Record of Witness Testimony 129

Size: px

Start display at page:

Download "Record of Witness Testimony 129"

Cathleen Brook Parsons
5 years ago
Views:

1 Testimony received by Institute Assistant Bożysław Kurowski, LL M Växjö, 15 January 1946 transcribed 107 Record of Witness Testimony 129 Here stands Ms Eleonora Bońkowska born on 15 November 1914 in Grudziądz, occupation Master of Philosophy religion Roman Catholic, parents' forenames Wacław and Anna last place of residence in Poland Warsaw, ulica Marszałkowska 12 [lit. '70 Marszałkowska Street'] current place of residence Växjö who having been cautioned as to the importance of truthful testimony as well as to the responsibility for, and consequences of, false testimony hereby declares as follows: I was interned at the concentration camp in Ravensbrück from 1 December 1944 to 1 March 1945 as a political prisoner bearing the number [not completed] and wearing a red-coloured triangle with the letter 'P'. I was later interned in Bergen-Belsen from 2 March 1945 to 1 July Prior to this, I was incarcerated at a prison in Salzburg (Austria) from November 1944 after being arrested on 16 November 1944 on charges of abandoning my job as a chambermaid (Arbeitsvertragsbruch [breach of labour contract, Ger.]). Asked whether, with regard to my internment and my labour at the concentration camp, I possess any particular knowledge about how the camp was organized, how prisoners were treated, their living and working conditions, medical and pastoral care, the hygienic conditions in the camp, or any particular events concerning any aspect of camp life, I state as follows: The testimony consists of four handwritten pages and describes the following: 1. Working conditions at maid job in Germany 2. At the camp in Ravensbrück: Long Appells [roll call assemblies, Ger.] in January 1945 Being discharged from the Revier [infirmary, Ger.] to Jugendlager ['Youth Camp', Ger.] Handling of the dead Kolonkas [prisoners appointed to lead work gangs, from Ger. Kolonnenführerin] at Ravensbrück 3. At the camp in Bergen-Belsen: Location General observations Typhus Aufseherkas [female guards, from Ger. Aufseherin] with thick truncheons Punishment of having to kneel while holding bricks Piece of bread raw swede instead of bread Men finished off by a cudgel blow to the head on a daily basis Worse treatment of men. 4. Comments of the assistant receiving the testimony. [stamp] BLOM'S PRINTING, LUND 1945

2 [stamp] 1. Polish Source Institute in Lund Växjö 15 January 1946 Record of eyewitness testimony from Eleonora Bońkowska, born on 15 September 1914 in Grudziądz, Master of Philosophy by occupation, residing in Warsaw. Circumstances of arrest. In July 1944, I wanted to leave Warsaw and go to my family in Grudziądz. I left without authorization; I was captured in Częstochowa and sent to the Arbeitsamt [labour bureau, Ger.]. Then we were sent to the Arbeitsamt in Salzburg via Vienna. This office assigned me to work in Badgastein as a maid in a private hotel. As a maid, I was quite well off. My situation remained unchanged until 1 September 1944, following the announcement of Totaler Kriegseinsatz [total wartime deployment, Ger.], which entailed the conversion of various private businesses. Hotels, in particular, were turned into Kriegslazaretts [field hospitals, Ger.], and the hotel I was working at was also converted into a military hospital. I continued working there as a maid for a while longer. Eventually, the maid jobs were assigned to Germans, while the Polish women (there were two of us) were used [note written above text] in [/note] the military laundry, which was very primitively furnished. The health conditions were intolerable. The laundry had been carved out of the rock; our feet were in water; we had to go from the steaming laundry into the snow outside in order to hang the linens. In these conditions, I decided to abandon my job and flee. As I was fleeing, I was captured and arrested in Salzburg, and then interned at Ravensbrück. At Ravensbrück. From my time at Ravensbrück, what made the strongest impression on my memory was the Appells, during which many women collapsed out of exhaustion and lay on the freezing ground without receiving even the slightest bit of help. This was in December and January. Oftentimes, the Appells would last four to five hours. I saw old, dying women

3 dragged out of the Revier: their numbers were written in indelible pencil on their breasts and they were driven away to Jugendlager. This was an everyday occurrence. They would die at Jugendlager it was a Vernichtungslager [extermination camp, Ger.]. There, prisoners had to stand for ten hours at a time during Appells, without coats or shoes. Handling of dead bodies. It was horrifying how corpses were handled. Any dead woman would immediately be stripped of her better quality belongings by the prisoners, whereas the corpses themselves were dragged completely naked to the bathhouse or washing room. From there, a special cart would transport them to the crematorium. The kolonkas [prisoners appointed to lead work gangs, from Ger. Kolonnenführerin] and the camp's criminal element were even worse than the aufseherkas. I remember one woman lying on the ground seriously ill during land reclamation works. At one point, a Posten [male guard, Ger.] was walking past; the German kolonka asked him to shoot the woman, but then immediately added that the bullet would be wasted on her. The Posten replied: 'Nein, es wäre schade, ich schiesse nur auf Befehl.' ['No, that would be a shame. I only shoot on command.'] Still another time, the kolonkas in the Revier set about beating us. At that moment, the [male] German SS doctor came over and said in a firm voice: 'Nein, hier wird nicht geschlagen.' ['No, there will be no beating here.'] In all honesty, I must declare that I was more afraid of the kolonkas and sztubowas [chief prisoners of each block room, from Ger. Stubenälteste] than of the aufseherkas. After all, the aufseherkas came to the block once or twice a day, whereas the sztubowas and kolonkas had to be dealt with all day long. My time at Ravensbrück was paradise in comparison with what I went through at Bergen-Belsen. At the camp in Bergen-Belsen. On 2 March 1945, we were brought to Bergen-Belsen in a transport numbering 3,000 women. What struck me at first was the gorgeous location

4 3. of Bergen, from which a beautiful birch-lined avenue led to the Belsen 'death camp'. This abrupt transition from beautiful natural surroundings to nightmarish reality was probably yet another manifestation of [German] deviousness. We were placed in a barrack block with a cement floor on which we lay or rather sat for six weeks, that is, until we were liberated by the English. We didn't remove our clothing at all during this time and by the end there was no water at all, so we were eaten alive by lice. Everyone had typhus it was only rare individuals who weren't suffering from typhus of one form or another. Death seemed to come gently: women and men would simply fall asleep. At Belsen, the aufseherkas would walk around holding thick canes and beat us over the head at the slightest prompting. Unlike at Ravensbrück, here the aufseherkas were awful and much worse than the prisoner functionaries. Every day during Appell, I saw with my own eyes as women were punished for stealing swedes or beetroot from outside the kitchen. They would have to kneel for several hours with their arms raised upwards, holding a single brick in each hand. There were between ten and twenty such cases every day, especially as the camp was gripped by famine. By the last few weeks the bread ration had stopped completely, and instead of bread we were given a piece of raw swede and half or three-quarters of a litre of soup per day (also made from swedes). The men at Bergen. The women were treated incomparably better than the men. The men would be forced outside for Appell starting at 3 a.m., whereas the women weren't until 6 a.m. Beating was commonplace among the men; it can be said that one saw beatings of

5 4. male prisoners by SS men and kapos from morning till evening and I must state that I witnessed more kapos abusing prisoners than I did SS men. The kapos were mainly or rather, as a rule German criminals and asocials (with a black triangle). I saw dying men dragged outside through the mud to Appell and finished off with a cudgel blow to the head, whether at Appell or on the way there. I saw this every day the cases were numerous because all that separated us was barbed wire. I could also see corpses being dragged past our block every day, their arms bound together with belts. Since the carts could no longer keep apace, the corpses would be dragged over the ground by male prisoners all day long without a break and deposited at the crematorium, which was located nearby. The men who were forced to drag the corpses would often be finished off themselves when they collapsed out of exhaustion and hunger. This was done by means of cudgels and afterwards their bodies would be dragged to the crematorium. Bodies were burned in the crematorium day after day. There were pits for burning as well, fed by branches from the woods. I was ill with typhus when the English arrived on 15 April 1945, which is why this event didn't make an impression on me. At that point, I weighed thirty-four kilograms with a height of 1.69 metres. This was half my normal weight. On 22 April, I was taken to a hospital that had been established by the English in Bergen. I developed a lung condition as a result of flu while still at Ravensbrück, and because of this I am undergoing treatment at a sanatorium for lung disease sufferers in Växjö. Not even my own mother could show me as much kindness as I have received and continue to receive from the Swedes during my time here. Read, signed, and accepted by Eleonora Bońkowska, MA B. Kurowski Witness Institute Assistant Comments of the receiver of the testimony on page 5

6 [stamp] 5. Comments of the receiver of the testimony: Witness Eleonora Bońkowska gives her testimony slowly and precisely; she weighs her words. She spent hardly [note written above text] half a year [/note] in the concentration camps and this was during the final year of the war, but her encounter with this world left such a strong impression on her that her reaction to, and indignation at, things which veteran prisoners might tend to brush off are still very much alive in her. This can be sensed in the form and content of her testimony. Perhaps this is why every so often during her testimony she quotes from memory the teachings of Buddha, set in verse, seeking respite in them as though she were fleeing from the nightmarish experiences which continue to weigh heavily upon her. The witness is trustworthy. Her testimony does not give rise to any reservations as to its content, and the circumstances described especially especially at the camp in Bergen-Belsen have already been corroborated by previous records of testimony, such as those of witnesses Pomorska, Bukrym, and Kwiek, among others. Bożysław Kurowski Institute Assistant [stamp]

Polish Research Institute at Lund University, Sweden

Polish Research Institute at Lund University, Sweden Witness family & given names: Mrs. XXXXXXXXXX Places of internment Born on 21 st July, 1925 Time period Placed in: Prisoner data Notes from / to (triangle, number, letter) Birth place: Cracow, Poland Till