POLISH SOURCE INSTITUTE IN LUND Malmö, 5 March 1946 Testimony received by Institute Assistant Krystyna Karier transcribed Record of Witness Testimony 206 Here stands Mr Bolesław Pampuch born on 24 March 1909 in Jarząbkowo, Gniezno Powiat , occupation butcher religion Roman Catholic , parents’ forenames Kasper, Eleonora last place of residence in Poland Gniezno current place of residence – ″ – 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: [note] labour [/note] I was interned at the concentration camp in Blechhammer [present-day Blachownia Śląska, Poland] from May 1942 to 23 June 1943 as a political prisoner bearing the number – and wearing a ‘P’ badge -coloured triangle with the letter [not completed] I was later interned in Organisation Todt [a German engineering group] labour camps (Germany and Norway) from 16 August 1943 to the German surrender in 1945. Bolesław Pampuch 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 five and a half pages of handwriting and describes the following: 1. Year-long stint at labour camp in Blechhammer – layout of camp, diet, treatment; prisoners in striped uniforms and Jews – treatment. ‘AL’ – that is, the penal column [labour detail, from Ger. Kolonne]. Punishments administered in AL – acts of provocation by the Germans. Discharge from the camp. 2. Return to Gniezno and employment with the same company that ran the camp in Blechhammer. Germans’ treatment of Poles in Gniezno and surrounding area. Being sent away to work a second time. 3. Month-long stint at a camp in Berlin; discipline. 4. Working at a country estate in Waldsee, Pomerania. 5. Voyage to Norway and assignment to labour camp in Mørsvik – road-building work. Difference between how Austrians and Reichsdeutschers [ethnic Germans from the Reich] treated Poles. How the Germans treated Russian POWs who were in a neighbouring camp. BLOM’S PRINTING, LUND 1945 6. Poles gathered at a camp in Narvik after the German surrender – approximately 1,000 people. [stamp] POLISH SOURCE INSTITUTE IN LUND [/stamp] [stamp] POLISH SOURCE INSTITUTE IN LUND [/stamp] Testimony of Mr Bolesław Pampuch, born on 24 March 1909 in Jarząbkowo, Gniezno Powiat In May 1942, the Germans captured me in the street during a round-up. Along with twenty other men, I was transported to a place called Blechhammer in Germany [present-day Blachownia Śląska, Poland], where a war industry factory was being constructed. There were already about 1,000 Poles there when we arrived. In the camp we were placed in, there were approximately 30,000 people of various nationalities. The camp was set in woodland and divided into sections, each of which had its own name: Wiesenlager, Waldlager, Bahnhoflager [lit. ‘Meadow Camp’, ‘Woodland Camp’, ‘Railway Station Camp’, respectively (Ger.)] The Poles were put with the Jews, although the Jews were fenced off from us (we were merely in adjacent areas). We Poles, however, were free to move about the camp, but only until 8 p.m. We got up at 5 a.m. Without any Appell [roll call assembly, Ger.], we would march out to work – six kilometres. The Jews were guarded by the Gestapo, whereas we walked freely, wearing a lilac-coloured ‘P’ against a yellow background with lilac border on our left shoulder. We worked ten to twelve hours per day on the factory building site. At work, we were treated badly; we were beaten and called ‘polnische Bande’ [Polish riff-raff, Ger.]. After returning to the camp, we would have dinner at six, six thirty and then go to bed. A full day’s ration consisted of half a kilogram of bread, twenty grams of margarine or marmalade, and one litre of soup (made from swedes or cabbage – extremely watery). We had to pay ten [pfennigs] for the soup, since we were paid for our work: twenty marks per week. We lived twenty men to a Stube [room, Ger.]. Conditions were very cramped and filthy, and we were plagued by vermin – bedbugs. We slept in separate beds; each bed had a crude stuffed mattress and two blankets. Working alongside us were Polish prisoners who wore striped uniforms. They were kept under guard and treated worse, like Jews. Both the Jews and striped prisoners were bound by regulations prescribing that any man who strayed so much as ten metres from his place of work be shot dead. By then, the striped prisoners were already in a state of utter exhaustion. I saw one man who could hardly walk being held up and guided to work. We weren’t permitted to go near the prisoners. Once, when a Jew died at work, a machine that was excavating sand buried him on the order of one of the Gestapo men guarding us. On 24 July 1943, an inspection was carried out in the Jewish section: the weak were directed onto a train, and the stronger ones were left behind to work. Some of those who were herded onto the train were so weak that their comrades had to take them in carts or carry them on their backs. Approximately 200 Jews were taken. They were reportedly transported to Auschwitz. Within the camp was what was called ‘AL’ – the equivalent of a penal column [labour detail, from Ger. Kolonne]. If anyone failed to go to work for two days, the company doing the construction work would report this to Bauleitung [lit. ‘construction management’, Ger.], which administered punishment by assigning the person avoiding work (regardless if due to illness) to AL. This consisted of two or three blocks surrounded by a wire fence. There were usually about 300 people inside. Anyone in excess of 300 would be sent away to complete their punishment at Auschwitz. Stints in AL usually lasted from six to twelve weeks. A punishment that was issued within AL itself was food deprivation. Men who were assigned there would keep their own clothing; they received only a triangle on their back and an armband round their sleeve. The armband was white or yellow. The triangles on prisoners’ backs made it easier to aim at them in the event of escape. The way they were treated in AL was terrible. Prisoners who had been beaten would have to go to work. I myself saw a Russian being helped along to work. He was no longer capable of walking on his own – his face was mutilated. At one point, this Russian threw himself under a factory train and was killed on the spot. In addition to this, from a fellow inmate who slept next to me and who had left AL, I learned the following. A certain Pole once reported that he was ill and unable to go to work. Immediately after this declaration, he was given lashes which he had to count aloud. If he miscounted, the flogging started all over again. After the lashes, water was poured over the sick man and then he was sent to the block. The same punishment was repeated that evening and the following day when he once again declared that he was sick and unable to go to work; that evening, too, he was beaten once more. At every beating, water was poured over him. When he was released, the man, as though unconscious, made his way towards the gate in the hope of escaping. A Gestapo man took hold of his rifle and shot him dead. The open gate was a provocation used by the Gestapo, who wanted prisoners to attempt escape, thereby providing a pretext to shoot and kill them. Often the Gestapo would throw a prisoner’s cap over the wire fence and then tell him to fetch it. Whenever any of the AL prisoners tried to retrieve their cap from beyond the fence, they would be shot where they stood. The labour camp in Blechhammer was forty kilometres from Katowice – on the German side. At one point, I couldn’t work due to exhaustion, and they sent me to the main medical commission in Cosel [Koźle, Pol.] so that the head doctor might determine whether or not I was feigning. There, I was declared sick and discharged. Here is the certificate discharging me from the camp, issued by Arbeitsamt Ratibor – Aussenstelle Blechhammer [Racibórz Labour Bureau – Blechhammer Branch]: Arbeitsamt Ratibor Aussenstelle Blechhammer Blechhammer, den 23. Juni 1943 II Blech. 5409/43 Fr./Fr. An die Firma Baugruppe Wartheland in Blechhammer [To the Wartheland Construction Company in Blechhammer] Betrifft: Freigabe des Pampuch Boleslaus, geb. 24.3.09 [Re: Discharge of Bolesław Pampuch, born on 24 March 1909] Obengennanter ist laut vertrauensärztlichen Gutachten vom 23.6.43 Nr 547 nicht mehr lagerfähig. Er ist daher und die Arbeitspapiere sind ihm auszuhändigen. [The aforenamed is no longer fit for camp, as per medical review board opinion no. 547 of 23 June 1943. He is therefore [discharged] and his work papers are to be handed over to him.] Im Auftrag [By order of] (illegible signature) I returned to Gniezno and despite being ill, I had to go straight to work for that same company. While living at home, I worked on the railway. After two months, they sent a card to my house summoning me to the company’s office. There, they told us that they were sending us away to work for three months; we would come back when the three months were up.