On 13 September 1946 in Gliwice, Regional Investigative Judge Jan Sehn, a member of the Main Commission for the Investigation of German Crimes in Poland, at the spoken request and in the presence of a member of that Commission, Deputy Prosecutor Edward Pęchalski, pursuant to and in accordance with Article 4 of the Decree of 10 November 1945 (Journal of Laws of the Republic of Poland No. 51, item 293), in connection with Articles 254, 107 and 115 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, interviewed a former Auschwitz concentration camp prisoner, who testified as follows:
| Name and surname | Erwin Olszówka |
| Date and place of birth | 24 September 1916, Chorzów |
| Citizenship and nationality | Polish |
| Religious affiliation | Roman Catholic |
| Occupation | clerk |
| Place of residence | Chorzów, 1 Maja Street 34, flat 5 |
I was in the Auschwitz concentration camp from 25 June 1940 to the end, that, is until 18 January 1945, as prisoner no. 1141. In the initial period, I worked as a Schreiber [clerk] in various blocks, for some time in the painters’ unit and twice in the penal unit. From May 1942, I was employed in the so-called Häftlingsschreibstube. Initially, I worked there as an assistant of the main Schreiber, Diestel, and after his departure on 13 January 1943, I took over his position, which I held until the end of my stay in the camp. Officially, I was called Rapportschreiber. The Häflingsschreibstube was the office of the so-called Lagerführer [camp leader].
My duties included keeping records of prisoners and changes in the number of prisoners caused by arrivals of new transports (Zugange), deaths, releases, relocations or escapes. In the Häftlingaschreibstube, we kept the so-called Hauptbuch [general ledger], where all male prisoners were listed according to their numbering. Apart from their prison number, the list also included prisoners’ type (Häftlingsart), name and surname, date and place of birth, and occupation.
Apart from the Hauptbuch, we also kept alphabetically ordered files in the Häftlingaschreibstube, and the so-called Nummerbuch, where we marked with a pencil where a given prisoner was kept or what had happened to him – if he had been transferred from Auschwitz or had died. We inserted newly arrived prisoners into the two ledgers and the files based on the so-called Zugangsliste prepared by the admissions office (Aufnahme) of the Political Department.
If prisoners were transported out of the camp, we then made a suitable note in the Hauptschreibstube documents based on the transport lists. We prepared those lists when requested by the Lagerführer and the Political Department. All reductions in the number of prisoners caused by natural death or murdering were recorded based on the reports we received from the prison hospital (Häftlingskrankenbau). In those reports, the hospital declared as dead all prisoners who had lost their lives on a given day, due to natural causes, shooting, gassing, or individual killing at work. In some cases, the entire hospital report list was marked with an “LB” stamp. In this case, we would write the letters “LB” in the Hauptbuch. I do not know what the abbreviation means. I know, however, that it is an equivalent of the abbreviation SB (Sonderbehandlung) which meant that the given prisoner did not die of natural causes, but had received special treatment, that is, was shot or gassed. In many cases, the Rapportführer gave us a clear order to include such lists marked with “LB” and other lists of deceased prisoners without this symbol in the ledger as Überstellt (Üb), and to add the date of the prisoner’s alleged transfer. In fact, it was the date of the prisoner’s death. However, according to the files and ledgers kept in the Schreibstube, such prisoners were alive and kept in a different camp. If a prisoner was actually transferred from Auschwitz to another camp or a prison, we also marked him as Überstellt in the ledger and entered the date of his transfer and the name of the camp or prison to which he had been transferred. When marking the dead as Überstellt, we never provided the name of the place of transfer.
In the Häftlingsschreibstube where I worked, we kept general ledgers (Hauptbuch) of male prisoners with numbers from the general series, covering 218,000 numbers from the beginning to the end of the camp’s existence; of Gypsies – covering about 12,000 numbers; and of male correctional prisoners (Erziehungshäftling) – covering over 7,000 numbers. From 1943, we also kept general ledgers of transported Jews (Transportjuden) from series A comprising 20,000 numbers and series B consisting of over 12,000 numbers. The two last series were prepared on Höß’s order to avoid issuing numbers which would be too long, and they were used for numbering Jewish prisoners, who had been selected by the Arbeitseinsatz [labor deployment] from the mass transports arriving at that time at Auschwitz. Those selected and numbered transport Jews constituted only a small fraction of all prisoners who arrived in mass transports. The rest of the transports, especially all children and the majority of women, as well as all elderly people and those who were unable to work, went from the railway ramp straight to the gas chambers.
Höß was a special representative of the Berlin headquarters whose task was to clear Europe of Jews. In the summer of 1944, he personally traveled to Hungary, from where he brought mass transports of local Jews. I believe that the number of gassed people during those operations amounted to over 4 million – there were not less than 4 million for sure. When the operation was at its most intensive, about 5000 Jews were brought to Auschwitz every day, but at most only 500 were given numbers – the rest went to the gas chambers. This escalation lasted, with short intervals, for about half a year. At the end of the camp’s existence, only 40,000 prisoners were left alive from all the numbered male prisoners, whose total number according to the general series, as I have already mentioned, had previously amounted to 218,000. They were kept in the main camp and in all its branches. About 20 thousand of them had been transported to other camps, and about 5,000 had been released or transferred to other camps or prisons in smaller groups consisting of several dozen people. The rest from that series, that is, over 150,000 numbered male prisoners, had died in Auschwitz due to difficult conditions or had been shot by firing squad, gassed, killed with injections or at work. From the Gypsy camp, which consisted of about 12,000 men, about 2,800 were selected and taken to camps in Buchenwald, Dachau, Flossenbürg and Natzweiler, while the rest, that is about 9,000 men, were gassed in the same period. From over 150,000 deceased prisoners numbered in the general series, 60–70 thousand were shot by firing squad or gassed in mass operations, while the rest were exterminated and killed one by one. I would like to emphasize that many of the prisoners who were transported out of Auschwitz died on the way. When I was being evacuated from Auschwitz, about 20 percent of prisoners from my transport died as a result of the conditions we were transported in.
I remember the following major operations directed against Poles: in September 1940, the mayor of Kraków (Czuchajowski) and 14 other men were executed by firing squad. On 12 June 1942, about 200 prisoners transported from Kraków and Silesia were shot dead. On 6 August 6 1942, about 60 prisoners from the same transport were also executed. In October 1943, 260 prisoners from the Lublin region. In the autumn of 1943, about 70 prisoners from the group of Dziama, Woźniakowski, and others. On 8 February 1942, 30 prisoners from the group of a famous runner, Noji, and the actor Zacharewicz.
Based on the ledgers from the Häftlingsschreibstube, I prepared daily, weekly, biweekly and monthly reports for the camp management. The management (Lagerführung) sent those reports through the camp command’s office as Fungmeldung or Fernschreiben to the central authorities in Berlin-Oranienburg. In such reports, they would first indicate the previous number of prisoners, then the changes that occurred due to the arrivals and losses of prisoners (Abgang, Zugang), and then the number as of the given day. On the back of the report, the newly arrived prisoners were divided into Neuzugänge, that is prisoners who came to the camp for the first time, and Rücküberstelle, those who had been there before. The prisoners lost were divided into transferred, released and dead. The deceased were then divided into those who had died of natural causes, those who were marked with the letters SB, and those who had been executed (Exekutiert).
Rudolf Höß was the first commandant and the founder of the Auschwitz camp. He left this position in the autumn of 1943. In 1944, he returned to Auschwitz as a special envoy of the central authorities with the task of conducting an anti-Jewish operation.
Due to the position he held, he could decide about everything that happened in the camp. Höß actually managed the camp and had access to all camp matters.
The report was read out. At this point, the interview of the witness and the present report were concluded.