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Record of Witness Testimony 211

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Record of Witness Testimony 211 POLISH SOURCE INSTITUTE IN LUND Malmö, 6 March 1946 Testimony received by Institute Assistant Krystyna Karier transcribed Record of Witness Testimony 211 Here stands Mr Bohdan Gliński born on 8 December 1910 in Sancygniów, Miechów Powiat , occupation doctor religion Roman Catholic , parents’ forenames Edward, Teofila last place of residence in Poland Warsaw current place of residence Warsaw 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 summer 1940 to April 1943 as a political prisoner bearing the number 1195 and wearing a red -coloured triangle with the letter ‘P’. I was later interned in Buchenwald from April 1943 to summer 1944 as a political prisoner bearing the number 10643, and I wore a red-coloured triangle with the letter ‘P’; then in the ‘Dora’ concentration camp from summer 1944 to 3 May 1945 (including evacuation) – same number and Winkel [triangular badge, Ger.] as at the Buchenwald camp. 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: [illegible signature] The eyewitness testimony of Mr Bohdan Gliński [note written above text] consists of [/note] eight pages of handwriting and describes the following: 1. Arrest of witness with incriminating evidence and first interrogation; transfer to Montelupich Prison in Cracow. Interrogation by the Gestapo – confrontation with denunciator; beating of the witness. Transfer to prison in Sosnowiec – interrogations. Prison in Mysłowice – prisoners punished by being forced to remain in a lying position. Return to prison in Cracow. 2. 1940 – Auschwitz. History of the camp’s development – the first transports. Camp authorities recruited from German criminal prisoners. Working conditions. Organization within the Auschwitz camp called Grupa Oświęcim [‘Auschwitz Group’, Pol.]. Elimination of this group by the Germans. Executions. The first ‘gassing’. 3. Transfer to Buchenwald. Work in the Bombenkommando [lit. ‘bomb detail’, Ger.] BLOM’S PRINTING, LUND 1945 in Cologne. Witness’s return to Buchenwald and dispatch to Duisburg, then to Lehesten – slate mine. Prisoners’ living conditions in that mine. Punitive reassignment of the witness to a column [labour detail, from Ger. Kolonne] carrying bags of cement. 4. ‘Dora’ – underground V-1 factory. Beating and finishing-off of prisoners. Death penalty for sabotage; prisoners being held responsible for errors of German engineers. 5. Work in the Klosterwerke [lit. ‘monastery works’, Ger.] Kommando. Evacuation of the camp at the end of March 1945. 6. Bombing of the SS Cap Arcona. [stamp] POLISH SOURCE INSTITUTE IN LUND [/stamp] List of camps Auschwitz summer 1940 – April 1943 Buchenwald April 1943 – Cologne Buchenwald Duisburg ‘Laura’ (mine) (near Lehesten) – summer 1944 ’Dora’ summer 1944 – Klosterwerke Kommando – until the end of March 1945 [stamp] evacuation at the end of March 1945 POLISH SOURCE INSTITUTE IN LUND [/stamp] [stamp] POLISH SOURCE INSTITUTE IN LUND [/stamp] Eyewitness testimony of Mr Bohdan Gliński, born on 8 December 1910 in Sancygniów, Miechów Powiat I was arrested on 8 February 1940 at the starostwo [local government offices, Pol.] in Miechów, where I had arrived from Warsaw with 2,000 copies of the underground newspaper Walka [lit. ‘The Struggle’, Pol.]. I had therefore been caught with incriminating evidence. After my arrest, at 3 p.m. I was taken to a Gestapo cell there in Miechów. I got a terrible cudgelling straight away, for the Germans – who could tell from the size of the haul that they were dealing with a major figure in the underground movement – intended to extract the names of the people and place that I had received the shipment of newspapers from. Not knowing what had prompted my arrest, I was confused. I supposed that I had been informed on, so I adopted a passive attitude and decided to say nothing. Two hours later, I found myself in Cell No. 1 of the local prison. The prison was staffed by Polish guards. I was taken there at five o’clock; then at six o’clock, the staff, who were going through a shift change, held an Appell [roll call, Ger.] and inspected all of the cells. I recognized the guard inspecting my cell as a member of ZWZ [Związek Walki Zbrojnej, ‘Union of Armed Struggle’ (Pol.)] named Konarski, and he recognized me as well. [illegible crossing-out] My cellmates, criminal prisoners, could tell by the way I looked that they were dealing with a political prisoner, because criminals weren’t treated that way. [illegible crossing-out] Konarski took the opportunity to inform me what method of defence I should adopt, at the same time giving away the name of the person who had denounced me (also a member of the organization). At 4 a.m. the following day, I was taken in chains to the remand prison in Cracow known as Montelupich. Immediately on arrival, I received twenty-five lashes with a bullwhip by way of registration. I found this reassuring, for as I later found out in the cell this was the standard induction procedure for each new remand prisoner. I ended up in Cell 149. That same day, my first interrogation took place, resulting in a smashed-up typewriter and a whole slew of bamboo canes which were broken over my person. How I looked could best be described by a Professor Tomiczek, who fainted at the sight of me when I was carried upstairs and tossed like a bundle into the cell. At that point, I assumed they would take a break from interrogating me and I would have a little time to recuperate – unfortunately, I was mistaken. The following morning, the cell door opened and an SS man shouted my name. I couldn’t get out of bed, and not even the kick he administered was able to force me to do so. Upon seeing this, my ‘guardian angel’ hauled me from the bed by the collar and in this manner helped me from the second floor downstairs to the interrogation room. That day, I was confronted with the gentleman who had betrayed me and upon whom I had been laying blame in accordance with my instructions from the organization. Because this gentleman naturally rejected, in no uncertain terms, the blame imputed to him, I received another helping of lashes intended to force me to alter my testimony. Due to my continued denials, I was asked [passage marked out in margin] to assume the initial position for further ‘pacification operations’. This time, the role of ‘enforcer of justice’ was fulfilled by the agent provocateur. [/passage] Then it was proposed that we switch roles, to which I replied that I had been abused enough as it was and that my hands were too injured to beat a confession out of anyone. In light of this, it had to take place without me: Gestapo men beat him while standing in a corner specifically designated for this purpose. Because I still hadn’t altered my testimony, the interrogators decided to call it a day and began preparing to leave. One of the Gestapo men standing in the corner ran out of the room and came back with two pairs of American handcuffs. He put these bracelets around my arms and legs, then hauled me out, using the now-familiar collar system, and dragged me semi-conscious to Cell 56 – a so-called Dunkelzelle [lit. ‘dark cell’, Ger.]. After switching on the light, he joined me in the cell and told me with a smile: ‘Jetzt wirst du singen.’ [‘Now you will sing.’] The gentleman clearly had his own particular method, which was restricted to beating the same spot over and over; in this case, the spot being experimented upon was my forehead. Using a short bullwhip, he landed blow after blow on my forehead. Despite my semi-dazed state, I managed to observe – as a doctor – that this gentleman was in a certain state of alcoholic intoxication and that if I didn’t start ‘singing’, it would be the last day of my life. Systematic, repeated blows to the head cause incredible pain and make it impossible to pass out. I understood that if I said nothing that might stop this torrent of torment, I would simply go mad. It was obvious that in my pain I was making movements of one kind or another that caused the handcuffs to tighten automatically. Finally, I shouted: ‘Genug! Ich werde sagen – ich habe das geschrieben!’ [‘Enough! I will speak – I wrote it!’] (‘It’ referred to the rough draft of an article that was found on me at the time of my arrest.) ‘Ach so!’ [Aha!] And a moment later, I was dragged by the collar back to the interrogation room. The interrogators were already dressed and just about to leave when my torturer triumphantly dragged me into the room. ‘Er hat zugegeben,’ [‘He has confessed,’] he shouted. The interrogators took their coats off and resumed the interrogation. ‘Haben sie das geschrieben?’ [‘Did you write it?’] asked an interrogator. For a moment, I was silent and finally I shouted: ‘Nein!’ [‘No!’] ‘Aber sie haben doch zugegeben,’ [‘But you have confessed,’] replied the interrogator. To this, I replied: ‘Yes, but what you must understand is that I saw madness in the eyes of the gentleman who was battering me in the cell; and I realized that if I didn’t say anything, that cell would be my grave.
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