On 1 October 1947 in Kraków, Municipal Judge Dr. Stanisław Żmuda, a member of the Main Commission for the Investigation of German Crimes in Poland, on the written motion of the first prosecutor of the Supreme National Tribunal, dated 25 April 1947 (file no. NTN 719/47), 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 relation to art. 254, 107, and 115 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, interviewed as a witness the person specified below, a former prisoner of the Auschwitz concentration camp, who testified as follows:
| Name and surname | Karolina Wilińska |
| Date and place of birth | 29 November 1905, Kraków |
| Parents’ names | Antoni and Justyna, née Kaługa |
| Religious affiliation | Roman Catholic |
| Marital status | single |
| Citizenship and nationality | Polish |
| Occupation | office clerk |
| Place of residence | Kraków, Chodkiewicza Street 5, flat 1 |
| Testifies freely. |
As a Polish political prisoner number 6881, I was interned at the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp between 27 April 1942 and 18 January 1945, being employed, in this order, for groundworks, farm work, in the garden, at the Schreibstube [administrative office] of the block, and, after a year of internment until the end of my time at the camp, at the Schutzhaftlagerschreibstube [camp administrative office].
At the last place mentioned above, the head of my office was SS-Sturmmann Richard Kortmann, who I knew well by sight and by name and whom I recognize in the photograph presented to me; he was an office registrar all this time. An office clerk by trade, he was one of the SS men who treated female prisoners in a very decent manner and was not involved in any wrongdoing. On the contrary: he tried to help them. In conversations I had with him, I could frequently detect his great contempt toward the camp regime. He tried to keep up female prisoners’ spirits and foster the hope of survival. In my presence, he tried to persuade Arbeitsdienstführer [work service leader] Ruiters not to file a penal report against a prisoner. Also in my presence, he was often critical of orders issued by the camp authorities, and on 31 December 1944, in a conversation he had with me, he emphasized that both he and myself are at the camp having done nothing wrong.
As regards Maria Mandl, the Lagerführerin [camp leader] of the women’s camp, I already testified about her at the Prosecutor’s Office of the District Court in Kraków.
I know Therese Brandl, SS-Aufseherin, very well from my time at the camp as a person working at the Bekleidungskammer [clothing storeroom]. In her capacity, she harassed female prisoners, refusing to issue them with clothing or underwear from the inventory, and when she did issue these items, they were riddled with lice. She was also known for carrying out inspections at the blocks and thorough examinations performed therein, in the course of which she ransacked the block and took everything she found on prisoners. During my work at the office, penal reports drawn up as a result of these inspections and signed by Brandl passed through my hands. She also took part in selections for gassing at block 25 and in transporting victims from block 25 to the gas chambers in vans.
Through my office work, I also got to know, by sight and by name, SS-Aufseherins Luise Danz, Elfriede Kock, Monika Miklas, and Gertrude Zlotos, because I was keeping the SS-Aufseherins’ records, but the activities of these persons are not known to me first-hand, only from what my fellow prisoners told me.
I also know SS-Sturmbannführer Franz Kraus and I recognize him in the photograph presented to me; from more or less the beginning of December 1944 until the liquidation of the camp, after Maria Mandl was transferred from Auschwitz to Mühldorf, he was Lagerführer [camp leader] of the women’s camp and he signed documents using this title. My camp pass was also signed by him. He would come to the women’s camp at different hours.
He carried out the liquidation of the women’s camp, which began on 17 January 1945. Kraus personally oversaw the departure of female prisoners, in the course of which he frisked them and divested them of food items issued to them from the camp inventory, beating them in the process.
At this the procedure and the report were concluded. The report was signed after it was read out.