Warsaw, 26 February 1946. Judge Stanisław Rybiński, delegated to the Commission for the Investigation of German Crimes, investigated the person specified below as a witness. Having advised the witness of the criminal liability for making false declarations and of the significance of the oath, the judge swore in the witness, after which the latter testified as follows:
| Name and surname | Maria Karczmarz |
| Date of birth | 27 July 1917 |
| Names of parents | Teodor and Maria, née Serafim |
| Occupation | shop clerk |
| Education | 2 grades of commercial school and 3 grades of industrial school |
| Place of residence | Warsaw, Widok Street 22, Mr. Bogda’s flat |
| Religious affiliation | Roman Catholic |
| Criminal record | none |
Before the war, in 1939, I lived with my family in Gdynia. After the outbreak of the war, I left for Zamość, where my elder brother Tadeusz already lived. Soon afterward, at the end of December, my father, mother, and married sister with four children, all of whom had been displaced from Gdynia, joined me in Zamość, where we took up residence. We all worked. My father, who was in the building industry, worked in the countryside, my brother worked in a “Społem” cooperative branch, and my mother and I ran a canteen. Unofficially, I started to work for an underground organization, which tried to hide firearms and ammunition so that they would not fall in the hands of the Germans. The leader of our organization was Józef Maćkowski, a retired Polish Army colonel. My brother Tadeusz was his right-hand man and I visited the colonel’s place on his orders, passing him intel because there was a radio receiver at our flat and we noted down communications. This was between December 1939 and 17 March 1941.
On the night between 16 and 17 March 1941, some local Gestapo agents, led by their commandant himself, showed up at our flat. There were around 25 of them. They surrounded our entire house. Ten of them, including the commandant, entered our flat and arrested my father, Teodor (70 years of age), my mother, Maria (69), and myself, while Tadeusz managed to escape. A few hours earlier, in the evening, they arrested Col. Maćkowski, his wife, and two sons, which we did not know at the time and consequently we did not have time to escape.
First, the Gestapo men took my father, then my mother, and finally they came for me and asked me where I had hidden the list of the organization’s members and where my brother had escaped. I told them nothing. They started to beat me. The commandant hit me a few times in the face, then I was struck by non-commissioned Gestapo officer Bernat, and then by non-commissioned officer Klim. I did not say anything, although I was beaten with leather whips and batons actually at the flat.
Then, they told me to get ready to leave: they did not let me put my stockings on (I had already gone to bed before the Gestapo came) and took me to the Gestapo station in Zamość. There, they started to interrogate me again about the members list, weapons, my brother’s whereabouts, and they showed me the photos they had taken from our flat. In the process, the commandant (whose name I do not know) and non-commissioned officer Bernat tortured me. I insisted that I did not know anything and that I did not recognize the people in the photos they were showing me. Then, I was laid across a table, tied by my arms and legs with leather bands, and once again beaten indiscriminately with batons and whips. They broke my middle finger in the right hand. The tortures lasted until 6 a.m. Then, I was taken to a prison in Zamość. There, a doctor named Richter examined me and, having found trauma to the kidneys, a broken finger, a few hematomas under my hair, and bruises all over my body, he declared me unfit for further interrogation for the next six weeks. At the same time, two Poles arrested on political charges, Mrs. Rutkowska and Maria Kowalska (a teacher), convinced the doctor not to send me to the German field hospital at the regional court’s building, promising that they would take care of me. In doing so, they saved my life because at the field hospital the German nurses treated patients so badly that they died within days. This is how Mrs. Rutkowska’s husband, the director of an insurance company in Zamość, perished. He died after three days at the hospital, having been previously beaten by the Gestapo during an interrogation. Mr. Rutkowski was also a member of our political organization. Arrested with him were his wife and his secretary, Teodora Czechówna. I was not disturbed for six weeks. I did not see my father or mother, despite the fact that we were being kept at the same prison.
After six weeks, I was taken to the Gestapo station and my interrogations resumed. Earlier, one of the prison guards, a Pole named Wiśniewski, who was a member of the organization, too, advised me not to confess to anything because previously, when I was interrogated at the Gestapo, the agents tried to extort my confession, claiming that my brother had already been apprehended and had confessed to everything. Mr. Wiśniewski told me that my brother was still at large. I followed his advice and when the Gestapo men said that my brother had been arrested and had incriminated me, I told them to bring him in so he could tell me straight in the eye that I was guilty and had all the information. During the second interrogation, they beat me again, and though the beating was not less severe, my body was already hardened and it did not hurt as much. I would pass out in the process so they poured cold water on me and beat me again. When they tortured me, I was completely naked. I received similar abuse twice more, over three or four days. The commandant hit me on the face so hard that it swelled and I lost hearing in one ear for a few weeks. Their attempts to extort my confession and get me to reveal where the weapons and the radio receiver were hidden were in vain because there were many things I knew nothing about, while others I simply did not confess because I knew that the punishment was the same. They did not even tempt me when they said they would release my parents if I came clear. I knew they were lying.
Guard Wiśniewski also told me that the Gestapo men tried to persuade my parents to let my brother know that if he handed himself over, they would be released. My mother wanted to get in touch with my brother via a guard and tell him not to surrender because he was young and could be of more use than themselves, elderly people. Finally, on 12 June 1941, after four rounds of interrogation and torture, the Gestapo men concluded they would not get me to confess, gave me a factual report to sign, and took me to Lublin already on the same day. I never met the Zamość butchers again.
I never learned the commandant’s name. He was a man of average height, dark blond, around 45-47, well-built. One of his aides was a non-commissioned Gestapo officer named Bernat. He was dark blond, rather tall, with dark eyes and a long scar on his right cheek. He was around 28-30. He beat me with a rubber baton on the head and all over the body. I also remembered the name of non-commissioned Gestapo officer Klimm, who also tortured me, in the same manner as Bernat. Klimm was short and thin, a brunet, aged around 26. There were other butchers, less active, whose names I did not find out. There was also a Gestapo man they called Ali, a giant, stout blond with blue eyes, aged around 36-37. I never met this Ali, but I heard that he tortured men badly.
I was in the Lublin prison from 13 June to September 1941. I was not beaten there, only on the day of my arrival, when the newcomers were stood with their faces against the wall in a corridor, because six coffins with prisoners who had died of typhus were being carried through this corridor, I – not knowing it was forbidden to look – turned my head and I was hit on the face by a man named Szczurek, who was with the Lublin branch of the Gestapo. Szczurek was short, thin, and red-haired, aged around 25.
Earlier, my parents were sent off from Zamość, also to Lublin. I did not meet my father, though. He was taken to Auschwitz, where he was executed in connection with something that happened in Warsaw. I saw my mother for four days in Lublin before they took me to Ravensbrück on 21 September 1941. My father was executed on 12 October 1942 and my sister received an official telegram from Auschwitz, which stated that he had died of a heart attack. One of my father’s fellow prisoners from Auschwitz, whom I met on a train be chance, told me that my father had been executed. I never learned this man’s name. He said that on that day 2,000 people were executed at Auschwitz.
The report was read out.
Warsaw, 4 March 1946. Judge Stanisław Rybiński, delegated to the Commission for the Investigation of German Crimes, interviewed the person specified below as a witness. The witness continued testifying as follows:
I continue my testimony. On the third day after departing from Lublin, I arrived, together with other prisoners, at Ravensbrück. There were 500 or 600 of us sent off from Lublin, and in Warsaw they added a further 800 or 900 prisoners to our transport. At Ravensbrück, before they assigned us to blocks, we had to go through quarantine. For a day and a half, we were kept in a bunker, which served as a prison. It had a special cell with an automatic, where SS-women brought prisoners to be executed. The bunker was damp, its cement floor was always wet, and there were neither tables nor stools to sit. We received regular food rations, but the prisoners who ended up there as punishment got lunch every four days and a slice of bread once a day. Before we went to quarantine, we had our heads shaved with a clipper and got anti-typhus injections.
After quarantine, we were assigned to blocks. When I arrived at Ravensbrück in September 1941, each block housed three hundred prisoners. Later, more and more prisoners were added so that there were 2,000–2,500 prisoners in each block. It was very tight and we slept across the beds placed next to each other.
Both the camp leadership and the SS-women treated us very roughly. Whenever an SS-woman walked past a prisoner, she could not help hitting her, for no reason at all. Sometimes, the SS-women killed prisoners.
Standing out in particular in that regard was SS-woman Kopke (I do not know her first name), a woman of medium height, well built, dark blond, with grey eyes and crooked mouth, and she had had a broken arm once, which knitted badly, so that she had two elbows (I think it was the left arm). Kopke was around 32–34. I remember the following event. The prisoners were not allowed to wear aprons. One Polish prisoner (I do not know her name) did not know about this rule and was wearing a black alpaca apron while working at one of the workshops, the so-called Betrieb. Kopke noticed that, ordered her to take the apron off, then she tore it off her, and hit her in the face so hard that the prisoner collapsed. Kopke proceeded to kick her, then she stood on her chest, and started to stamp on it. After such a brutal beating, the prisoner died three hours later. I witnessed this beating first-hand. The next day, I learned that after this incident Kopke killed two more prisoners, a Ukrainian and a Jewess, also for wearing aprons. Earlier, Kopke also beat one prisoner from our group of experimental surgery patients, Wera Szuksztul, also for wearing an apron, but this incident was not fatal.
Aside from Kopke, SS-woman Buch-Lejman (I do not know her first name) stood out in terms of cruelty. She was a tall, stout dark blond, aged around 35–36, with big blue eyes. Once, I saw a prisoners’ working unit returning from labor; they were carrying the body of one of their comrades. Leading the column was Buch-Lejman. When we asked them why the woman had died, the prisoners (whose names I do not know) told us that she had been murdered by Lejman when they were loading briquette on a ship. The prisoner did not carry out Lejman’s order so she killed her. I did not see the injuries she had inflicted on this prisoner. The women who recounted this incident to me added it was not the first time Buch-Lejman had fatally beaten a prisoner.
Aside from these two SS-women, two policewomen recruited from among the prisoners stood out in terms of cruelty. One of them was a German named Leo, and the other was a Pole or a volksdeutsch named Lewandowska. They were both cruel. They beat prisoners unconscious for some trifles. I do not know the first names of these policewomen. Leo was of medium height and weight, a brunette with a man’s face, aged 28–29, and Lewandowska, a dark blond with blue eyes, was a slim woman of medium height.
In charge of the Ravensbrück camp was an Oberin or Oberaufseherin, one Binz (I do not know her first name), an SS-woman aged around 20–24, of medium height, a slim blond with fair complexion. She treated prisoners roughly. She would not just walk past a prisoner but would beat her instead.
Serving as Oberaufseherin before her was Mandel (I do not know her first name), a blond of medium height with blue eyes and dark complexion, aged 26. Like Binz, she, too, treated the prisoners badly.
A certain Binder, a tailor in charge of the prison’s sewing room, also treated the prisoners badly. If he found any of us during working hours sleeping there instead of working, he beat such a person in the face, threw her on the ground, and kicked her. Graff, his assistant, helped him in the process. Binder was nearing 40, he was a tall, stout blond with blue eyes. Graff was of medium height, had blue eyes, and was around 30.
The Ravensbrück landowner and commandant of all Betriebs was Obietz, an SS officer, who also beat prisoners during work. He was around 50, of medium height and weight, with fair blond hair. Trying to avoid being beaten, I gave all the aforementioned camp leaders a wide berth, and I actually succeeded.
Toward the end of July 1942, the Lublin transport was told to report at Oberin Binz’s office. Already waiting there were some doctors: camp doctor Schiedlausky, and also Rosenthal, Oberheuser, Gebhardt, and Fischer. The doctors examined us and selected young women, paying particular attention to our arms and legs. They took down our numbers and ordered us to return to the block. Fourteen days later, around 30 July, they took the first six. They did not return, having been moved to other blocks, and nine new victims were selected from our group in their stead. On the morning of that day, we were told to report at the hospital. Doctor Oberheuser came to see us at the hospital, and she told the senior nurse to have us cleaned up. I was among the nine. After we were cleaned, we were summoned again, and we received some drops to drink and injections. As a result, we passed out.
As always after a surgery, I woke up weak and with a heavy head. I could not move my right leg and, having lifted the duvet, I saw that it was in a plaster cast reaching all the way above the knee. The leg hurt a lot. I asked the senior nurse what they had done to my leg that would explain the plaster cast. She replied, “You bloody Polish bandit, how dare you ask about your leg?”, after which she left, having locked me and five other girls in the room. There were another three girls in an adjacent room. We had all undergone surgeries. Our plaster casts bore different letters signifying different types of operations. Mine was marked with the letter “B” and the Roman number III.
Every day, doctor Oberheuser checked on us, asking how the leg surgery was affecting us. Nobody on the medical staff had told us beforehand what they would be doing to us, nor did they apprize us afterward, instead we only discussed between ourselves what had happened to us. After the interview, Dr. Oberheuser drew some charts in her notes. When one of us asked her if she would be able to walk despite the injured leg, Oberheuser said that if she recovered, she would be able to wear thin gauze stockings.
On the third day after the surgery, the doctors came. The nurses covered our heads with bedsheets and uncovered our legs. The doctors cut open my plaster cast, removed something from my leg, and inserted something else because the pain was severe. From under the bedsheet covering my face I managed to catch a glimpse of all the doctors standing by the bed. One of them, the eldest, was short, stout, had a round face, wore a blue shirt and brown trousers, while another wore a black uniform and a sailor cap – he was a tall brunet with dark eyes and a well-tanned face. Aside from these two, there were another six men in the room wearing SS or Wehrmacht uniforms, plus Dr. Oberheuser. The nurse noticed that my face was not covered, so she pulled the bedsheet over it and hit me on the head with her hand. I said I was feeling sick because I could not breathe. Then, she lifted the bedsheet slightly but covered my eyes with it. She said it was forbidden to look.
When the doctors left the room, I asked the girls who the short, fat guy was. Jadzia Kamińska told me it was Prof. Gebhardt himself, who performed the surgeries, and his assistant, the one in the sailor cap, was Dr. Fischer. Also present on that occasion were Dr. Schiedlausky, the SS camp hospital doctor, a short brunet with dark eyes and a pale face, aged around 35–36, and Dr. Rosenthal, a dark blond with ginger facial hair and a protruded lip on his slim face, aged around 34–35. Still before these two doctors came to the camp, there was Dr. Sonntag, who – like these two – treated prisoners very badly.
I spent three weeks at the hospital. Then, me and the other girls were transferred to our blocks. While at the block, I spent further two weeks in bed. My leg was getting worse because around that time my mother, who was also at the camp, developed meningitis and died of it. I had to get out of the bed to be with her. This was to the detriment of my leg and, together with my agonizing mother, I was moved back to the hospital. My mother died three days later, she was very sick. I suspect they expedited her death by giving her a lethal injection. After my mother’s death, having spent a fortnight at the hospital, I got out of bed because the wound had closed up. It was already the end of September 1942. In January 1943, the wound on my leg, following a blow I sustained, started to suppurate, and the suppuration continued until July. In September, an ulcer came up next to it, which then burst, and chipped bone started to come out of the opening. However, I did not go to the hospital so as not to have my name put on a list and be sent on a transport of the sick to Buchenwald, where those sick people were then liquidated, loaded onto gas vans and then taken to the crematorium. I learned about all this from the prisoners who had come from Buchenwald and who claimed that those brought in to Buchenwald from other camps were being exterminated there.
Already after I left the camp, when I was on a train in an overcrowded car, someone accidentally hit me on the injured leg. It swelled all the way up to the knee, and above the ankle a huge ulcer developed, which then burst and pus came out of it, along with eight bone chips. This was in October 1945. Presently, the wound has healed but I cannot walk much because my legs swell a lot. The pain radiates from above the knee all the way to the groin.
I remained at the Ravensbrück camp until the evacuation, which was ordered in April 1945 because the Russians were approaching. Back in February 1945, my comrades working at the camp’s political division told me that Prof. Gebhardt, who was head of a sanatorium in Hochenlychen near Ravensbrück, had issued an order to liquidate all the “guinea pigs” [Kaninchen – rabbits] who had undergone the surgeries. On 3 February 1945, block elder Cetkowska (I do not know her first name) came to our block, where 65 out of more than 90 prisoners were the “guinea pigs”, and said, “Listen, I’ve got an order from the commandant that starting tomorrow you are not allowed to leave the block”. We asked, “Why are we not allowed to leave?”, and she replied, “I said you’re not allowed to leave, and you’ll do as you see fit. I’ll cover for you, this is about the entire group, not individuals”. Then, a girl working at the warehouse told us that brand new clothes for 365 prisoners had been prepared and arrangements had been made for shower bathing. We knew that this was what they always did when they were about to execute prisoners. Consequently, we decided to go into hiding and we stopped reporting for roll-calls. During roll-calls, they only checked the numerical strength of prisoners, but not their names, so girls from the quarantine barrack, who were not supposed to report for roll-calls at all, filled in for us. We held out like that until the evacuation, when we were driven all together, en masse.
The number of prisoners was huge: in 1943 and 1944, it was close to 180,000, and during the evacuation some 12,000 were still at the camp.
During the evacuation, I managed to break away undetected and I reached the town of Malhof. From there, I returned to the country. I found out that my married sister Helena Pilarska, who had stayed in Zamość with her four children, was already dead. She was active in the underground. Her nom-de-guerre was “Klara”, she was arrested by the Germans and taken to Lublin, where she was gassed in a van together with her friend Janina Zalejska. On that day, 82 men were gassed in Lublin. My brother Tadeusz was arrested two years after we were and was taken to Auschwitz (his nom-de-guerre was “Matras”), and, as I later learned, he fought in the Czech uprising. My sister died just before the Russians entered Lublin.
I need to add that among the Ravensbrück doctors there was one who conducted himself with decency, did not maltreat prisoners, and did not perform experimental surgeries on us. He operated on two of my glands – he removed the hematomas which developed after the Gestapo men beat me in Zamość. He also saved the “guinea pigs”: three girls had, respectively, a needle and surgical sutures, a glass pipe, and a splinter removed from their legs by him.
The report was read out.