Presiding Judge: Next witness, Józef Paweł Ludwig.
Witness: Józef Paweł Ludwig, 37 years old; religion: Roman Catholic; clerk; no relation to the defendants.
Presiding Judge: I advise the witness that per Art. 107 of the Code of Criminal Procedure he is obligated to tell the truth. Making false declarations is punishable by incarceration for up to five years. Do the parties offer any motions regarding the manner of questioning?
Prosecutors: We do not require the witness to swear an oath.
Defense: Nor do we.
Presiding Judge: The witness will testify without taking the oath. Please tell us what you know about the case, in particular about the specific defendants.
Witness: I arrived in the camp on 6 December 1941 as part of a transport of 64 people. We were brought from the Lubliniec prison in chains. We were offloaded from the car chained in groups of three. As a result it was very hard for us to jump out of the car as fast as the SS men demanded us to. We were then kicked and beaten. I noticed an inscription on the gate: Arbeit macht frei. I was so naive I thought maybe I could get my freedom through work. In the first part of our stay in the camp we saw very many such inscriptions. In the earliest days we had to learn, among other things, the Meilensteins: several phrases about the ways in which the Germans could give us freedom, how we may earn it. It said: through conscientiousness, sacrifice, truthfulness – one stood out particularly, namely, Liebe zum Vaterland – love for the homeland. It struck us as singular, as it was because of the love for our homeland that we had lost our freedom. It seems they were embarrassed by that love later on, because the later transports had to skip that last phrase.
As I said, the transport numbered 64 people. We arrived on 6 December and in the first two months 42 people from our transport died of “natural” causes (these natural causes were of the kind where death happens due to exhaustion, overwork and starvation). In general, out of the 64 people in the transport 50 died, eight have lived, and I do not know about the rest, as they were taken to other camps.
I mentioned the phrase Arbeit macht frei. After a while I got into an office called the Arbeitseinsatz [labor deployment], and then I understood that phrase and what they demanded of us, and what they expected. I would like to speak in detail about the work system in that office, the organization of work, the manner of work and benefits that the camp gained from it, and what the prisoners got for it. I worked in that office until the end of 1944. It typically employed 10 men, and later women. However I, who worked there the longest, managed to stay. The office ran a file of prisoners by name, by number and by profession. We received data for those files directly from the prisoners brought to Auschwitz. My colleagues who managed the file would go to the blocks and obtain the information on the professions directly from the prisoners who were brought in. All the professional groups were sorted and upon any request from the camp authorities we assigned an appropriate number of professionals. Then we also had a numbers book, which only contained numbers and two columns: one to put a cross in, or a letter ü (the cross meant the prisoner is dead, a letter ü meant they had been transferred to another camp). The second column denoted professional groups with a Roman numeral. I personally made reports for Oranienburg every day. They were sent to an institution called the SS-Wirtschaftverwaltung Hauptamt Gruppe D II. We sent those reports every day. They included the number of prisoners on a given day, the total number of prisoners, then how many of those were capable of work, how many were incapable, how many were employed, then which kommando employed them, what were their professions, how many worked on that day and what other professionals were available. These reports were sent every day in 1942 and until mid-1943. Afterwards we only sent them twice a week: on Tuesdays and Thursdays. I also wish to mention that when the Auschwitz camp was later divided into three parts – Auschwitz I, II, III and FKL (that is Frauenkonzentrationslager [women’s concentration camp]) – our office received daily reports from those camps, and I made a general breakdown of all prisoners in Auschwitz. Prisoner labor was classified as follows: one, prisoners employed at work for camp needs; on average, regardless of whether there were more or fewer prisoners in the camp, these lagerzwecks used 15 percent of prisoners capable of work, more or less (they included jobs in the kitchen, in the warehouses, block writers, potato peelers, supply work, that is, all those that usually were performed within the lager grounds outside of the wire). The second group was the Lagerwirtschaft. About 9–10 percent of prisoners capable of work worked in this group. It included kommandos employed at farm work, like Landwirtschaft, the forge, gardening etc. Bauleitung [building authority] usually employed 30 to 33 percent of the total number of prisoners – I always speak in terms of those capable of work. It was a kommando usually working on expanding the camp. Next was the SS-Dienststelle, which employed between 5 and 13 percent of the prisoners. It included kommandos such as SS warehouses, SS-Ziedlung (prisoners working the private gardens of the SS men). The women were employed as servants in the private houses of the SS men. There were businesses, the so-called Rüstungsbetriebes [armament factories], Privatbetriebes [private enterprises] and Bauleitung. Privatbetriebes originally employed 45 percent of the prisoners. They acted according to their own agenda and under their own administration, and were assigned prisoners from the camp to work for them.
In the first part of 1942, most of the companies were private, fewer were Rüstungsbetriebes. In the first period 15 percent of prisoners worked for Privatbetriebes and in the last period – in 1943 and 1944 – only 1 percent. By then the prisoners worked in Rüstungsbetriebes and in the so-called KriegswichtigeZwerkes. This group included the cement factory in Goleszów.
On average 10 to 14 percent were unable to work, 80 percent were employed.
I remember that at the end of 1942 the total prisoner count in all camps, rounded up to the nearest thousand, was 32,000. In 1943 it was 57,000, and in 1944, when evacuation started in February, it began to go down and in October of 1944, when I left, there were around 40,000 prisoners.
The women ran a similar census, but those reports came to me, I used them to make relevant reports for Berlin. The women worked in roughly the same kommandos as the men did. As for the percentage breakdown of employment, it was approximately as follows:
For camp needs 30 percent, camp farming 25 percent, for Bauleitung 6 percent, for SS-Dienststelle 30 percent (gardens, private homes), for Rüstungsbetriebes 7 percent, for Privatbetriebes 3 percent.
On 30 April 1943, I remember that date exactly, I sent the first report to Berlin on “Women for Experimental Purposes”. There were precisely 242 of them. In the first half of June 1943, that is two months after that kommando was formed, there were only 135. The count was immediately raised to reach the original number. The replacements were taken in just a single day, at a stroke, and the kommando was full again. In late June the count was expanded to include 300 of those guinea pigs, as the experiments started to pick up pace. In October 1943 there were 395 of them.
I want to stress once more that all camps and sub-camps sent reports to us and we made an overall report based on these. Initially the reports were signed by the Lagerverwaltung – the commandant, defendant Möckel. They were first signed by Höß, then Liebenhenschel, and if neither Höß nor Liebenhenschel were there, Aumeier signed them.
As for prisoner labor, the bills for this were sent out by the Lagerverwaltung.
The kommandos working for camp needs, for the SD and for the SS-Siedlung were not liquidated, but they did not pay for the prisoners’ work. The Bauleitung and Privatbetriebe paid. The bills went to the Verwaltung and it was his office that collected on them. The Lagerverwaltung also set the going rates for work when signing deals with the companies. The Arbeitseinsatz merely assigned the appropriate number of prisoners for work.
I shall bring up the prices paid for the labor. The private companies paid 3 Reichsmarks for a non-professional, 4 Reichsmarks for a professional. The mines paid 6 Reichsmarks for a professional, 4 Reichsmarks for a non-professional. The Bunawerke paid 4 Reichsmarks for a professional, 3 Reichsmarks for a non-professional. The DAW [Deutsche Ausrüstungswerke, armament factories] paid 50 pfennigs for a non-professional, 1.5 Reichsmarks for a professional. Later on they increased the rates there: 1.5 Reichsmarks for a non-professional, 4 Reichsmarks for a professional. The Bauleitung paid 30 pfennigs, then 3 Reichsmarks. The SS men paid for the labor in their private gardens, 30 groszy per day, both for professionals and assistants; for the women, the so-called Bübelforszerki, they paid a lump sum of 25 Reichsmarks a month. The companies employing the most prisoners were: Bunawerke, with 5,500, the Neuman kommando with 2,000, the Jawiszowice mine, 2,000, Goleszów, 400, Bauleitung, 10,000. As for the bills, they had to be paid within 30 days. Their collection was the job of the Verwaltung. I know of documents sent to Oranienburg that spoke about how some companies had not paid for prisoner labor until January 1945. It concerned seven enterprises and a total sum of roughly 300,000 Reichsmarks. In the first period, when the prisoners were employed by private companies, the amount due for labor was 350,000 to 400,000 Reichsmarks. Later, after several industrial businesses appeared, it increased to up to 2,000,000 Reichsmarks a month. It often happened that a prisoner did not work for the entire day. This happened particularly in the case of the Birkenau camp.
We had to have precise reports to calculate the amount due for half a day or for whatever number of hours had been worked. I always had notes on those reports that kommandos had to be taken to the camp for selection. The Auschwitz kommandos where “Muslims” – i.e. the old, completely exhausted people – worked were liquidated very frequently. Most of them did not come back from work at all, for SS men drove in cars to the work area and took them directly to Birkenau, to the crematorium. This happened first and foremost to the numbered prisoners, like the ones we had in our files. I want to mention that the crematoria functioned for prisoner transports, particularly Jewish prisoners, who did not go through registering. All the numbered prisoners leaving through the so-called Ausgang [outgoing] were marked in the file as SB, for Sonderbehandlung [special treatment]. It is notable that in 1942, during a typhus epidemic, when prisoners were gassed en masse – about 10,000, when the average in previous days was 300 to 500 people – we were ordered to split the shortfall in the reports between various days as we saw fit. In 1942 reports were made on Russian prisoners of war. There were 12,000 of them accounted for. They worked for free, meaning that their work was not paid for by the companies employing them. Mostly, however, they worked at the Kiesgrube [gravel pit]. Over three months their count dropped to 156 prisoners of war, and then only 50 people were left. It appears they were brought to Birkenau and received a run of numbers. I remember the pace with which the Russian prisoners were eliminated. It was in the winter of 1942. Their roll call would drag on for a dozen hours or more, as the Russian kommandos came back from work very slowly. They could not arrive faster, because hundreds of prisoners died in the work area due to the frost or were killed by the SS men. So bringing them together often took several hours. Only after all the dead were brought back and counted, when the headcount of all the living and dead was taken, did our roll call end.
What did a prisoner get for that work? In the morning a cup of a herbal concoction of indeterminate quality, occasionally coffee. In 1942 during the lunch break a cup of a liquid called “awo”, very sought after, the only hot food one could get between morning and evening. In the evening a bowl of soup, less than a liter, and a portion of bread, a piece of margarine, cheese, or sausage. In 1942, the soups were mostly rutabaga, very rarely with potatoes, and if so, they were cooked in the broth, without peeling. When a prisoner came back to the camp, they received a bowl of soup and a portion of bread for breakfast. It was supposed to be kept for breakfast the next day. But there were very few who could keep it until the morning. Almost everyone ate it immediately to sate their hunger. Such provisions, combined with strenuous work, resulted in numerous deaths. In 1943 and 1944 the kommandos working in industry received special bonuses – Zulage – twice a week, consisting of a quarter of a loaf of bread and a piece of horse sausage. In 1942 we received unsalted rutabaga for three months. There was a canteen in the camp where a prisoner could buy some things, like salads of red beetroots in vinegar, or of peas and carrot with mustard. You could buy as much of these as you wanted with the money you were sent from home. Old, savvy prisoners knew what those salads meant.
Presiding Judge: I call a recess.
(After the recess)
Presiding Judge: Can the witness give us any explanation regarding the specific defendants? Did defendant Möckel appoint prisoners for work?
Witness: Yes indeed. It was he who gave the order to employ as many prisoners as possible, even the disabled.
Presiding Judge: Does the witness recognize any of the defendants?
Witness: Yes indeed. Liebehenschel, Mandl, Aumeier, Josten, Möckel, Bogusch, Grabner.
Presiding Judge: Can the witness testify with regards to the individual defendants?
Witness: I saw Aumeier personally deliver beatings and kicks. One of those prisoners, beaten up and kicked, was later sent to the hospital.
Presiding Judge: What can the witness say about the defendant Bogusch?
Witness: Bogusch was uniquely harsh with all prisoners; he mistreated especially the girls, whom he did not allow to go to the toilet. He regarded the prisoners with contempt, he often said “ polnisches Dreck” [“Polish shit”].
Presiding Judge: What can the witness say about defendant Hoffman?
Witness: I knew a different Hoffman in the camp.
Presiding Judge: About Josten?
Witness: Josten was the chief of air defense in the camp and I know what he did to “defend” the prisoners from a possible bombing. The prisoners knew that the safest place during a raid was in the parent camp. Josten did not allow anyone to return there during a bombing, he ordered everyone to stay at work. As a result of that, over a hundred people from the Bekleidungskommando [clothing detail] died during one raid. In the case of an alarm, when the sirens sounded, we even had to take office machines back to camp. The kommandos working outside had to stay at their work sites. I also remember how Josten kicked one of the locksmiths. Since the key to our office had been lost, we asked the man to come open the door. Then Josten came, asked him what he was doing, and in spite of our explanations he kicked him so badly the locksmith fell over. Then he himself picked the right key from a key ring and opened the door.
I remember Müller because when in 1942, as a new prisoner, I was working at the Bauhof [construction depot], carrying bags of cement to a warehouse, Müller was there with a dog and a stick. We had to carry the bags running, and if anyone slowed down, Müller set the dog on them and beat them with the stick. I was witness to how, when one of my colleagues dropped a bag and the bag burst, Müller mauled him for sabotage.
On another occasion I was witness to how Müller conducted searches of prisoners in the camp. He would beat up anyone who did not go to work and send them to an even worse kommando.
Presiding Judge: The witness has also mentioned Liebehenschel. What can the witness tell us about him?
Witness: Of Liebehenschel I can say little. I only know that he signed all the reports as commandant. I did not have too much contact with him personally.
About Grabner I know that he assisted in all the executions. When in 1943 three prisoners from the Baubüro [construction office] escaped, in retribution thirteen prisoners were shot in block 11, and ten were hanged in public, supposedly for poisoning an SS man. I can say that this SS man was later alive, he was even locked up in the SS bunker for taking vodka from a prisoner and was later employed in the Baubüro kommando.
During my time I was jailed in the bunker because four prisoners from our kommando escaped. I was arrested under the charge that I must have known about the escape. I was locked up for nine days, and on the day I left the bunker I was sent to a penal company. On that day Grabner and Aumeier arrived with numerous SS men. Aumeier had a list of the people in the bunker at the time and he asked us what we were in for. He asked me why am I in the bunker, why am I in the camp, what is my education, did I ever serve in the military? After being let out of the cell, some people were sent to the left, some to the right. I was put somewhere else, neither with the people being let out, nor with those meant for death. I stood near the door, beside Aumeier. I looked at the list he was holding. It was just a list of prisoners. Aumeier made check marks by the names and decided if a prisoner would be let go or shot.
Presiding Judge: What does the witness know about defendant Mandl?
Witness: As I testified before, I worked with women. The women were brought from Birkenau and they told stories of how Mandl as a commandant was just a monster, a beast in human form. That is literally what the women would say and they were glad to be transferred to Auschwitz, since they were out of the direct reach of Mandl. I saw her in our block once, accompanied by Aumeier. Then my women colleagues told me: “This is the Mandl we told you about”.
Presiding Judge: Do the prosecutors have any questions?
Prosecutor Szewczyk: I have a question. Can the witness remember any orders from Liebehenschel about work efficiency during his time at the office?
Witness: I remember our bosses, Kapper and Sehl, receiving memoranda from command about how they must employ as many people as possible and make it so there would be as few unbeschäftiges [not employed] as possible. That meant prisoners in quarantine, under arrest, or sent to the doctor. The camp commandant and the camp Verwalter [administrator] both required the Arbeitsführer [work leader] to keep the number of unbeschäftiges as low as could be, that is, they demanded employment to be as high as possible.
Prosecutor: And maximum possible work efficiency?
Witness: Yes.
Prosecutor Pęchalski: I would ask the Tribunal to order Hans Hoffman in the dock identified to the witness.
| Presiding Judge: | Defendant Hans Hoffman will rise. |
| Prosecutor: | Does the witness recognize this defendant? |
| Witness: | No. I remember a Hoffman who worked in the political department, but that is not him. |
Prosecutor Brandys: Did defendant Aumeier ever order prisoners summarily whipped?
Witness: Aumeier ordered summary whipping whenever he received a report on a prisoner, before sending him to the bunker or the post.
Prosecutor: I meant whether or not the prisoner was punished twice for the same crime?
Witness: They were punished twice. I can recall a specific case like that. I found out that one of the prisoners in the fire watch was sentenced to death. He learned in the office that he was to be set aside after roll call, which meant he would go to block 11. He took a risk and after the roll call he went behind the Blockführerstube [Blockführers’ room], beyond the wire, but he was caught and brought to the Blockführerstube. That was where Aumeier’s office was. I saw with my own eyes how Aumeier beat that prisoner with a stick given to him by one of the SS men, how he kicked him, and then handed him over to other Dienstführers [duty commanders]. They beat him up again, then led him over to block 11, where he was shot.
Presiding Judge: Does the defense have any questions for the witness?
Defense Attorney Minasowicz: Do you know when Bogusch left the Auschwitz camp?
Witness: I remember that we found out that Bogusch would be transferred, since he was going to Norway. I cannot recall the date, it may have been in 1944 or late 1943. In any case that moment lodged itself firmly into my memory because there was a lot of celebration in the barrack that Bogusch would no longer be able to oppress us.
Defense: Did defendant Bogusch deliver beatings as well?
Witness: I once saw Bogusch beat a prisoner.
Defense: With a stick or with his hands?
Witness: With his hands on that occasion.
Defense: Has the witness heard of Bogusch’s next return to Auschwitz?
Witness: No, because in 1944, in October, I left Auschwitz.
Defense: Was defendant Bogusch better or worse than other SS men? Or on the same level?
Witness: I would rank Bogusch as one of the worst, as he never passed up an opportunity to torment a prisoner, to cause moral suffering. He took part in the night transports and when everyone else came after the night duty to the canteen and drank, Bogusch did not, and he never passed up a moment when he could make a prisoner miserable. I classify him as a type that is particularly criminal on purpose, even though I have not seen him shoot anybody. I worked for two years with the people I named here.
Defendant Bogusch: I ask the High Tribunal for permission to make a statement about the selection issue.
Presiding Judge: Go ahead.
Defendant: May the Supreme Tribunal ask the witness if prisoners could move freely around the barracks they lived in? Men and women had their separate toilets and I could not hinder their responding to their natural needs in any way. As for the selection, I would like to ask the witness in what month and what year that happened.
Witness: As for the freedom to move around the barrack, I explain that Bogusch had his own room, where one girl worked. She could not leave the room without his permission. When Bogusch left, she would take advantage of the situation, leave and tell us that she could not leave. Bogusch would very frequently go out of the room and go to where the toilets were and chase prisoners away, whether they did what they came for or not.
As for the selection, I insist that Bogusch took part in night transports of Jews; I cannot state the exact month, in any case it was in the summer of 1943. That Bogusch took part in selections during night transports I heard from Unterscharführer Kaper. I could afford to be very confident around him, as he took advantage of my food a lot. When I asked Kaper which of our SS men were on the ramp that night he told me there were Bogusch, Hartwig, and one more, whose name I cannot recall. So Bogusch did take part in selections.
Defendant Bogusch: Based on my seniority [?] I state I did not have duty at night and I did not take part in selections. Duty was given to junior officers and I was not assigned to it.
Witness: I state that every SS functionary, whether Blockführer or Arbeitdienstführer, all of them were sporadically assigned [to selections] – so we are not talking about permanent night duty.
Presiding Judge: Does the defendant have any further questions?
Defendant: That is all I wanted to state.
Presiding Judge: The witness is excused.