On 1 September 1947 in Katowice, the member of the Katowice District Commission for the Investigation of German Crimes, L. Penner, with the participation of a reporter, Władysław Giemza, heard the person named below without taking an oath. Having been advised of the criminal liability for making false declarations and of the provisions of Article 107 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, the witness testified as follows:
| Name and surname | Seweryn Prawer |
| Age | 44 |
| Parents’ names | Wolf and Adela |
| Place of residence | Katowice, Biskupa Lisieckiego Street 13, flat 8 |
| Occupation | civil servant |
| Religious affiliation | Jewish |
| Morality | Polish [?] |
| Relationship to the parties | none |
I stayed at the concentration camp in Birkenau from 14 March 1943 until October 1944. From my stay in Birkenau I recall Fritz Wilhelm Buntrock, initially SS-Rottenführer, then SS-Unterscharführer. He is identical to the one presented on the photograph exhibited in the window of the premises of the Polish Society of [Former] Political Prisoners.
I encountered him in the so-called section D in Birkenau, where I was assigned and where Buntrock was the Blockführer, as well as in section B inhabited by about 6,000 Czech Jews brought there from Terezin.
Fritz Wilhelm Buntrock, as Blockführer in section D, inhumanely tormented the prisoners held there.
Himself endowed with exceptional physical strength, he beat and kicked every prisoner he came across for no apparent reason. He lashed out at any prisoners who might be resting for a moment at work, beating them with his cane on their head and face.
For the slightest misconduct (for not bowing to him), he forced us to do strenuous squats, frog jumps, mud rolls, or threw us into a pool filled with water irrespective of the season. After some time, I think in 1943, he was appointed SS-Unterscharführer and transferred as Rapportführer to the above-mentioned section B. This section was inhabited by whole families of Czech Jews brought here from Terezin. As Oberschreiber [senior writer] of the so-called Bekleidungskammer [clothing warehouse], and thus entrusted with checking and accounting the clothing storerooms, I had a pass that allowed me to enter the various sections. In this capacity I was also in this section B, where I saw many times how Buntrock would especially torment the women and children from among the Czech Jews. In particular, he beat them with a stick and he pulled the women and children out of their bunks by the hair, forcing them to do completely unproductive work, like moving stones from place to place etc.
Somewhere at the end of 1943, this camp, that is, section D, was completely gassed. About ten people were left, including twins for the experimental purposes of Dr. Mengele. The most active participant and leader of this action was Rapportführer Buntrock, who searched out and transferred for liquidation people who had even been overlooked by the camp authorities.
The report was read out before signing.