Twelfth day of the hearing, 6 December 1947
Presiding Judge: Please summon the next witness, Czesław Łachecki.
Witness Czesław Łachecki, 45 years old, a technical director at a factory in Mościce, religion – Roman Catholic, relationship to the accused – none.
Presiding Judge: I would like to remind the witness of the obligation to speak the truth. The provision of false testimony is punishable by a term of imprisonment of up to five years. Do the parties want to submit any motions as to the procedure according to which the witness is to be interviewed?
Prosecutors and defense attorney: We release the witness from the obligation to take an oath.
Presiding Judge: The witness shall be interviewed without taking an oath. I would ask the witness to present what he knows about the accused who are present in the courtroom, and also as regards their behavior towards the prisoners.
Witness: I arrived in Auschwitz with the second transport, on 20 June 1940. The day after our arrival, the accused Plagge was the first to greet us. At the time he was a Blockführer [block commander] at the quarantine block. In any case, he was nicknamed “the Pipe”, because he was always smoking a pipe. Plagge distinguished himself by beating and tormenting all newcomers to the camp. I myself, on the second day following my arrival, received such a beating from him that I fell to the ground and lay there, completely stunned; it was all because when he entered the bath, I failed to shout: Achtung! But how could I have known – a new arrival – how to behave in the camp? Throughout his tenure as Blockführer at the quarantine block, Plagge tormented the prisoners, first and foremost by using so-called “sports”. Prisoners in quarantine were still not employed, and so they had to participate in these “sports” all day long: hüpfen [jumping], rollen [rolling around], running – all this leading to their complete exhaustion. In the transport with which I had come from Silesia there was an older Jewish man, over seventy, who had a heart condition. He was forced to do the same exercises as we. And he became one of the first victims of Auschwitz, for after a few days of these “sports” he could take no more, and soon died. He was the victim of the accused Plagge.
While serving at the camp, the accused Plagge applied a host of other procedures in order to break the prisoners down both physically and mentally. Following the escape of Wiejowski, when all the inmates were forced to stand for a full 24 hours, he additionally ordered them to keep their hands on the napes of their necks. Thereafter Plagge and the kapos looked for any sign of movement – if anyone so much as twitched, he would be beaten or otherwise punished. I had to jump on my own. Towards the end of this forced standing half of the prisoners fell, and it was only when the doctor, Popierz [Popiersch], intervened (or so I heard), that the punishment was declared over.
I must add that this was the first escape which was not followed by the taking of hostages, however the prisoners were summoned and encouraged to say what they knew about the breakout. A few naive prisoners did come forward, but they were all locked up in the bunker and later sent to the quarry.
In addition, the accused Plagge carried out executions at the camp while standing in for Rapportführer [reporting officer] Palitzsch. On a few occasions I saw him walk up to the death block with a fowling piece and shoot those prisoners who had been sentenced to death, as well as persons brought in from the prison.
The accused Aumeier, Lagerführer [head of the camp] of Auschwitz. When Aumeier arrived at the camp, we thought that we would get some respite from Fritzsch, his predecessor, who was a torturer. Fritzsch, about whom I could say much, had me strung up on a pole on a Polish national holiday.
Reports were made in such a way that the Rapportführer did not ask questions.
Aumeier was the first to apply mass punishments in the camp. A number of colleagues were sentenced by him without any interrogation or explanation.
Selections were made at the Lagerführer’s discretion. It fell within his competence to select prisoners – already sentenced to death – from the bunker.
Aumeier pursued the camp policy of extermination with much greater zeal than any of his contemporaries.
As regards food, during the first period of our incarceration it was passable. But after Aumeier’s arrival in 1941, potato peels were found to contain vitamins! Prisoners started suffering from so-called Durchfall [a type of diarrhea], and this caused more deaths than the shootings. Typhus fever soon joined in, and those who survived were taken to the gas chambers. And when this epidemic was somehow stopped, lice put in an appearance.
In 1941, a transport of Russian prisoners of war arrived. This was in winter. They were taken to the so-called “Kanada” barracks, where the Germans ordered them to strip naked and proceeded to wash them with streams of water from a fire hose – at twenty degrees below freezing. Thereafter they were led into the camp and kept there for a few days. Within three months, their number had dwindled from 14,000 to a few dozen.
In March 1942 the first female prisoners, mothers with children, turned up at block 1. After a week or two, we saw these women being taken to the gas chamber. This was the first instance of healthy people being gassed.
Presiding Judge: Can the witness provide any information about Hoffman? The accused Hoffman, please arise.
Witness: No, I cannot say anything about him.
Prosecutor Szewczyk: Did the witness work at the Entwesungskammer [disinfection hall]?
Witness: Not [directly] at the Entwesungskammer, but as a fitter I worked nearly everywhere in the camp.
Prosecutor Pęchalski: There were two Hoffmans and both worked in the political department. Is this the one concerning whom the witness testified during the investigation, who towards the end of 1944 was in the political department? What does the witness know about him?
Witness: The one I mentioned in the investigation was the one who, when crimes were committed in the camp, would make a great effort to ferret out prisoners belonging to so- called organizations and thereafter inform on them in order for them to be punished.
Prosecutor: And he was junior in rank?
Witness: Yes, I think he held the rank of Rottenführer.
Prosecutor Brandys: The witness mentioned a transport of prisoners of war arriving at the camp. Was this during Fritzsch’s tenure, in autumn 1941?
Witness: The transports started arriving in the autumn, and thereafter continued throughout the winter of 1941. I remember how they were kept out in the cold.
Prosecutor Brandys: I am interested in determining whether they arrived during Fritzsch’s period of office.
Witness: Initially, they were brought in during Fritzsch’s term, and later during Aumeier’s.
Prosecutor Brandys: When did the accused Aumeier appear at the camp?
Witness: The accused Aumeier turned up at the camp at the very end of 1941.
Prosecutor Brandys: What happened following the arrival of transports of Russian prisoners of war? Were they killed?
Witness: All of them were killed, for successive groups were loaded onto trucks and driven off to the crematorium daily.
Prosecutor Brandys: I am interested in establishing whether the punishments meted out by the accused Aumeier were summary in nature, or whether they were first approved by other authorities?
Witness: As regards punishments, they were initially ordered by the Lagerführer on the basis of reports submitted to him. Later on, summary penalties were introduced, that is prisoners would receive a whipping immediately upon provision of a notification at roll call. No special report was required – a notification alone was sufficient.
Prosecutor Brandys: I would like to determine the time that elapsed between submission of a notification and the penalty being enforced.
Witness: As regards the first method, this usually took a week or two, while in the case of summary penalties the whipping was administered on the same day.
Prosecutor Brandys: Was this method applied towards the end of Aumeier’s period of office?
Witness: Yes.
Prosecutor Brandys: Was the “swing” also used as a punishment?
Witness: Yes.
Presiding Judge: Are there any questions to the witness?
Defense attorney Ostrowski: The witness provided testimony regarding one Hoffman, saying that he spied on prisoners. From where did the witness gain this information?
Witness: I would frequently see him walking around the camp and listening in on people’s conversations, and I was also informed by friends who had been interrogated and beaten in consequence of his eavesdropping.
Defense attorney Ostrowski: The witness means to say that his friends told him about this?
Witness: Yes.
Defense attorney Ostrowski: When was this?
Witness: In 1944.
Defense attorney Ostrowski: Is the witness aware that there were two Hoffmans. The one who was an informer apparently had a different name. On what basis did the witness determine which Hoffman this information concerned?
Witness: I am not certain, but I think it was him.
Defense attorney Walas: Did the witness encounter the accused Orlowski?
Witness: I know that she was an Aufseherin [female overseer], but I am unable to provide any further information about her.
Defense attorney Walas: Could the accused Orlowski have had any contact with the male prisoners?
Witness: I never heard about an Aufseherin supervising a kommando of men, although there were kommandos that worked together, that is to say women worked together with men, and therefore Aufseherins could come into direct contact with men.
Defense attorney Walas: Did she come up to the male camp?
Witness: I did not see her do so.
Presiding Judge: Are there any further questions to the witness?
Defense attorney Rappaport: Did the witness know the drivers who worked in the camp?
Witness: Prisoners who worked as drivers or the SS men drivers?
Defense attorney Rappaport: I was referring to the SS men drivers.
Witness: I did know them.
Defense attorney Rappaport: Did the witness know a driver by the surname of Dinges? What can the witness say about him?
Witness: I cannot provide any specific information, for I did not witness anything that I could recount.
Presiding Judge: Do the accused wish to make statements?
The accused Plagge: I would request permission to ask the witness where the bathing facility was located.
Witness: In the so-called Statsgebäude [public buildings], where the quarantine block was initially housed, in the cellar downstairs.
The accused Plagge: In the beginning there was no bathing facility there. One of the witnesses testified that there was no water to bathe in at all down there.
Witness: Plagge’s statement is untrue, for the Zugangs [transports of prisoners] would come down to that cellar to wash themselves. There were seven showers, and the prisoners bathed there in the first months [of the camp’s existence]. Next, the quarantine block was moved behind the camp, so that the building could be used by the SS men. I can say this with certainty, for I was charged with supervising and repairing the piping in this block, and I was instructed to go there by Blockdienst [an auxiliary] Leo no. 2.
The accused Plagge: I would like to ask the witness when was I Palitzsch’s deputy?
Witness: This was in 1941, and the accused stood in for him as a Rapportführer during roll calls.
The accused Plagge: I would like to declare that in 1941 there was no block 11, while towards the end of 1940 and in the beginning of 1941 I myself was not at the camp, but in a company.