Additional testimony given by Maria Żumańska a former prisoner at the concentration camp in Auschwitz
Kraków, 25 November 1947
Maria Żumańska,
Polish Association of Political Prisoners
Kraków, Bankowa Street 8
In August and September 1943 I was assigned to work in the secretariat of the accused Mandl. At the time, I was given thousands of files of gassed Jewesses-prisoners and instructed to rub out or scrape out therefrom, in the latter instance using a razor blade, the letters "SB" [Sonderbehandlung, special treatment], and also obligated to keep the particulars of my job secret.
In the space thus freed on the documents I was to write the word verstorben [deceased]. I quickly realized that this was being done in order to cover up the deaths of persons who had been sentenced to be gassed [and] that the Auschwitz garrison [together] with the accused Mandl was acting on its own initiative, without any instruction from higher up. The accused Mandl and the presently deceased Hössler inspected the files personally to determine whether the falsification could be disclosed. Thereafter these files were packed into wooden boxes that disappeared from the offices some time later.
At about this time, on 11 September 1943 exactly, all the inmates of block 25 – some one thousand or more than one thousand Jewesses-prisoners, healthy and young – were sent to the gas chamber. A complete Blocksperre was ordered in the camp, that is no inmate was allowed to leave her block. This occurred at 3.00 p.m. The accused Mandl stood, together with her whole staff, at the gates of block 25. I observed the entire scene through the windows of the Blockführerstube [block leader’s office], in which I worked and was therefore able to precisely observe the accused’s behavior. When trucks drove up to collect the victims, steps were placed at their sides and, with the help of sticks, the women prisoners were forced to enter the vehicles. The victims defended themselves desperately, for they knew where they were being taken. The accused would frequently kick such persons in order to "help" them take a seat in this hearse for the living. Desperate scenes occurred inside the vehicle. The prisoners, aware that they were going to their deaths, cried and screamed, waving to us in farewell. They must have known that we, glued to the windows, were observing their tragedy. They lifted their arms skywards, as if looking for a miracle – but it did not materialize.
It was at these very moments that the accused Mandl would tell her companions something joyful (as one could surmise), for from time to time they laughed, completely oblivious to the drama unfolding nearby. The accused had a cynical look on her face, and was in no way affected by what was happening with her full consent and on her orders. After a few minutes the trucks returned for fresh victims – and the air again reverberated with anguished cries. When the operation was completed, the vehicles returned from the crematorium bringing in the rags of the murdered women, while an hour later the fire belching from the chimneys told its own story – the German thirst for cruelty had been satiated. The accused Mandl returned to her office, but I saw no emotion, no sliver of remorse on her stony face.
The accused Mandl was equally unmoved when carrying out selections. Impassive to the pleas of the condemned women, she would just say ab [away], cutting short the entreaties of those begging her to spare their lives.
I have cited less significant facts, concerning the maltreatment of women prisoners in a manner intentionally designed to finish them off, in the minutes.