On 6 March 1946, acting Investigative Judge Halina Wereńko, delegated to the Commission for the Investigation of German Crimes, interviewed the person named below as a witness. Having been advised of the criminal liability for making false declarations and of the significance of the oath, the Judge took the oath, following which the witness testified:
| Name and surname | Józefa Paradowska née Książek |
| Date of birth | 6 April 1897 |
| Parents’ names | Józef and Antonina née Malinowska |
| Occupation | with my husband, furniture warehouses owner |
| Education | primary school |
| Address | Warsaw, Łucka Street 8 flat 23 |
| Religious affiliation | Roman Catholic |
| Criminal record | none |
During the Warsaw Uprising I lived on Elektoralna Street 35, flat 15, till 12 August 1944. In this period the area around our building was controlled by the resistance fighters. [Shortly] before 12 August the fighters withdrew, and the Germans took over the territory. At 5.30 p.m. vehicles full of SS men and Ukrainians pulled up in front of our house.
It’s hard to say how many of them there were, exactly. Very many, this I know.
The order was given for all residents to come out onto the street. We did so, carrying bundles. Our group was sent to Solna Street.
I need to mention that at the time of us leaving the shelters, SS men and Ukrainians began to plunder and rob the Polish people, taking their watches, any jewelry they found, and anything representing any value.
In Solna Street, our group of around 25 people was joined with other groups from Leszno, Ogrodowa and Elektoralna Streets, and in this way a huge group of around 9,000 people was put together. We were led along Leszno Street and Wolska Street towards St. Lawrence’s Church on Wolska Street. I was walking in the front row, leading my ill husband by the arm. We were hustled, and whenever somebody stopped, the Germans killed them. Throughout the entire march I could hear single shots. Władysław Kuran, who was walking at the back (he hasn’t come back from Germany yet), later told me that the Germans executed several dozen people while we were marching. As I was at the front, I also saw the corpses of many women, men and children in Leszno Street.
When we entered Wolska Street, there weren’t just single bodies, but piles of them one on top of another in the road. I think on the Leszno – Wolska – St. Lawrence’s Church route I might have seen around a thousand bodies. From St. Lawrence’s Church, our transport was sent through Pruszków to Aninburg [Oranienburg], where they segregated us. Men and women with children were put in the penitentiary camp in Aninburg [Oranienburg?], women who were on their own were sent to the Ravensbrück camp.
I don’t know to this day what fate my husband had to face. A friend who was with him, Ignacy Luborczyk (presently residing on Hrubieszowska Street 7), told me that before Aninburg [Oranienburg?] was taken over by the Red Army, the Germans shot all the weaker men in the forest near Pritzroake [?]. My husband was supposedly very weak, and three days before the weak were taken, he was carried [by] his colleagues.
Together with a transport from Warsaw, that took up the whole train, I was sent to Ravensbrück.
How many people the transport contained, I do not know. The journey from Aninburg [Oranienburg?] to Ravensbrück took two days, during which we weren’t given anything to eat. The journey was horrible, we were travelling in unroofed wagons, sixty people each, without a toilet. At Ravensbrück we were welcomed by the Gestapo, who hustled us into the camp behind barbed wires amid cursing, beating and pushing.
In the camp, we were led and surrounded by wire, we stood there all night. In the morning they took us to the bathrooms, our heads were shaved, we were given uniforms with crosses of different colors, numbers, and red badges. I had number 56809.
(The witness exhibits a striped prison garment, with a pocket on the front, above which is a red triangle and number 56809).
It wasn’t until then that they took us inside and gave us a cup of coffee without any bread. There were 600 of us on one side of the block, and on the other side, divided by a corridor, without a fence of any kind, there were another 600. After a couple of days the Gestapo and SS women conducted a search. This search was actually an inspection. My number and the number of a young, 17-year-old French person were written down by a Gestapo man. When I asked about it, the sztubowa said they were going to take me to work. After a couple of days I was called out by the sztubowa, who told me to take my bundle of belongings and go to the hospital, the so-called Revier. There were around 60 different nationalities in the waiting hall there. Me, four Dutchwomen, four Romanians, two Ukrainians and one French woman (I don’t recall their surnames) were assembled in a group (they recorded our numbers together). At 9.30, a German nurse came and gave all of the women of my group and me 9 pills each, 4 dark and five white. She told us to swallow and drink water.
Why we were given the pills and what kind of experiment was about to happen, I don’t know. After taking the pills, I started vomiting. I need to mention that I had swallowed eight of them, hiding one in my dress’s pocket. I managed to approach a female doctor – a prisoner of Czech nationality, and I asked her why we were being given the pills and showed one of them to her. She explained that I must be there in relation to a conviction, because such pills were given to those interrogated, and then the person says everything while asleep.
I don’t know the name of the pills.
May I digress here, and say that in Aninburg [Oranienburg?], at the time when I was separated from my husband, I made attempts to stay at the Aninburg [Oranienburg?] camp. I got into the female camp, shared my food with other prisoners and gave them leaflets that included news from the Warsaw Uprising. I was caught by a Polish kapo there, I don’t know her surname. She handed me over to the Gestapo, and told them that I’d had the leaflets. The Gestapo took me back to the people of my transport.
Back to the topic of Ravensbrück: the next day after I was given the pills, I was taken to be examined in the building where the Gestapo’s headquarters were placed. I was put on a chair, which – as I’d heard from my colleagues – was electric. While I was sitting on that chair, they asked me if I’d been handing out the leaflets. I didn’t confess. Then I was given four injections to the leg, in the middle of my shin. Apart from the injections, they did something else to my leg, I felt something like my bone being punctured, I saw something being kind of extracted from my leg into a test-tube, which was then filled with a yellowish fluid.
It was all done by a doctor in a white lab coat (I don’t know his surname). I was sitting in the chair the whole time. After the procedures I was walked back to my block (no. 28). My leg was really swollen and it festered.
After four days, our whole group and 180 other women were taken to the Auschwitz camp. I lay in a room there whose door was labeled with a piece of paper that said “interrogation room” in German. It was situated in the part of the camp called Birkenau. The experiments carried out on us continued there. I was receiving vein injections every day, subcutaneous and intramuscular.
What the substances were, I don’t know. One of the prisoners, a Polish kapo, said I’d been given sedatives to make me turn in fellow conspiracy members. The fact is that I hadn’t been working for any underground organization. Apart from the injections, they dressed my wounds, taking samples of the pus. The wound was opened again and again.
After two weeks the same 180 women who had come to Auschwitz from Ravensbrück were sent away to Buchenwald camp. The transport took two days by train, some German aviators gave us a piece of bread each and a glass of coffee at some station half way there.
At the Buchenwald camp we were led into a tent and our personal information was recorded. The next day we were all taken for interrogation, one at a time. Before the interrogation, I was given an injection in my neck and toe (my toenails are still coming off on this foot). During the interrogation, I denied giving leaflets to prisoners in Aninburg [Oranienburg?]. That was the last time I was investigated in Buchenwald. I was there for two weeks and nine days. In the camp, prisoners were used for heavy labor: [for example] pushing a wagon full of sand. I wasn’t working at that time, I was totally incapacitated.
After two weeks and nine days, our transport was joined by 600 French women and sent to Ravensbrück. We were placed in block 26 and we weren’t interrogated or experimented on any more. The women of our transport were forced to work in moving the sand. I couldn’t work, I was staying at the block.
After seven weeks, [all the people from] the block were lined up outside, and a commission from Dachau inspected the women. The commission, consisting of civilians and military men (I don’t know the surnames) picked some of the prisoners to work in a munitions factory, some were taken to brothels to become prostitutes, and the ill were to be executed. There were 700 of us women in the block. The commission was examining fingers, eyes, throats, teeth and legs. During the inspection, one of the Germans noticed that I had a couple of platinum teeth implants and he wrote that down. The implants were pulled out later in Dachau.
A transport of 700 women set off to Dachau, only some of them from our block. We travelled by train for five days, with no food or water. An SS woman named Richter watched us along with the Gestapo men. Richter beat us, she didn’t give us food or water, so that we wouldn’t bother her at night. She cursed us, calling us “Polish bandits”. We were fainting from exhaustion.
In Dachau, we were first bathed, then we were given pots, spoons and bowls, and then they told us to eat sweet red cabbage and a piece of bread each. Then there was a three-week quarantine, during which we didn’t go to work. The camp’s commandant at that time was Bavarian (I don’t know the surname) and he was good to prisoners. After three weeks we were ordered to work at a munitions factory. That lasted until December. On 1 December I was taken to the hospital, the so-called Revier. There I was told I’d be x-rayed. Instead, they led me into a room with a gynecological examination chair. I was told to strip naked. I refused, so they used force. The people present were a German doctor Bergend [?], Polish doctors from Grudziądz, Bydgoszcz, Pomerania, and two Russian doctors. Apart from Berglond [?], they were all wearing striped uniforms. Berglond [?] told me in German that I would be subjected to artificial insemination. Somebody interpreted it to me. They forced me to lie on the chair. They inseminated me with a syringe. It took about two hours. I really did get pregnant, my menstruation stopped. After three months, due to throat bleeding, I was sent to an x-ray again, but this time instead of that doctor Bergen performed an abortion on me, after which I lay in the Revier for three weeks.
It needs to be noted that after the artificial insemination Dr. Begend [?] pulled out six of my platinum implants and six of my dental crowns.
After I got well I was sent to work in the munitions factory. When the American army was approaching in April 1945, half of the women from our group – that is around 350 – were transported to the Tyrol Mountains, where – as I heard – an execution was carried out. The remaining group of 80 women who remained in the camp (including me) were supposed to be executed on 24 April. Along with a group of 40 people, I was sent to an underground prison, where we worked producing munitions until as late as 12 May 1945. On that day, we were freed by the Americans.
I heard the SS men tell them that 40 people working in the munitions factory were prisoners with life sentences. The Americans freed only 16 people out of 40, all others died. My number in Dachau was 109614.
The report was read out.