, a German political prisoner, administered lethal injections to prisoners expected to require lengthy treatment, for instance ones affected by phlegmon. This was also done to free up space in the Revier [infirmary, Ger.] when patient numbers swelled and overstretched capacity. In early 1942, I saw transports of ‘sick’ people who were so designated because of their limited ability to work and who were therefore mainly women over the age of 50. The number of these women killed was 1,000; their clothing came back to the camp two days later, some of it bloodied. The women had been executed in gas chambers. The men responsible for the crime were Dr Sonntag and Dr Rosenthal. I witnessed experimental operations conducted on Polish women by Professor Gebhardt and Dr Fischer accompanied by Dr Oberheuser, the last of whom searched for victims from among prisoners on the 1941 Lublin transport with numbers over 7600. While working in a room BLOM’S PRINTING, LUND 1945 adjacent to the operating theatre, I saw the victims being put under anaesthesia; I heard bones being sawn (during the bone operations); and afterwards I saw the victims being taken from the operating theatre. I heard them groaning in pain, and later I saw their suppurating wounds. I was present when several of these victims died. I watched Dr Rosenthal tussle with a healthy young Ukrainian woman whom he was trying to force to lie down on a trolley so that she could be taken to the operating theatre. The girl, knowing what awaited her, was trying to defend herself and was crying out for help. Dr Rosenthal proved to be the stronger of the two and, assisted by Gerda Quernheim, he put the prisoner under anaesthesia and then amputated her leg – which was perfectly healthy. After this crime was committed, Dr Fisher, Professor Gebhardt’s assistant, drove to Hohenlychen with a large bundle that most likely contained bones from the amputated leg. The operation victim, meanwhile, was locked up by SS nurses; a few hours after the procedure, she received a lethal injection. The German SS nurses barred access to the room where the victim lay, and nurse Maria Kaczmarczyk, who usually attended to patients, was not authorized to see that prisoner. The SS nurses themselves placed her remains in the coffin and made sure that we did not peek inside as we carried it out to the lorry. Using a stolen key, Maria Kaczmarczyk had entered the room and determined that the deceased was missing an entire leg. A similar operation was conducted on another young Ukrainian woman, who had an entire collarbone removed before likewise being given a lethal injection a few hours later. In 1945, over a period running from February to 25 March, Dr Adolf Winkelmann sent 4,500 women to the gas chamber. A report citing this exact figure went to Berlin, and I had the opportunity to read it as I was then secretary to Dr Percy Treite, the number one camp physician. In the final period, roughly one hundred people per day died of starvation, physical exhaustion, or typhus. All of the deceased were diagnosed with general weakness, pneumonia, or gastroenteritis. I was ordered to note down these diagnoses on an index card without the deceased having been examined. The SS nurses would write the dead woman’s prisoner number on her breast, after which dentist Hellbig [sic] would extract any gold dental work from the deceased (crowns or bridges) and the naked body would be tossed onto a pile in the hospital garden. Often, it would then be taken to the autopsy table before being loaded onto an open-bed lorry and driven to the crematorium, which belched smoke night and day. A great pillar of flame would frequently light up the camp, and the stench of burning human flesh and bones would keep us awake at night. Rats often gnawed the dead bodies lying in the camp hospital garden before they were driven to the crematorium. [illegible crossing-out] Sometimes, the bodies would lie day and night exposed in the snow or water. Dr Winkelmann would designate any woman with grey hair or swollen legs for gassing, and he selected tuberculosis patients from Block 10 in particular. Assisting him in making selections was Carmen Mori, a Swiss political prisoner who would nominate people towards whom she was ill-disposed. In fact, she collaborated with the Gestapo; she served them and simultaneously spied on the SS doctors and nurses supervising us. Those of Dr Winkelmann’s victims who were affected by nervous conditions, she would send away wearing nothing but their shirts; they would be loaded onto an open-bed lorry under SS guard and driven directly to the crematorium, next to which was the gas chamber. In the years 1941–43, and thus the period in which Gerda Quernheim was Dr Rosenthal’s assistant, no child born in the camp survived. Gerda Quernheim would asphyxiate them with her own hands before carrying the child’s remains in a small box to the central heating furnace, where she would burn them. Pregnant German women who had been arrested for having ‘intercourse with Poles’ were subjected to abortions, often in as late as the eighth month of pregnancy, and the foetus would likewise be taken away to the so-called ‘Heizung’ [‘heating’ (Ger.)] furnace. Young mothers often ended up paying for their first love with their life; cases of tuberculosis also frequently followed these abortions. In January 1945, a mysterious doctor from Auschwitz performed a mass sterilization on Gypsy children aged 8 and up – without anaesthesia and under an X-ray machine. Judging by the children’s complaints and descriptions of the sterilization method (I questioned them myself), I assume he administered injections directly into the ovaries. The children came out shouting and trailing blood, reproaching their mothers – ‘Mummy, what have you let them do to me?!’– for mothers would give consent to the sterilizations in return for promises of freedom. I have not provided a detailed description of the experimental operations on the so-called ‘rabbits’ [króliki (Pol.), to be understood as ‘guinea pigs’] because fate spared their lives, and they can speak for themselves and make their own accusations. Gustawa Winkowska Comments from the Insitute Assistant receiving the recollections [note written above crossing-out] testimony [/note]: Witness Gustawa WINKOWSKA, known personally to me throughout my internment at Ravensbrück, submitted the above testimony for use by the Polish Source Institute at my request. She wrote the testimony independently and in her own hand, and then sent it to me by post. The testimony is absolutely trustworthy considering the witness’s unmediated familiarity with the events she describes within the scope of the three years she worked at the Ravensbrück camp infirmary (Revier) – which I hereby affirm – and considering her full awareness of the responsibility she bears because of that work. Via correspondence, I continue to question Ms Gustawa Winkowska with the aim of reconstructing the entire period in all its details known only to her in her capacity as secretary. (–) Krystyna Karier Institute Assistant Polish Source Institute in Lund Lund, 7 June 1946 Dear [Ms Winkowska], While we are very grateful for the report you have sent us regarding your work within the camp Revier, I must ask you to answer or elaborate on the questions below. The Source Institute is concerned not only with prosecuting crimes, but also with reconstructing the history of the prisons and camps and how prisoners lived within them, both in terms of official life, i.e. that which was circumscribed by camp regulations, and unofficial life which prisoners organized in secret and which encompassed education of the youth, cultural life (reports), mutual aid, cultural exchanges between different nationalities, etc. Another matter of interest is the attitude held by Germans towards Poles in occupied areas: 1) What conditions did Poles experience in the Zakopane area? What percentage of Poles remained in Zakopane by the time of your arrest? Did deportations take place? If so, in what manner? 2) Did you work as a lab technician at a German institution? What can you tell us about this? 3) Were you arrested as a result of your work, or were you suspected of involvement in a clandestine organization? Imprisonment 1) What prison were you in and how long were you there before arriving at the camp? 2) Were you subjected to interrogations? What was [illegible crossing-out] the percentage of political prisoners in the prison and how were they treated? Were they executed? Names if possible.
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