Polish Research Institute at Lund University, Sweden

Date of the protocol: Trelleborg, 26th May, 1946 Protocol No. 324

Witness’ family & given names: Mr. XXXXXXXXXX Places of internment Born on: March 24, 1919 Time period Placed in Prisoner data Notes from/to (triangle, number, letter) Birth place: , Poland Till July 27, 1944 RADOM Political prisoner, Concentration Occupation: Dental technician number 1568 camp Citizenship: Polish Religion: Jewish Aug 10, 1944/ VAIHINGEN/Enz Parents names (F/M) Majer/Lea Apr 7, 1945 Last residence in Radom Poland: Present residence: Johan Kocksgatan 5, Trelleborg, Sweden

The testimony consists of seven and a half pages of handwritten text and covers the following main items: 1.Deportation of the Little (Glinice) Ghetto. Alarm assembly of the Jewish Police in the Big Ghetto; speech of the action SS-leader; wake-up of people and order to report at the deportation area. Shootout; SS-men looting apartments; executions of people found in apartments; placing dead bodies in ditches; loading people into railroad cars; return of the policemen to the Big Ghetto. 2.First deportation from Ghetto I (Big Ghetto). Second deportation. Second day of deportation: liquidation of patients; common grave in the center of the city; komando removing traces of atrocities; execution of the komando members.

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Date of the protocol: Trelleborg, May 26, 1946 Protocol No. 324 Institute member at the protocol: Luba MELCHIOR (Translation from Polish by Kris Murawski1)

RECORD OF WITNESS TESTIMONY No. 324

Name: Mr. XXXXXXXXXX Born: March 24, 1919 In: Radom, Poland Occupation: Dental technician Religion: Jewish Parents 1st names: Majer, Lea Last residence in Poland: Radom Current residence: Johan Kocksgatan 5, Trelleborg, Sweden

Instructed about the importance of truthful testimony as well as on responsibility and consequences of false testimony, the witness testifies as to the following:

I was in: concentration camp RADOM as political prisoner with number 1568 from: to: Jul 27, 1944 then I was in: VAIHINGEN/Enz from: Aug 10, 1944 to: Apr 7, 1945

Asked if in connection with my incarceration, my work in concentration camp, I have any specific information about camp organization, the camp regimen, prisoners’ work conditions, treatment of prisoners, medical and pastoral care, sanitary/hygienic conditions, and also any specific events in all aspects of the camp life, I testify as follows:

The testimony consists of seven and a half pages of handwritten text and covers the following main items: 1.Deportation of the Little (Glinice) Ghetto. Alarm assembly of the Jewish Police in the Big Ghetto; speech of the action SS-leader; wake-up of people and order to report at the deportation area. Shootout; SS-men looting the apartments; executions of people found in apartments; placing dead bodies in ditches; loading people into railroad cars; return of the policemen to the Big Ghetto. 2.First deportation from Ghetto I (Big Ghetto). Second deportation.

1 Translator’s notes (if any) are in italics, enclosed in square brackets.

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Date of the protocol: Trelleborg, May 26, 1946 Protocol No. 324 Second day of deportation: liquidation of patients; common grave in the center of the city; komando removing traces of atrocities; execution of the komando members.

I was a member of the Ordnungsdienst []. On August 5, 1942 at 11 PM an order came to report for an alarm assembly. We did not know for what purpose. A purpose of an assembly was never known. We assumed it was to roundup people for work, which was normal in the Ghetto. Our group of 50 Ordnungsdienst members was escorted by Schupo and SD-men. We went in the direction of SD headquarters. We saw commotion, vehicles. The SD people were assembled and wore helmets. Knowing how Lublin was deported in April earlier the same year, we understood that what we saw was most likely a deportation. Already there was no way of return or escape. Approaching the outskirts of Ghetto II in Radom-Glinice, we saw it lighted and first SS guards on horseback and in automobiles. There was complete silence. In that silence we were directed to the headquarters of the Jewish Police of District II Glinice. We were all gathered in one room. SS-men, SD-men, Schutzpolizei officers, Reichspost officers and higher officers of the Wehrmacht were already there. SS- Hauptsturmführer FEUCHT, commissioner for Jewish affairs spoke to us. He declared that deportation is taking place; it is now 12 midnight, and by 2 AM all Ghetto residents are to report at designated points. Those who have a Meldekarte with an appropriate stamp of the Stadthauptmann are to assemble at Kośna and Kolejowa Streets. Those who don’t have a Meldekarte will gather at Dolna and Staroopatowska Streets. People without a Meldekarte are allowed to bring luggage, as much as they are able to carry; food for 3 days, jewelry, foreign currency and valuables. People with a Meldekarte (qualified workers) were advised to bring their work tools and food for one day. He reminded us of the bloody action in April, known in the Ghetto as the “Tuesday action,” when more than twenty policemen were taken away, more than fifty people were killed, while one hundred were arrested. He said that if we wanted to return to our families at Wałowa Street, i.e., to Ghetto I, we must follow his directives. To be able to gather all residents by 2 AM as ordered, we were not allowed to walk but to run. We were divided in two groups of policemen: those from Glinice who knew the area and those from the city, i.e., Ghetto I. We were made into pairs, a policeman from Glinice and a policeman from the city. Each pair got a list of addresses. We read on the run where to go to wake up people and to notify them where were they instructed to go. A commotion arose in Glinice, banging at the doors, screaming of terrified people who did not understand what was going on, unprepared, small children crying and us calming down people although we knew what awaited them. We did not want to create panic knowing that those numerous armed SS-men look for a commotion to respond with shooting to any sign of resistance. We wanted at least those people with a Meldekarte to be saved. After 15-20 minutes people began to leave their apartments. People with bundles, mothers with children, and some people already separated as husbands with the right documents went in one direction while women with children in another. The husbands assumed that families will be later reunited,

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Date of the protocol: Trelleborg, May 26, 1946 Protocol No. 324 that they will not be separated. A terrible shootout started. First screams of fallen people and shouts of drunken soldiers who were lined up on both sides on the sidewalks and forced people to the center of the street chasing them and shooting. I have seen a scene that I will never forget: A women of 26-28 years of age walked carrying a 3-month swaddled baby. An SS-man approached her, quietly removed the baby from mother’s arms, took it from the swaddle, grasped the baby at its leg and slammed baby’s head at the brick wall. It happened on the Luboński Street. To mother’s scream he responded with a kick in the abdomen, and when she fell, he shot her dead. The shooting was nonstop. It was so chaotic that finally Hauptsturmfürer FEUCHT ordered to stop it – not for our benefit, but clearly stating that an SS-man can be hurt by a stray bullet. The action of emptying the apartments was completed by 1:30 AM. There were 7,000 people. Searching of apartments began. An SD-man was assigned to each pair of Jewish policemen. Jewish police were no longer trusted. I was with the SD-man BENTZ, well known from his excesses in the Radom Ghetto; he was a Volksdeutscher from Łódź. SD functionaries were forbidden by their authorities to rummage for money and gold during apartment searches. They were supposed to search only for people in hiding and to shoot them on the spot. We found an old sick woman in bed. He ordered us to carry her to the backyard. As soon as we were behind the fence and not even reached the gate, we heard a shot and a scream. He ordered us to carry “Mist” to a street ditch and place her there. From there the corpses were transferred to a common grave in the Dolna Street waste dumps. In an apartment of a rich Jew, in spite that looting was forbidden, our SD-man searched clothing and drawers and items found there hid in his pockets, looking around to assure that we do not see it. We did not care. Being under enormous stress, we craved for tobacco. We noticed tobacco on the table. We asked the SD-man for permission to take the tobacco; he allowed us to do so, willing to divert our attention from what he was doing. Suddenly he noticed the SS-man’s face in the window. Before I was able to push aside the tobacco and the cigarette tubes, the SS- man was already inside the apartment; he was the sector commanding officer, Sturmscharführer KRAUZE. He did not ask questions – he punched me twice in the face. Only after that he asked me if I knew that it was not allowed to touch anything in the apartment. I explained that we obtained permission from the SD-man to roll up a few cigarettes. The SD- man did not deny. Nevertheless, he said that for looting we deserved death penalty. He led us out from the apartment and I was sure that this was the end. He ordered us to run. Luckily, I reached the fence unconsciously and continued running not knowing where I was going. In such state I got to the headquarters of the Jewish Police. Instead of the Jewish policemen, I found the general staff in charge of the action there. I entered at a moment when people were being walked out from the jail. They were people detained for minor infractions of sanitary regulations, insubordination at work, etc. 15-16 young people were taken out to the yard to be executed by four SS-men. I saw an assembled group of Jewish policemen waiting for

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Date of the protocol: Trelleborg, May 26, 1946 Protocol No. 324 further orders and I joined them. After a few minutes we have been ordered to go to Dolna Street to the railroad siding where people were being boarded into waiting railway cars. We marched under a strong escort convinced that we will be put on the train as well. We reached the siding entrance at 3:30 AM. On both sides standing were SS-men, Schutzpolizei and the Polish police. Before entering the wagon, everybody was searched closely. Everything was taken away. I saw people entering the wagons in underwear. Steam hovered over the railway cars. Heat belched out from the cars. The cars were so overloaded that people suffocated after half an hour. Cars contained 150-160 people each and were closed at both ends with only two small barred openings. Boards on the tracks served as ramps leading to the wagons. There was about 60 wagons altogether. All around was covered with dead bodies. Our task was to remove the corpses and carry them to nearby ditches. One corpse was carried by two of us. Myself with a companion we were carrying a pregnant woman. Being stressed and with a load beyond our strength, I tripped over and fell. I was beaten terribly by the SS-man which I barely survived. We got to the ditches. There were already Jews working there, captured from the Big Ghetto I. They undressed the corpses, threw them into the ditches and sprinkled them with quicklime. I did not return to my work of carrying corpses. With the other policemen I waited for next orders. Finally, at 4:30 AM we were allowed to return to the Ghetto. Under a strong escort we went into the direction of the city. We walked slowly, exhausted and tired after what we have experienced and after work. We reached the military hospital on Narutowicza Street. An automobile with the action leader FEUCHT came from the opposite direction. He shouted and cursed us, why we walk instead of running. Running, we reached the Ghetto. Here, again, we saw something unexpected. The same as at Glinice, SS-men were lined up on both sides, waiting for what? We knew for what – for new victims. And here again FEUCHT spoke to us: “I am short of two thousand people to fill the wagons. Within half an hour people from both sides of the street between Bernardyńska and Starokrakowska are to be brought here .” The same started as before in Glinice with a difference that there was no shooting here, because it was daytime already. Meldekarten were examined. People with work documents moved in the direction of the church while the others were lined-up for deportation. When I was told to go to apartments to order people to leave, I went to my own apartment where my family was. There was no one there already: my father, brother and wife were at the deportation site. I looked for my closest family first. It was difficult to spot them in the crowd. I saw my father first. I took him to the SS-man. Father presented the work document, and the SS-man dismissed him in spite of his advanced age. I kept looking. I heard my wife’s voice. She looked terribly. She did not have a work document. I looked for someone who would give me a permission to pull her out of the lineup. I took a risk and went to FEUCHT. I told him that my wife is in the deportation group, that she works but she does not have the Meldekarte – and I asked him to let her free. He agreed because his quota was already filled. (Families of Ordnungsdienst members were not freed at Glinice.)

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Date of the protocol: Trelleborg, May 26, 1946 Protocol No. 324 A departure of people began. From all the people the most visible was the town rabbi in the entourage of his family. He walked quietly, pale and resigned. After completion of the action, people in the Big Ghetto expected more deportations. It was obvious that this fate will not spare the Big Ghetto. The Ghetto was usually dark. People waited for the first sign of deportation which was installation of floodlight reflectors. This happened the of August 16, 1942. I am going to describe the second day of the so called great deportation. It took place during the night of the 17th. Boss of the Order Service (Ordnungsdienst) was requested to send 50 policemen to the Jewish hospital. I was assigned to that group. We knew why we were going there. We have already heard what was done with the hospital in Lublin. Knowing that my father is there, I was in worse mental condition than my companions. I had a flicker of hope that I might be able to save him. We stopped in front of the hospital. The hospital was outside of the Ghetto, in the Aryan sector. The leader of our unit reported our arrival to the SS-man. At that time the staff and the doctors left the hospital under the escort of SS-men. We were ordered to enter the hospital. My father was the first person whom I caught sight of. He lay in a flower bed in the courtyard, terribly massacred, face down. I recognized him by his clothing. As I found out later, he was dressed as being one of the non-seriously ill patients; they were ordered to get dressed because they were supposedly going to the city. But they were executed in the courtyard. Before I even knew what was going on, we got badly whipped. Untersturmführer Schippers, future chief of the Radom Arbeitslager, was particularly cruel. Many SS-men, Ukrainians and Wehrmacht soldiers were in the hospital building and courtyard. With beating we were rushed to carry patients from the hospital building to a nearby lot, a so called Pens lot [Penz Garden]. SCHIPPERS ordered to lay them in a circle, 20 at a time, with heads facing each other. That is, heads of them were in the center of the circle. Those people were still alive but half-dead being so frightened. A Ukrainian with a machine gun stepped into the center and turning around he killed them one after another. We carried the dead to a ditch, where corpses already lye from the deportation from the day before. Jewish workers who were left from the deportation were throwing corpses to the grave. After 2 days of deportation there were 900 killed people in that grave. It was in the city center. The field was seeded [sic!] with potatoes; ground was leveled not leaving a trace. At the end of October 1943 the corpses were removed by a group of about 60 Jewish workers. This was a komando with the only task to erase traces of the bloody actions. Their work was performed in strict secrecy. Workers were isolated and clouded in mystery; it was not known where they were. They worked in seclusion and had no contact with their families. When this work was being performed, all people were removed from the adjacent area and the place was shielded with straw curtains so that no one in the neighborhood could see what was going on. I saw them accidentally from a distance. I was passing by in a fully loaded tall truck, seating on the top of

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Date of the protocol: Trelleborg, May 26, 1946 Protocol No. 324 it. When the work was finished, this group of sixty was executed in the Bliżyn woods early in 1944. People from Bliżyn were given their bloody clothing. Read, signed, accepted (Signed) I. XXXXXXXXXX

Comments of the interviewer: The witness describes facts that he experienced personally. He recalls with great pain the moment when he saw the dead body of his father. His testimony deserves an unconditional confidence. A few details that are well known to me need explanations: The witness was a Jewish policeman in the Radom Ghetto. He gives fragments of the Radom deportations. 1. On page 1 [page 3 of the English translation], the witness says that while on the way to the assignment, he had understood that they were being taken to assist with deportation and because of this they wanted to run away. They knew that being eyewitnesses they could also expect that they will be deported. In other towns the Jewish policemen who participated in “action” were deported. 2. What was Ghetto II? There were two ghettos in Radom: Ghetto I, the Big Ghetto, in the center of the city, with the main street Wałowa known as “Wał,” and Ghetto II, the Little Ghetto, in the outlying Glinice district of Radom, with the main street Kwiatkowskiego. Ghetto II was a branch of Ghetto I. 3. It is the first time that I come across the participation of high officers of Wehrmacht in a deportation. 4. Meldekarte – a work document issued by the Arbeitsamt. Theoretically, carrier of such card was considered a productive individual and as such was allowed to be spared and to live. During the Glinice deportation the Meldekarten were honored. During the great deportation the SS-men did not care about papers and deported people as they wished. 5. I would like to point out contradictions in regulations. Before the deportation, possession of foreign currency was punishable by sending to a concentration camp. During the deportation, the SS-man in charge of the “action” states publicly that those who do not have work papers are allowed to take foreign currency and jewelry. The purpose was robbery; before entering the railway cars, the deportees were searched and everything was taken away from them. 6. The SS-man in charge of the “action” threatens the Jewish policemen that they will share the fate of their colleagues deported last April if they do not perform assigned tasks.

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Date of the protocol: Trelleborg, May 26, 1946 Protocol No. 324 In 1942 the Ghetto did not receive official allocations of meat; it was brought in illegally. The Germans were not able to suppress smuggling. They assigned this task to the Jewish Police which they did not accomplish. On April 28, 1942 sent 25 Jewish policemen to Auschwitz as a punishment. It was supposed to be a warning for others to increase their efforts in combating smuggling. To my knowledge, only one of them survived. (Signed) Luba Melchior Institute member Certifying compliance: Signature: Kr. Karier Institute member

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