On 22 October 1946 in Kraków, the District Investigating Judge Jan Sehn, member of the Main Commission for the Investigation of German Crimes in Poland, interviewed the witness specified below in accordance with the provisions of and procedure provided for under the Decree of 10 November 1945 (Journal of Laws of the Republic of Poland No. 51, item 293), in connection with Articles 225, 107, 115 of the Code of Criminal Procedure. The witness testified as follows:
| Name and surname | Zofia Mączka |
| Date and place of birth | 30 November 1905, Kraków |
| Parents’ names | Wincenty and Kamila, née Fiedler |
| Occupation | physician – radiologist |
| Religious affiliation | Roman Catholic |
| Citizenship and nationality | Polish |
| Place of residence | Kraków, Szlak Street 55, flat 2 |
I was arrested in Kraków on 19 April 1941. My family was arrested on 10 April. I was detained in the prison on Montelupich Street, in Kraków, where I stayed until 11 September 1941. On that day I was sent to Ravensbrück in a special transport (Sondertransport), which arrived there on 13 September. I was registered with the number 7403. As a political prisoner, I was given a red triangle.
I stayed in the camp in Ravensbrück until 25 April 1945. During the first four weeks I went through quarantine. After that I worked on building a road, carrying coal, then I worked at a company manufacturing straw shoes, and at the camp factory manufacturing paper bandages.
Since I had stated in my documents that I was a physician specializing in radiology, on 24July 1942 the camp authorities assigned me to the camp hospital – Revier, as it was called in Ravensbrück – where an X-ray machine was installed for diagnostic testing. It was a small field apparatus placed in two boxes, very easy to assemble and operate. I used the machine as a radiologist and radiographer, and also as a nurse during surgery hours. Apart from that, I also had cleaning duties – in the sick room and the X-ray laboratory at first, and later mostly in the laboratory.
I worked in this capacity for a year, specifically until 24 July 1943 – the day when I was detained in the bunker, having been accused of sending messages outside the camp. I sat in a solitary dark cell (cell number 46) for eight weeks. For the first eight days I was given no food. Later I was given the full camp rations every four days, and daily only coffee and bread. After 24 days, the commandant allowed packages sent to me to be delivered once a week. After eight weeks I was released from the bunker and assigned by the camp command to a punitive transport to a factory. Thanks to the efforts of my friends, prisoners working at the camp labor office (Arbeitseinsatz), I was assigned to a forestry kommando as a lumberjack. I worked there for eight months, until 13 May 1944. On that day, the camp commandant Suhren noticed me as I was walking back from work and gave the order for my immediate punitive transport to the aircraft parts factory in Neubrandenburg, a Ravensbrück subcamp. Despite Suhren’s plan, I first worked there in an office, and in August 1944 I became a physician in the camp hospital. I worked at this post for a month. On 2 September 1944, a letter from Ravensbrück was found in my room during a search. I was to send the information from the letter outside the camp. Fearing that the letter’s contents would get many people killed, I stole it from Oberaufseherin [senior overseer] Frede, who conducted the search, and destroyed it. Frede saw this and because of that I was sent to the bunker for the second time and remained there for 19 days. Frede told me that I was going to be hanged. She would repeat that threat almost every day while visiting the bunker.
After 19 days I was transported to Ravensbrück, where I was to be brought to justice. Thanks to a happy coincidence and the help of a German nurse, Erna, who was involved in the matter, I was placed in the camp, not in the bunker, and charged with insolent behavior towards Frede. In January 1945 I was punished for this offence by four days in the bunker, and I served out this sentence immediately.
After being released from the bunker, I was assigned to the column responsible for delousing right up until 25 April, when I joined the transport leaving Ravensbrück and got to Sweden with the help of the Swedish Red Cross. I arrived there on 2 May 1945.
In the spring of 1942, the camp authorities initiated certain preparations on the camp hospital premises. We did not understand their significance at the time. Several rooms were emptied, an operating room and X-ray laboratory were set up. Some SS officers from outside the camp would come, confer with the camp authorities, and inspect the political prisoners from the Lublin transport. About a hundred women from Lublin were part of the first inspection. The inspection took place outside: the prisoners were not stripped, their legs were looked at and their hands were checked for infections. Afterwards, all the prisoners were released back to the blocks and prohibited from leaving the camp. Such inspections occurred several times, always involving the same group of prisoners. The last inspection was at the end of July 1942. This is when a group of about ten prisoners was selected, sent to the Revier and bathed, their legs were shaven, and the prisoners were placed in beds wearing fresh underwear.
On 1 August 1942, all of us Revier workers were locked away in the staffroom. Shortly after dinner, which was served at 12.00 p.m., the selected prisoners who had been placed in sick rooms in the last days of July were taken to the operating room on gurneys. After some time, they were brought back to the sick rooms by SS nurses. We were watching this through a keyhole. On the way to the operating room, the prisoners were slightly stupefied after morphine injections, and they were brought back unconscious from the anesthetic. I cannot tell for how long all the selected prisoners were operated on that day in the operating room. I think it took no longer than about three hours. Once the last prisoner was brought back to the sick room, we were allowed to come out of the staffroom and back to the Revier. We then discovered that the sick rooms occupied by the prisoners who had been operated on were locked. SS Nurse Erika (I never learned her surname) and her assistant SS nurse Frieda (I also do not know her surname) and their assistants had the keys. That very night the prisoners locked in the sick rooms threw notes out of the windows, informing us that their legs had been operated on, that they were experiencing great pain and fever, and that their legs were in casts. This news spread among the prisoners. This is how we first learned that our friends were being operated on, even though they had been perfectly healthy. This made us think that medical experiments of some sort were being carried out.
As I testified at the beginning, from 24 July 1942 to 24 July 1943 I worked in the X-ray laboratory, so I was able observe the prisoners who were operated on and see how the operations affected them. The first shocking impression was the death of Weronika Kraska, who died on 6 October 1942 suffering from typical tetanus symptoms (date of death quoted after the testimony of Jadwiga Dzido). She died within a few days of the surgery. Surgeries performed during that period, that is, in the beginning of October 1942, involved the most virulent bacteria, namely: malignant edema bacterium (Clostridium oedematis maligni), gas gangrene bacterium (Clostridium perfringens), tetanus bacterium (Tetanus). Apart from Weronika Kraska, the following prisoners died around that time due to surgically induced infections: Zofia Kiecol (infected with malignant edema), Alfreda Prus (infected with malignant edema), Aniela Lefanowicz (infected with malignant edema) and Kazimiera Kurowska (infected with gas gangrene). Maria Kuśmierczuk was also infected with malignant edema at that time. Out of all the prisoners infected with the most virulent bacteria, she was the only one to survive. Since the operations were no longer kept so secret, one could – admittedly, in secret – get into the sick room occupied by the operation subjects. I would go there and observe the course of the diseases in all my friends mentioned above. Based on that, I declare that Weronika Kraska died experiencing typical symptoms of tetanus – lockjaw, tetanic muscle spasms of the limbs and tetanic arching of the spine. I observed the patients Kiecol, Prus and Lefanowicz experiencing typical symptoms of wounds infected with malignant edema, because their extremities were bursting with gases accumulating in the wounds, with air bubbles crackling under the skin. The process progressed rapidly, destroying tissue and vessels, and causing hemorrhaging that could not be stopped with dressings. The three women died in this condition. The lesions of Kazimiera Kurowska’s right lower extremity were typical of gas gangrene. Necrosis developed in the entire extremity, which changed its color into bluish red and then black, with simultaneous colossal swelling and hemorrhages which could not be stopped. Dr. Rosenthal ordered medical students, prisoners working in the laboratory – Milka Skrbková and Inka Katnarová – to examine the bacterium taken from Kurowska under the microscope. It matched a gas gangrene bacterium. I also examined the preparation myself. Kuśmierczuk’s symptoms were similar to Prus’s, only she had survived. With regards to the effects of the infection, my diagnosis at the time was later fully confirmed by the ruling of the expert witnesses, doctors from the Gdańsk Medical Academy – however, Kuśmierczuk’s missing fragments of soft tissue were not surgically removed but undoubtedly fell out due to necrosis. This was the result of the infection by malignant edema bacterium. An infection of this kind has the same results as the gas gangrene mentioned in the ruling.
In my opinion, the next patients from the infectious operations group were infected with pyogenic bacteria (staphylococci and streptococci). About 20 such operations were performed. The following patients suffered the most: Jadwiga Dzido, Czesława Kostecka and Janina Iwańska. Jadwiga Dzido was sick for many months, and for several weeks she was nearly constantly unconscious due to high fever (over 40 degrees [Celsius]). The lower extremity that had been operated on festered, so additional punctures were needed several times in order to drain the pus. While Kostecka’s course of the disease was similar to Dzido’s, Janina Iwańska experienced recurrences of the infection, which lasted until the end of her detention in the camp. Eugenia Mikucka and Maria Broel-Plater were also severely damaged by the injections of pyogenic bacteria.
Having read the files, I declare that all the operation subjects currently interviewed in the course of the investigation have given thorough descriptions of the course and effects of the operations that are also consistent with my knowledge and observations.
In the process of infecting [the prisoners], the surgeons used various doses and divided the prisoners selected for experiments into different groups named with letters of the alphabet (according to a special key which I have not deciphered), depending on the dose of the bacteria meant for a given group. The surgeons brought the bacteria from Hohenlychen, already marked by quantity and quality. They would first make incisions in the soft tissue of the subjects’ shins and then introduce bacteria into the wound. I suspect that in the case of some prisoners, tubes (possibly made out of paper) containing the bacteria were inserted into the wound. Those who had been operated on have said that when their wounds were dressed for the first time – which occurred a few days after the infectious operation – they felt that something had been taken out or removed from the wound, which gave them relief. I suspect that the foreign object containing the bacteria was removed while the first dressing was being put on. The lower extremities which had been operated on and infected would react with inflammation and pus formation. The whole body was seriously ill from a severe infection. The wound was then sewn up, causing great pain until it opened on its own or was opened while the dressing was being replaced.
The second kind of infection involved introducing the bacteria by means of muscle injections in the calf. After such an operation a prisoner was sick for a few days, her leg would swell up to some degree, but that was usually the extent of it. Only in the case of Jadwiga Bielska did the infection return after many months with inflammation of the lymph nodes in the groin on the side that had been operated on. I suspect that the point of these infectious operations was to test new pharmaceutical preparations. The sick were given Cibazol and Albucid. Dr. Biega has also mentioned Tibatin during the investigation. The sick themselves stated that they were given various intravenous and intramuscular injections, and I have deduced from their description that, among other things, red Prontosil was used.
Beside the infectious operations, aseptic operations were performed in Ravensbrück at the same time. These were divided into three groups: bone, muscle and nerve operations. To my knowledge, the bone operations were performed on 13 prisoners. These 13 were listed in my X-ray examination records. Their names are: Zofia Baj, Leonarda Bień, Maria Cabaj, Krystyna Dębska, Maria Grabowska, Barbara Pietrzyk, Helena Piasecka, Halina Piotrowska, Izabela Rek, Aniela Sobolewska, Zofia Stefaniak, Irena Backiel and Janina Marczewska. According to the investigation files, bone operations were also performed on other prisoners. I don’t know them, because they were not examined in the X-ray laboratory. Based on the X-rays, my own observations, messages from the sick and information that I cleverly obtained from Dr. Oberhäuser, I established that three kinds of bone operations were carried out, namely: breaking of bones, bone grafting and bone splints. An operation in which bones were broken lasted up to three hours. During that time the shin bones of both legs were surgically exposed and then broken with a chisel and a hammer. Next, the bones were reassembled with the use of clamps – as was done in Janina Marczewska’s case – or without them – as was done in Leonarda Bień’s case. The wounds were then sewn up and the extremities were put in casts. A few days later, the casts were removed and the extremities remained without them until they healed. The operations of bone grafting involved grafting the right tibia onto the left tibia and the other way around, or grafting the fibula onto the tibia and cutting out the fibula, as was done in the case of Krystyna Dąbska and Zofia Baj. Two identical pieces of both Dąbska’s fibulas were surgically removed. The [piece of the] right fibula was removed with the periosteum, while the periosteum from the left fibula was not removed. This was marked on the plaster casts of both lower extremities in a discrete manner. The X-ray showed identical missing pieces of the fibula in both extremities. The periosteum is of course not visible on an X-ray. This fact and the markings on the plaster casts gave me the idea to discuss this subject with Dr. Oberhäuser, who carried out the experiment. While reporting on the results of Dąbska’s X-rays, I asked how she imagined the bones would regenerate if Dąbska’s fibulas had been removed with the periosteum, as it is known that bones regenerate mainly from the periosteum. Oberhäuser replied: “That is what we want to see – to what extent the bone regenerates from the periosteum and to what extent the actual bone tissue contributes to regeneration”. The current X-rays of Dąbska’s lower extremities show that the right fibula with the periosteum removed did not regenerate, while the left fibula with the periosteum retained regenerated completely, giving an image of both excisions that resembles a fracture.
So-called Knochespäne (bone splint) operations involved a preparatory operation in which a 2 by 5 centimeter rectangle, the so-called Knochenspan, was cut into the tibia in two places, in both shins. During the second operation, parts of the bones with the prepared splints were cut out and removed. The names Knochenspan and Knochenspäne came from Oberhäuser, who revealed them while ordering me to take X-rays of those who had undergone the Knochenspäne operations. In my opinion, the point of these operations was to examine the bone tissue’s capacity for regeneration. They were performed on 13 prisoners. While each one of them underwent several operations of this kind, the sixteen-year-old Barbara Pietrzyk from Warszawa suffered the most as a result.
During muscle operations, pieces of muscle were excised from the lower extremities – from the thigh and shin alike. The victims were operated on several times, with larger and larger pieces of muscle being removed on the second and third time, which resulted in growing muscle loss and increasing weakness of the extremities. The most damaged by the muscle operations were the seventeen-year-old Stanisława Śledziejowska and the nineteen-year- old Stanisława Czajkowska.
The nerve operations were the least frequent. They involved removing pieces of the nerves from the shin. I think that Barbara Pytlewska was a typical example of such an operation.
Finally, the last, separate group of experiments involved surgeries which I call professor Gebhardt’s special operations. Mentally ill or developmentally delayed prisoners were selected from various nationalities and categories. In the operating room, also under an anesthetic, they were subjected to an amputation of the lower extremity through a hip disarticulation, or of the upper extremity, including the shoulder blade. The extremity amputated in this manner was wrapped in a surgical sheet and taken to Hohenlychen.
If the prisoners still lived after the operation, they were killed on the operating table by means of Evipan injections. I do not know the purpose of these last special operations.
With regards to the muscle and nerve operations, I suspect that their purpose was to examine the capacity of these tissues to regenerate. This is evident from my first discussion with Oberhäuser quoted above, and my second discussion on the subject, which occurred under the following circumstances: Oberhäuser ordered me to take X-rays of the lower extremities of two non-Polish prisoners, mentioning that they were to be operated on. I asked whether non-Polish prisoners were going to undergo operations from then on, to which Oberhäuser replied: “Oh, these two are an exception, because they meet our requirements for experiments”. These were a Ukrainian, Maria Hretschana, and a German Bible Student, Maria Konwitschka. I took the X-rays of these prisoners and found that they both showed lesions which indicated having gone through an inflammation of the bone in the past. I showed the X-rays to Oberhäuser and said that those were not healthy bones, to which she replied: “We want to observe how the bones that had undergone pathological changes would react to bone splints”.
The operations of the sort I have described were performed in Ravensbrück on 74 Poles, one Ukrainian, one German, and about ten mentally ill prisoners of various nationalities. Almost every one of them was operated on several times.
From 1 August 1942 to March 1943, the operations were carried out in specially created conditions, that is, in an operating room. They stopped in March 1943, I think because the purpose of the experiments had been achieved, the prisoners were protesting, and finally because setbacks were occurring on the battlefront. Zofia Sokulska demonstrated bravery and vigorously protested to the Germans for having been subjected to two muscle operations, and she categorically refused to undergo a third one.
Additional operations were performed on 16 August 1943 in the bunker cell, in the following conditions: a gagged victim was violently thrown by an SS man onto the bed and her legs were then operated on under anesthesia induced by Evipan. After the operations, at first the prisoners stayed in the bunker cell for a while and were then carried to the camp hospital. Five Poles underwent operations in these conditions. These operations were not performed by the usual group of physicians. I saw them and did not recognize anyone as a person I had seen before. Janina Iwańska, who had been operated on previously, took an interest in these operations and observed them closely. She told me that the operations carried out on 16 August 1943 were meant to provide research material for a doctoral thesis by one of professor Gebhardt’s assistants. At first, we did not know the names of the experimenters. Later, while listening in on the conversations between the SS doctors, we gathered that the operations were performed and coordinated by a doctor of medicine, professor Karl Franz Gebhardt, SS-Brigadeführer. He was the superintendent of a sanatorium in Hohenlychen, a town located approximately 20 kilometers from Ravensbrück. Robert Koch had established the sanatorium for the purpose of treating pulmonary tuberculosis, and National Socialist Germany had changed it into an orthopedic clinic.
After March 1943, I read a biographical note on Gebhardt in an issue of the “Völkscher Beobachter” newspaper. The note said that he had specialized in sports medicine and after Hitler’s rise to power became a [Nazi] Party physician, quickly advanced, became a surgeon and assumed the position of superintendent at the Hohenlychen orthopedic sanatorium. A Swedish magazine (it was an illustrated magazine that I read in Sweden in 1946) published an interview with Gebhardt. According to the article, Gebhardt stated during the interview that he was Hitler’s fourth most important physician. He gave a characterization of Hitler, and emphasized that he saw Hitler in the last days of 1945. In literature available to me, I have encountered the name Gebhardt in A. Lob’s textbook entitled Die Wirbelsäulenverletzungen und ihre Ausheilung. Gebhardt is mentioned on the page 181 with reference to the research on social aspects of spinal injuries. He is described there as the man behind the direction of the Hohenlychen school.
I do not know with which German university – if any – Gebhardt collaborated.
Gebhardt coordinated all surgical experiments carried out in Ravensbrück, and at the beginning personally took part in them. The operations were mostly performed by Gebhardt’s assistant, SS officer, Dr. Fischer. These two were joined by Gebhardt’s second assistant, whose surname I do not know and who according to Buraczyńska’s testimony was probably called Stormberger, and by camp physicians Dr. Herta Oberhäuser, Dr. Rolf Rosenthal, and Dr. Schiedlausky. The operations were performed with the assistance of the SS sisters employed at the Revier at that time – the only names I remember are Erika and Frieda (I don’t know their surnames), and two German prisoners – Gerda Quernheim and Fina Pautz, both employed at the Revier. During the time when surgical operations were carried out, SS officer Suhren was the camp commandant, SS officer Bräuning was his assistant and adjutant, and Binz was the head overseer.
On [day missing] July 1946, I was interviewed by a British major from the British Commission for War Crimes Investigation [United Nations War Crimes Commission?], who showed me an album with photographs of various captured war criminals. From this album, I recognized the photographs of Gebhardt, Fischer, Oberhäuser, Binz, and Rosenthal.
My first sworn testimony on the subject of surgical experiments in Ravensbrück was given on 13 April 1946 before a British consul in Stockholm. I still have a copy of that report in German and will now present it. (The witness presents an eight-page typescript in German. In an abridged form, it conveys data formulated in the following report.) I learned from a friend who is living in London, Dr. Maria Corbridge-Patkaniowska, that my testimonies about the experiments in Ravensbrück were to be published in English. I do not know if this has happened. Between 2 and 12 May 1945, I gave an interview to a representative of a Polish radio station from London. The London radio broadcasted the interview in Polish on 12 May 1945. Information about this appeared in the emigrant newspapers “Dziennik Polski” [The Polish Daily] and “Dziennik Żołnierza” [A Soldier’s Daily] published in London. In the Swedish newspaper “Göteborgs Handels- och Sjöfartstidning”, issue 159 of 13 July 1945, I published an article entitled Eight weeks in the Ravensbrück dark cell, in which I also raised the issue of the experiments. In March 1946, I testified before The Polish Research Institute in Lund and at the request of the consulate, the Polish Commission for the Investigation of War Crimes in London with regards to surgical experiments in the concentration camp in Ravensbrück. I have a copy of this testimony and will now present it. (The witness presents a typescript with the date 15 March 1946. Its content substantiates today’s testimony of the witness.) Having returned to Poland, I wrote an open letter to the Socialist Press Agency, which was published in various newspapers, such as the “Robotnik” [The Worker], issue 235 of 26 August 1946. All medical matters and issues concerning surgical experiments carried out in the concentration camp in Ravensbrück, I published in the “Polski Tygodnik Lekarski” [The Polish Medical Weekly], issues 34–45 of 2 September 1946 (p. 1074). I submit a copy of this publication to be added to the following report as its significant supplement. I take full responsibility for the entire content of the article, all the facts are true. From these facts I drew my conclusions with the best of intentions and according to my medical conscience. Due to doctor-patient privilege, the editors of the “Tygodnik” shortened the names of the prisoners who had been operated on. These are the full names in the order used on the page 1078: Andrzejak, Baj, Bień, Backiel, Broel-Plater, Bielska, Buraczyńska, Bąbińska, Cabaj, Czyż, Czajkowska, Dzido, Dąbska, Gnaś, Gutek, Grabowska, Gisgies, Hegier, Hoszowska, Iwańska, Iwańska, Jurkowska, Jabłońska, Kraska, Kiecol, Kurowska, Kuśmierczuk, Kostecka, Kluczek, Kamińska, Kormańska, Kulczyk, Kwiecińska, Karczmarz, Krawczyk, Kapłon, Karolewska, Karwacka, Kawińska, Lefanowicz, Łuszcz, Łotocka, Mikucka, Marczewska, Marczewska, Marciniak, Michalik, Michalik, Młodkowska, Maćkowska, Man, Mitura, Modrakowska, Nowakowska, Okoniewska, Prus, Pajączkowska, Pietrzyk, Piasecka, Pytlewska, Pietrzak, Piotrowska, Rakowska, Rek, Sobolewska, Sieklucka, Śledziejowska, Sienkiewicz, Stefaniak, Szuksztul, Szydłowska, Sokulska, Wojtasik, Zielonka.
With regards to the investigation files, I would like to note the following: the correct name of the physician mentioned by the witness Stanisława Czajkowska is Dr. Treite, not Treiter. According to the witness, Dr. Orendi and Dr. Treite refused to participate in the selections. I would like to clarify that only Dr. Orendi refused to participate in the selections, for which he was removed from the camp, whereas Dr. Treite remained in the camp until the end and was involved in selections. Czajkowska also erroneously mentions the name Barning instead of the correct Bräuning, and Surin instead of the correct Suhren. The prisoner who in Stübchen observed the subjects of the special operations and whose name Czajkowska does not remember was Maria Kaczmarczyk.
Władysława Karolewska erroneously gives the name Tromel instead of Trommer. He was Schiedlausky’s successor as the camp’s head doctor and took no part in the surgical experiments.
Dr. Oberhäuser, mentioned in Maria Broel-Plater’s testimony, was not the head doctor as the witness states, but of all the camp physicians she was the one most involved in the experiments.
The witness Barbara Zofia Hoszowska misspells the name Schiedlausky as Szydłowski. This mistake occurs in testimonies of other witnesses as well. The witness Hoszowska also gave inexact numbers of the operation subjects. The correct number of people who were operated on is the one I stated in my testimonies and in the article from “Tygodnik Lekarski”.
The name of the prisoner mentioned in Halina Pietrzak’s testimony was not Kubitz, but Kubitza.
In Maria Kuśmierczuk’s testimony the correct name Schwarzhuber is mangled as Schwarzhuwer.
With regards to Maria Srokowska’s testimony, I would like to point out that in Ravensbrück there was no X-ray machine with the capacity for carrying out sterilization in the way described by the witness. The diagnostic apparatus in Ravensbrück was not suitable for these purposes. I know from Gypsy women – prisoners who were subjected to sterilization – that the operations were performed in the room where the X-ray machine was located. A metal plate was put on the [prisoner’s] abdomen and a metal object was placed inside the vagina. Then came a short moment of excruciating pain followed by heavy bleeding, with blood running down the thighs. The description I give comes from the Gypsy women, I had not seen operations of this kind myself. They were carried out after I was dismissed from the Revier and when I had no access to it, being an “especially dangerous prisoner”. I do not know who performed these operations – not the camp doctors, in any case, but doctors from outside the camp. To my knowledge, sterilization was carried out with the use of two electrodes, and this explanation I gave to the British commission. I cannot tell how many prisoners were subjected to such operations.
The witness Biega also erroneously describes sterilizations as having been done with the X-ray machine. Besides, the witness is incorrect when stating that all prisoners from Kurowska’s group were infected with gas gangrene. The only one infected by this bacterium was Kurowska, while all the others were infected with gas phlegmon. Śledziejowska was not subjected to a bone operation, as the witness testified, but to a typical muscle operation, which actually involved no infection and was the first to heal up. All names of the Germans are mangled in Biega’s testimony.
With regards to the report on the medical examination of the witness Irena Backiel by the expert witnesses from the Gdańsk Medical Academy, I would like to state that in the camp she was ill with tuberculous pleurisy, and a current X-ray should show lesions. Czajkowska is a typical example of the pure muscle operations: she underwent multiple operations, with large pieces of muscle being removed. In the ruling of the expert witnesses, infection by an unknown substance is also mentioned. I assert that Czajkowska was not experimentally infected. Zofia Kawińska had acquired specific lesions in the lungs (pleurisy) before the operation. After the operation this condition worsened, so a current X-ray should show changes in the lungs. Jadwiga Lew-Kotowicz, Helena Jezierska, Józefa Paradowska and Nadzieja Prolisko, examined by the Medical Academy, had not been subjected to surgical experiments in Ravensbrück. They arrived at Ravensbrück in the evacuation transports from Warsaw, thus after August 1944, when surgical experiments had ceased to be performed in Ravensbrück.
The report was read out. The proceedings and the following report were concluded.