On 13 January 1947 in Łódź, Investigative Judge of the Third Region of the District Court in Łódź, Judge S. Krzyżanowska, heard the person named below as a witness. Having been advised of the criminal liability for making false statements and of the wording of Article 106 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, the witness testified as follows:
| Name and surname | Aleksander Nowogrodzki |
| Age | 34 |
| Parents’ names | Aleksander and Anna |
| Place of residence | Łódź, Główna Street 41 |
| Occupation | hairdresser |
| Religiour affiliation | Roman Catholic |
| Criminal record | none |
In August 1940, I was caught on the street in Warsaw and taken to the camp in Auschwitz three days later. I would like to emphasize that it was a complete coincidence, since I didn’t have anything on me that could have given the Germans reason to convict me. During my three-day stay at the riding arena on Łazienkowska Street in Warsaw, where the transport was grouped, we already witnessed violence, insults, etc. from the SD [Sicherheitsdienst, security service] that was watching over us.
Having arrived in Auschwitz, we were received by the SS. As we were led from the station to the camp, several people from our group of about 1,800 were shot for an apparent attempt at escape. Besides this, we were beaten extensively. On the way to the camp, almost every prisoner got hit in the head or in the back with a stick or a rifle.
In the camp, I was put in a group that worked in the fields, outside the camp. We had to walk far away to work, sometimes ten kilometers per day. Due to the continuous cold, inadequate clothing and living conditions, as well as extremely poor nutrition, the mortality rate at the camp was high. The work was hard and the conditions at the camp made it even worse. Every shortcoming in our work or even stopping on the way to work resulted in a beating from the kapos, or even death. As the groups were coming back from work outside the camp, the prisoners always carried dead bodies of their colleagues.
People often died as a result of being provoked by the SS men. For example, an SS man would throw a stick or a rock somewhere where entry was not allowed, and he would tell a prisoner to bring it back. Having stepped into the forbidden zone, the prisoner was shot dead on the spot. Murder was therefore commonplace. Roll calls were particularly onerous, taking an eternity if a mere mistake was made during the counting of the prisoners or if someone was missing. I remember a five-hour roll call that took place during my stay, in November. We had to stand there during the day, in the snow, without dinner. The entire camp was standing. It was commonly known that 200 people died after that roll call.
After three months in the camp, I got pneumonia. At the hospital – block 20, I think – the conditions weren’t much better than in the camp. Several people had to share one bed, bare straw mattresses and blankets. There was no special diet. Officially, there was medicine, but prisoners didn’t get any of it. The largest number of sick perished due to the constant airing of the hospital rooms. The Germans, supposedly the commandant himself, ordered that the hospital windows be opened often and for long periods of time.
Because I had been sick for a long time – about five months – and wasn’t strong enough yet, I managed to get into the newly organized isolation hospital as a functional prisoner. The first selection in that hospital took place in August 1941. A German doctor would check the medical records, he would briefly inspect the patients in their rooms and he would choose those who looked worse or those who had been sick for a longer period of time. The selected ones, under the guise of being transported to another camp – which was supposed to be better for them – were put in block 11, where they were gassed in the bunkers. I knew about this from the prisoners working at the crematorium. Throughout my whole stay in the camp, that is, until March 1942, the gassing of the sick took place in block 11. That’s also where several thousand Soviet prisoners of war were gassed. I know that from the prisoners who would then sort and transport the clothes and bodies from the block.
Block 11 was called the penal block, but it was informally known as the “death block.” There were always from several to up to 2,000 people in there. However, there weren’t as many of them, as the number of people in that block decreased every day. The bunkers- basements of that block were used for gassing. Besides that, constant executions by shooting took place there. Naturally, I didn’t see the executions, but I heard the shots. The prisoners who returned from the Political Department were always taken to block 11. Having been interviewed, they must have heard their sentences there, because they were never surprised. They would even say, having been called out of the block, that they were going to their execution.
I remember that on 11 November 1941, several dozen Polish officers were executed in block 11. I knew from my friends, employed at carrying the bodies out of block 11, that SS man Palitsch [Palitzsch] always participated in executions. It seems that he was in charge of that area of work. My fellow prisoners told me that Palitzsch did this with pleasure.
I also know that the penalty of the post was used in block 11, and it involved being hung by the hands for the smallest offence, like having a potato, etc. Such a penalty quickly caused the weaker prisoners to die. The penalty of flogging was also administered in block 11.
I saw lethal injections being given in the area of the isolation hospital. Those who were sick and weak, as well as those chronically ill, were selected by a German doctor and they were given phenol injections, causing death within several minutes. I, personally, never saw an injection being given, but it was commonly known that there was a room dedicated to hopeless cases – the weaker among the sick – and these were given an injection by the orders of a German doctor. I know the names of the German doctors – Wodtke, Papier.
I did not come into direct contact with commandant Höß and I cannot say anything about his private activities, apart from the one that I did witness, namely the organization of the camp in Auschwitz.
The report was read out.