Warsaw, 3 September 1945. Investigating judge Mikołaj Halfter interviewed the person specified below as a witness. Having advised the witness of the criminal liability for making false declaration and of the significance of the oath, the judge swore the witness in, after which the latter testified as follows:
| Name and surname | Władysława Karolewska |
| Date of birth | 15 March 1909 |
| Names of parents | Jakub and Helena nee Barańska |
| Place of residence | Warsaw, Praga district, Inżynierska Street 7, flat 25 |
| Occupation | presently unemployed due to sickness, before the war a kindergarten teacher in Grudziądz |
| Religious affiliation | Roman Catholic |
| Criminal record | none |
| Relationship to the parties | none |
A few days before the military operations began in 1939, I left Grudziądz and took up residence at my sister Genowefa Szawaryn’s place in Lublin, at Królewska Street 10, flat 9. I lived there until I was arrested on 13 February 1941. Let me emphasize that Edward Piasecki, my brother-in-law, who also lived at Władysław Szawaryn’s place, was a Polish officer. Edward Piasecki worked at the parish office at the Lublin cathedral.
On 13 February 1941, five Gestapo men showed up at my sister’s place. They wore gray uniforms and their hats bore skull emblems. They asked about Józef Piasecki’s whereabouts. He was not home at that moment. Then, the Gestapo men searched the flat but did not take anything. However, they arrested all those present at the scene, that is Władysław Szawaryn, who ran the parish office, my sisters Helena Piasecka and Henryka Karolewska, myself, and one other employee of the parish office, who happened to be at my sister’s place at that moment.
They walked us all to the Lublin Gestapo station, which at that time was located on Uniwersytecka Street, where me and my sister Henryka were immediately taken to a cell and separated from the others. On that day, I did not see any of them again. On the evening of that day, without an interrogation, my sister Henryka Karolewska and I were taken to the Lublin castle, where we were placed in separate cells. A few days later, my sister Helena Piasecka was also brought to the castle (as I saw, through a window), but she was not assigned to my cell. There were around thirty women in my cell. There were not enough bunks so some of us slept on the wooden floor.
I was not interrogated until 27 February, when they took me to the Gestapo station in a car. Present during my interrogation was an interpreter. The interrogator only spoke German and wore a uniform. He demanded that I confess to being a member of the Polish underground. I refused, and then the German interrogator started to beat me with a riding whip, which was capped with a lead ball. He hit me on my legs methodically, starting from the waist and down to the calves.
I do not know the name of the interrogator. We called him “The Guy with a Tuft”, because that is what his hair looked like.
My first interrogation lasted around four hours. He also asked me about Mr. Piasecki, my brother-in-law. I never testified anything that could incriminate anybody. I did not pass out during this interrogation and I did not bleed, only I had bruises for the next couple of weeks.
I do not know the name of the interpreter. I think he was a volksdeutsch because he spoke very good Polish, without a foreign accent.
Before he proceeded to beat me, the Gestapo man ordered the interpreter out of the room. He did not lay a hand on me in the presence of the interpreter. Overall, in the course of the entire interrogation, he beat me three times, each bout lasting a dozen or so minutes. A few times during the interrogation, the Gestapo man sent the interpreter to fetch some arrested Poles, whom I did not know, for a cross-examination. When the interpreter was out, the interrogator beat me.
After four hours of interrogation, I was taken back to the cell at the Gestapo station. I remained inside for a few days. One day, I saw Edward Piasecki, my brother-in-law, passing through the corridor. I could see how much he had aged, as he was walking hunched, with his arms dropping to his knees, cutting a sick figure, with a vacant stare. I saw him two days in a row, three times a day, when they escorted him to the toilet. I stood at the bars and called at him, but he did not react in any way, although he must have heard me because he was passing half a yard away. Later, I spoke about my brother-in-law with the prison doctor. He was a Pole, and I think his name was Kalita, but I am not sure, it may have been something else. Kalita told me that my brother-in-law, after they beat him, had lost his grip on reality, did not speak, and was fed by his comrades because he could not feed himself. I saw my brother-in-law for the final time in March of that year in the prison’s hospital, where he lay on a bed with his legs pulled up, and with the same vacant stare. Later, I learned that on 5 April 1941 he was put on a stretcher and ferried off to Auschwitz. In the fall of that year, my sister Genowefa was notified that Edward Piasecki had died at Auschwitz.
After I spent a couple of days in a Gestapo cell, which I have mentioned above, I was taken back to the castle (it was on 6 March). Earlier, I was once again interrogated at the Gestapo station, by the same interrogator, only he did not beat me this time round. I remained at the castle until 21 September 1941. I was not interrogated again over that period.
During my time at the castle, we received the following food rations: in the morning, a piece of dark bread, some 15 dag, and an unsweetened black coffee; at noon, water with bran or groats (without any fat), and some coffee in the evening. Once a day, we were taken to the prison yard for a 15-minute walk. Once a week, we were allowed to receive parcels from our families. Essentially, there was no limit on the weight of these parcels, but it was forbidden to send fruit, cigarettes, or juice. Often, the parcels were lost or only some of their original content reached us, which we figured from what the parcel looked like. No incoming or outgoing mail was allowed. I neither sent nor received secret messages. My fellow prisoners never mentioned getting or sending any, either. If we had not been getting these parcels, then we would not have made it, obviously.
Since the castle, too, was an interrogation site, we often heard the sounds of beatings and screams. Often, in the evenings, a couple of prisoners were taken from the cells to be executed. This is what we figured because these prisoners were told to leave their items behind. Later, we learned that these items were handed back to their families, as long as they came to claim them. These convicts were always collected by “Judge” Detrych. The story had it that he had graduated from the faculty of law at the Poznań University. He spoke very good Polish. He treated these convicts very brutally, hitting and kicking them. The executions took place somewhere off the prison’s grounds. During my incarceration, I heard that one execution, on 4 February, was carried out on the premises.
Every effort was made to prevent prisoners from different cells from communicating, but we sometimes managed to get in touch with each other because they let prisoners from a few cells out for a walk at the same time, and then it was possible to exchange a few words with fellow inmates on the sly (because it was prohibited). We were taken to the showers more or less once a week. We were allowed to receive underwear from our families.
On 21 September 1941, together with another 155 women, I was transported to Ravensbrück. We traveled on a passenger train. On 23 September 1941, we arrived at Ravensbrück. At the station, we were picked up by vans and taken to the camp, which was located two kilometers away from the town of Fürstenberg. After we arrived, they took away our belongings, made us put on prison underwear and robes, and sent us to wooden barracks. For three weeks, we were in quarantine, meaning we lived in a separate barrack.
After three weeks, our barrack ceased to be the quarantine barrack and we started to work. It was only manual labor: we moved coke, poured sand at the barracks’ foundations, carried planks and logs, picked potatoes in the field, moved boulders, and constructed roads. At first, we worked eight hours a day, then it was twelve. In the morning, we were issued some 20 dag of bread (to suffice for the entire day) and unsweetened coffee, then, at noon, four or five unpeeled potatoes and some vegetable, usually a Swedish turnip, and some soup or coffee in the evening. The food was meagre and insufficient so after a few months all the prisoners turned into pale shadows of their former selves. In spring 1942, food rations were reduced: now we received only a quarter of a liter of soup for lunch, and the bread ration was down to 15 dag, while the amount of coffee remained unchanged.
The guards were all women. They beat us for any trifle, e.g. for tying a robe with a string, as it was supposed to hang loosely. The guards walked with dogs and very often unleashed them on us, and they bit us. If a guard determined that a prisoner had not shoveled enough sand, that was reason enough to unleash a dog on her. All this was designed to grind us down. For instance, in winter, we got up at 2:30 European time and we had 45 minutes to get dressed, make the beds, military-style, and eat breakfast, and then the roll-call followed. When we arrived, there were 25 barracks housing more or less 270 prisoners each. The roll- call sometimes lasted two or three hours because each barrack was inspected and then they checked if the number of prisoners was correct. Regardless of the weather, we had to stand in rows and were not allowed to break them. After the numerical roll-call, the working roll- call took place, meaning prisoners formed up according to working assignments (those who worked in the field separate from those who moved coke, etc.), and the numerical strength was checked again. We worked until noon and then we were granted a half-an-hour break for lunch. Often, the siren rang out before we returned from the field to the barracks to have lunch, and so we had to resume work not having eaten anything. Actually, they did issue the lunch to us, but we had no time to eat it and we left it on the table in the barrack. The afternoon shift was between 12:30 and 6:00 p.m. (this is what it looked like until fall 1942). Starting in the fall of 1942, we worked until 8:00 p.m. Both in 1941 and later, there was another roll-call after work. The evening roll-calls were only done away with in fall 1944. The evening roll-call sometimes lasted a few hours if something was not in order, so sometimes there was no time to eat supper and we had to go to sleep hungry. We were not allowed to receive any parcels from families until November 1942. We received letters once a month.
Aside from hunger, we suffered from cold because at first, in 1941, we wore summer underwear, a dress, a short nettle jacket without the lining, a thin headscarf, stockings, and wooden clogs or shoes. In May 1942, they took away our shoes, stockings, jackets and headscarves. Rainy and cold weather was not particularly uncommon even in the summer, so most of us had frostbitten feet. They did not return our shoes, stockings, jackets, and headscarves until October.
On 19 April 1942, thirteen women from the Lublin transport were executed. That month, twelve women from the Radom transport were also executed, along with a few women from the Częstochowa transport. We do not know for what reason.
They were taken from the bunker, where punishments were meted out; I saw them being taken outside barefoot, without their headscarves or gowns on (later, I learned that they had had everything taken off aside from the dresses). They were loaded on an ambulance and taken off the camp’s grounds. It was immediately before the roll-call. During the roll-call, we heard a salvo beyond the wall, and then “shots of mercy”. It all took place by the pigpen. Immediately before the execution, one of the guards told us that she would “go see these Polish pigs go down”, got on her bicycle, and rode off. I do not know the name of this guard. Executions took place more or less every month. We heard these salvos often.
Since 22 July 1942, we, that is the Lublin transport, only worked on the camp’s premises and they did not let us outside. On 23 July, they named 75 prisoners from our transport and told them to report with the camp commandant. They checked the list in the presence of the camp commandant and a few SS-men. Later, it turned out that one of them was a doctor. The next day, we were ordered to report to the camp hospital, where we were stood in rows of ten: the list was checked again, and ten of us were selected for medical examination. Six out of these ten were kept at the hospital and injected with an anesthetic. When they came to, they were sent back to the barracks. They were only summoned again on 1 August. The rest of us were sent back to the blocks right after the examination and told to resume our regular work at the workshops.
I learned what I stated above from those six prisoners. On 1 August, they were summoned again and completely separated from the other prisoners. That day, one of the girls managed to come near a hospital window and she said that these six women were lying on the beds, unconscious, and their right legs were in plaster casts. This is when we realized that they planned to use us for some experimental surgeries. The women spent two weeks in beds and were very closely guarded.
After two weeks, they took another group, including myself, and then I met these prisoners. Nine other women were taken with me. I was given a morphine injection and, half-conscious, wheeled to the operating theater. I only woke up at night, vomiting violently and with an awful pain in my right leg. We were left with no medical assistance whatsoever, under lock and key. I had a very high fever. They took our temperature in the morning, a German nurse noted it down, and I heard her say I had 41 degrees Celsius. They took our temperature in the morning and in the evening, and they also checked our pulse. Every second day, they collected blood and urine from us for an examination. There were fifteen of us overall in two connected rooms. I spent two weeks in bed with a severe pain in my leg and a high fever, my leg was swollen from the toes all the way up to the groin, being encased in a plaster cast from the ankle to the knee.
On the second day after the surgery, I felt that my leg stank terribly. The stench from the pus was such that people passing through the yard by the windows held their breath. On the third day after the surgery, we had the plaster casts removed in the operating theater, and Dr. Fischer, Prof. Dr. Gebhardt’s assistant, applied dressings.
I do not know exactly what he was doing because they covered our eyes. The application of the dressing was very painful. I got the feeling that they were draining the pus. (At this point, the witness presented to the judge a scar on the right side of her right leg, 2 cm from the ankle, 9 cm long, running toward the knee, concavity around 1.5 cm wide; she said that the wound had been much bigger). After two weeks, my temperature dropped and I was transferred to the block. I could not walk at all and my comrades carried me if needed. The leg was swollen all the time and pus kept flowing out of it. Twice a week, they took me to the hospital to change my dressing. They only covered my eyes on the first couple of occasions, and later I could already see the wound. The procedure was performed in a perfectly regular manner.
Having spent a week at the block, I was taken back to the hospital (on 16 September 1942), where they operated upon me again, under general anesthetic. In my opinion, this surgery must have caused another infection (because prior to the first surgery my leg was completely fine). After the second surgery, the leg started to swell again and generally I presented with the same symptoms as previously. After a few days, a display was held, meaning they put the six of us in a room, covered our eyes, and exposed our scars, and the doctors surveyed our legs. I caught a glimpse of Prof. Gebhardt, among others. I do not speak German so I could not determine what the panel were discussing. There was a German doctor on the hospital staff, and she called us Kaninchen [rabbits].
After three weeks, I was sent back to the block. I would only go back to the hospital to have my dressings changed. Pus oozed from the wound until June 1943. I felt constant pain around the wound, in the bone, and in the entire leg. Roughly once a month, sometimes every two weeks, my temperature shot up to 40 degrees and I experienced severe pain in my leg, so that I could not move. It would pass spontaneously. I did not work. We received the same food rations as the other prisoners. We filed a petition with the camp commandant (I will provide the date and contents of this petition at a later time because I have the relevant details in my notes at home), in which we inquired about why they were subjecting us to experiments without our consent. We did not receive any response.
After six months, we were supposed to have another surgery. I was one of those selected. We decided to oppose these surgeries. Then, the Germans told us that we were to be sent for labor and that the Arbeitsamt [employment office] planned to have us work in a factory. We did not report to the doctor because we figured it was a ruse. It was 15 August 1943, Sunday, so the afternoon was free. As a punishment, all prisoners were recalled from a walk and sent back to the blocks, aside from those from our block: instead, we were stood in rows of ten. Senior guard Binz came to us, called out a few prisoners, including me, and asked why we had failed to report to the doctor, saying that we were supposed to be sent to a factory. We replied that she knew full well it was about a surgery and not leaving for a factory. Following her suggestion, we gathered in front of the office, where she was supposed to read a relevant letter to us, but instead – as we learned from the canteen employees – she went to the commandant, and together they went to the SS-men’s barracks. Then, we escaped to the block and mingled with our comrades standing in rows, but the local police arrived and they pulled us out by force.
Binz said that because we had not waited for her, we would be going to the bunker as a punishment. The ten of us were taken away. We were locked in dark cells, five in each. As a punishment for an attempt to hide us, our block was locked down for three days, meaning that they the window shutters were closed, doors were locked, and the prisoners were left without food and fresh air.
We remained in the bunker until 16 August. On that day, we heard some activity on the stairs. At one point, a guard opened the door of our cell and, since I was standing closest, she grabbed me first. I was sure I was about to be interrogated or flogged. On my way, seeing open cells with beds covered with prison sheets (there were no sheets in the bunker and mattresses were the best you could hope for) and having spotted a stretcher, I realized they were going to operate on us in the bunker. An SS-man took me to one of the cells and asked me if I would give my consent to the surgery. I refused. It was Dr. Trommer, the head doctor of the Ravensbrück hospital. Sometime later, after I still refused to go into surgery, one of the SS-men dragged me into a room and threw me on one of the made-up beds, while Dr. Trommer grabbed my arm and tried to gag me. I tried to shake them off. Another two SS- men held me by my arms and legs, and a nurse gave me an injection.
We were operated upon in clothes, they did not even clean our legs. I woke up at night and noticed that a nurse was removing my dress. My legs were immobilized in splints which reached my groins. I had a high fever and I felt acute pain in my legs. I passed out again. The others told me that all night long I vomited violently, screamed, and was unconscious. I only came to in the morning.
We had been in the bunker for four days when a doctor came (I do not remember his name), I was again injected with an anesthetic, and I went into surgery once more: I had both my legs operated on, with a view to infecting me, I believe. My temperature again rose to 40 degrees, and when we asked a doctor to give us something to counter the fever, she said that we had been injected with some particular agent and the doctor in charge said we were forbidden from receiving any medication. The pain was excruciating.
We had remained in the bunker until 25 August 1943. On that day, we had the stitches removed and we noticed that pus was flowing from the wounds profusely. (At that point, the witness presented both her legs to the judge, who found two scars, around 14 cm long, on the inside of both shins – one scar on each. The witness stated that these scars were a result of said surgeries).
On the night of 26 August, when everybody at the camp was sleeping, we were taken on stretchers to the hospital, where they opened our wounds again. On 15 September, I went into surgery again, and this time they only operated on my left leg. A nurse told me privately that I (and the others, too) had a fragment of the bone excised from the region on which they had previously operated. This time, they did not suture the entire wound so that pus could evacuate. Two weeks later, they operated on my right leg, using the same procedure as before.
They also made two additional incisions in the same region they had previously operated on. Pus had been oozing for a few weeks. After these surgeries, they immobilized our legs in splints (I was in the room with all the others). I was immobilized for half a year. I could not even lower my legs. I felt excruciating pain. We received no medical assistance, they only changed our dressings from time to time. After half a year, I stood up for the first time, felt acute pain, and they put me back in bed. I stood up again two weeks later and started to learn how to walk.
I only returned to the block in March 1944. At that time, I could only take a few steps at a time. Presently, I experience constant pain and my legs swell every day. I do not walk much because my legs tire fast and I feel acute pain in the bones. I have a recurrent fever from time to time. I submit a newspaper clipping from “Volischer Beobachter” from spring 1944 with a photo of Dr. Gebhard, about whom I have testified (the witness has submitted a newspaper clipping). Presently, Dr. Kołodziejska from the Polish Red Cross has examined me and found that my heart is very weak and for that reason I should lie down all the time.
At that the report was interrupted. The report was read out.
MEDICO-LEGAL REPORT
Warsaw, 14 September 1945. Investigating judge Mikołaj Halfter, acting on the motion of the prosecutor and through the agency of expert medical witnesses, Prof. Adam Gruca (son of Kazimierz and Dorota, director of the Central Institution of Trauma Surgery, temporarily residing at the Baby Jesus Hospital in Warsaw, no relationship to the parties, no criminal record) and Prof. Dr. Wiktor Grzywno-Dąbrowski (head of the Forensic Medicine Department of the University of Warsaw, resident of Warsaw, Grochowska Street 24b), a sworn-in expert witness, conducted a medico-legal examination of Władysława Karolewska, b. 15 March 1909, daughter of Jakub and Helena, resident of Warsaw, Inżynierska Street 7, flat 25.
Asked by the expert medical witness, the patient stated as follows: before her internment at the Ravensbrück camp, she suffered from no serious ailments and had never been hospitalized. Between September 1941 and spring 1945, she was interned at the Ravensbrück camp, Mecklenburg.
On 14 August 1942, completely fit, she received an injection in the right thigh. The procedure resulted in dizziness and vomiting. Next, she received another intravenous injection in the left arm, after which she soon passed out. She woke up at night, in the general patients’ room at the Ravensbrück camp hospital. She experienced vomiting, pain in the right leg, and very high fever. When she had temperature taken on the next morning, the thermometer showed 40 degrees Celsius. The leg was swollen all the way up to the groin and encased in a plaster cast from the ankle to the knee. Already in the morning, the leg stank. During the first couple of days, she would faint periodically. On the third day after the surgery, she underwent a very painful procedure to change the dressing. Her eyes were covered at that time. She got the impression that she was having something removed from the leg: maybe pus, or maybe gauze. After the procedure, she was taken back to the general room. She had a high fever. For three weeks, she had her dressings changed every three or four days. Afterward, the dressings were changed twice a week. During that period, her temperature was upward of 38 degrees Celsius. Three and a half weeks after the first surgery, she was again administered general anesthesia at the hospital. She woke up in the general room with a high fever, her leg swollen, with pus oozing out of it.
Then, for three weeks, she had a high fever and the wound suppurated heavily so that minutes after the dressing was changed the bandage was soaked with pus. The pus stank badly. Until June 1943, heavy suppuration continued and the fever recurred from time to time. In June 1943, she tried to walk. In July 1943, she could walk rather well.
In August 1943, she underwent another surgery. When she woke up, she found that her legs were bandaged up to the groin. She was given some injection. On the fourth day, she received another injection and her temperature rose to 40 degrees. A nurse explained to her that she was forbidden from receiving any drugs that would reduce her temperature. On 30 August 1943, her left leg was operated upon again and the wound was opened once more. She later found out that she had had a fragment of a bone excised from her left leg. Heavy suppuration had continued for a few weeks. After two weeks, she had a fragment of a bone removed from her right leg. At the same time, additional incisions were made.
Then, she was in bed for half a year, more or less until February 1944. In total, she had undergone six surgeries. She only started to walk in March 1944, and until that time, her legs had hurt a lot upon any attempts at walking. Presently, she experiences acute pain in her legs when walking. She walks with a limp in her right leg.
Present condition: the patient’s height is below average, she is sufficiently nourished, her body build is poor. Patellar reflexes distinct and even. Achilles tendon reflexes weak and even. No pathological reflexes found. No objective changes found in the nervous system. No objective changes found in the course of examining the internal organs. Functions and strength of the lower extremities normal. Both extremities – especially feet – are pale red in color. The skin is dry and shriveled.
On the anterior side of the left crus, around 6 cm below the knee, there is an elongated scar, 13 cm wide, curving slightly outward at the top end, between 1 and 2 cm wide, slightly tapered in its middle section. Intersecting with this scar are 10 transverse scars, around 4 cm long. Around the scar, the leg is warmer and clearly tender to slight palpation. Palpation reveals an uneven surface of the tibia. On the right crus, there is a scar around 14 cm long, half a centimeter wide, smooth, intersected with ten transverse scars, around 3 cm wide. Almost immediately next to the first scar, toward the outer side, there are two scars, 4 cm long each. The leg is warm around the scars and clearly tender to palpation. The surface of the tibia is uneven. On the outer side of the crus, 10 cm above the external ankle, there is a scar, 8 cm long, up to 2 cm wide, tapered in its middle section, coalesced with the base.
This scar is intersected with two transverse scars, 3 cm wide. Around the upper angle of the scar, there is a palpable concretion, very tender to palpation.
When asked specifically, the experts pass the following tentative opinion: the patient underwent two types of procedures: the procedures of the first type, performed on the right crus, consisted in the injection of infectious material, while the procedures of the second type consisted in exposing the bone, injecting infectious material a few days later, and collecting bone lamina, which can be concluded from the anamnesis. These procedures resulted in the dysfunctionality of both lower extremities for the period of at least a year and a half.
The infection caused by the surgeries constituted a life-threatening condition for Władysława Karolewska for many months.
In order to pass the final opinion, it is necessary to perform an X-ray and examine the radiograms.
The report was read out.
ADDITIONAL OPINION CONCERNING W. KAROLEWSKA.
16 October 1945
1. The radiogram from 18 September 1945 reveals a bone defect in the upper part of the right tibial shaft, located on the anterior side around the bone crest, around 7 cm wide and 1 cm deep, which, according to the roentgenologist, was created after the chiseling of bone lamina for transplantation.
A similar indentation revealed in the left shinbone. No changes found in either fibular bone.
2. Given the above and taking into account the examination of the victim and the anamnesis, it has to be concluded that after the soft tissue had been cut through, the wound was infected, and then, after the bone had been exposed, the wound was infected again, and after some time bone lamina was excised.
It appears that the objective of these procedures was to examine the effect of the infecting agent on the organism and the bones.
3. As a result of the infection and the damage to the patient’s bones, both her lower extremities were dysfunctional for around a year and a half. The infection which developed after the surgeries constituted a life-threatening condition for W. Karolewska for many months.
W. Grzywo-Dąbrowski