Polish Research Institute at Lund University, Sweden

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1 at Lund University, Sweden Lund, 5 th January, 1946 Protocol No. 84 Witness family & given names: XXXXXXXXXX Places of internment Born on: 26 th June, 1905 Time period: from/to Placed in: Prisoner's data: Notes: Birth place: Warszawa 23 rd September, 1941 Profession: Office Clerk /25 th April 1945 Citizenship: Religion: Parents names (F/M) Last residence in Poland: Present residence: Polish Eastern Orthodox Bonifacy / Maria Warszawa Warszawa The testimony consists of five handwritten pages and covers: 1. Description of the arrival to RAVENSBRÜCK. Kicking and beating. Page 1 of 6 RAVENSBRÜCK Red triangle, No. 7763, Letter P 2. Hard living conditions in the block. Mixture of various human elements: prostitutes, demented and political prisoners 3. Work in workshops. Tormenting by SS-men and guards. Incident with a ghost. Concentration camp. Political prisoner 4. Hunger. Labour on the outside; peeling potatoes and in laundry. Hard working conditions. Obtaining food from outside. Attitude of German civilians to the prisoners. Sending letters illegally. 5. The Sanatorium column. Contacts with men. Mutual assistance. 6. Work in the kitchen. Selections. 7. Harassment by the Polish block elder. 8. Incident with rabbits [guinea pigs]- Three days isolation of the block without light, food and air. 9. Supplementary feeding of children organized by the kitchen block.

2 INSTITUTE MEMBER AT THE PROTOCOL: Helena Dziedzicka (Translation from Polish by Jan Tuszyński 1 ) Record of Witness testimony no. 84 Name: MRS XXXXXXXXXX Born: 26 th June In: Poznań Profession: Office Clerk Religion: Eastern Orthodox Parents 1 st names: Bonifacy, Maria Last domicile in Poland: Warszawa. Current domicile: Warszawa. Instructed about importance of truthful testimony as well as on responsibility and consequences of false testimony, the witness testifies as to the following: I stayed in concentration camp: time period from: 23 rd September, 1941 RAVENSBRÜCK to: 25 th April, 1945, as a political prisoner number: 7763, triangle: red, letter: P Asked if in connection with my incarceration, in prison, ghetto, concentration camp, I have any specific information about camp organization, the camp regimen, prisoners work conditions, treatment of prisoners, medical and pastoral care, sanitary/hygienic conditions, and also any specific events in all aspects of the camp life, I testify as follows: The testimony consists of five handwritten pages and covers: 1. Description of the arrival to RAVENSBRÜCK. Kicking and beating. 2. Hard living conditions in the block. Mixture of various human elements: prostitutes, demented and political prisoners 3. Work in workshops. Tormenting by SS-men and guards. Incident with a ghost. 4. Hunger. Labour on the outside; peeling potatoes and in laundry. Hard working conditions. Obtaining food from outside. Attitude of German civilians to the prisoners. Sending letters illegally. 1 Translator s notes (if any) are in cursive, enclosed in parenthesis Page 2 of 6

3 5. The Sanatorium column. Contacts with men. Mutual assistance. 6. Work in the kitchen. Selections. 7. Harassment by the Polish block elder. 8. Incident with rabbits [guinea pigs]- Three days isolation of the block without light, food and air. 9. Supplementary feeding of children organized by the kitchen block. I was arrested on 15 th September, 1941 in Warszawa, for helping Polish officers; myself being wife of one. They took me first to Gestapo. Through three days I was interrogated eight hours daily. I was confined to the dark cell, without food. I was confronted with one of the caught officers. I did not admit anything. They took me over to Pawiak [Gestapo prison in Warszawa,] where they kept me until 23 rd of September 1941, in strict isolation. Afterwards I was set on a transport to Ravensbrück. Through the whole isolation time (5 days) I got one meal only. Everyday a Gestapo man from the prison office would visit me inquiring if I have something more to testify and promised to release me if I would admit my charges. I refused. I was then not aware about transportations. Last day there the same officer promised me, that I will be destroyed and never again return to Poland. On the way to RAVENSBRÜCK we were guarded by a single soldier, who by the way was quite human. Being in Pawiak I managed to send message to my father and to one more officer, to hide and that I never betrayed anyone. While transported I managed as well to send two notes informing about my departure on the transportation. After arrival to the train station, we met German brutality; they pushed us, chased with dogs and beat us. Crowded in ambulances we were taken to the camp, where we had to stand whole day in front of the bath. In the bath we were robbed completely, they took my wedding ring. We changed there into striped garbs and wandered then to the block 13. The human element in the block was very diverse and conditions there very hard. There were three demented women, starting rows all the time. One of them, Marta Bin, got furious while working with sand. She was beaten terribly, she got unconscious and as such was thrown into mortuary where next day she woke up between cadavers. There were horrible brawls in the block, prostitutes there behaved scandalously. All this led us into a dreadful depression. The quarantine lasted three weeks. I went afterwards to Betrieb where we made boots of straw. Conditions we had there were frightful. The Gestapo-man who guarded us, beat, kicked and bullied us. One of the Aufsehers, Pitsch, was quite decent, but others, the young ones, were terrible. Once a strange story happened at night. One of the elders, came pale from the outside, and told us that she saw some strange figure there, who raised from heap of straw at the barrack, and then passed by in direction of the camp walls. That figure was seen by several women. The panic arose at the barrack, the women started to faint and scream, jumped on the tables, and got attacks of hysteria. The crowd rushed Page 3 of 6

4 to escape toward doors. The Aufseherin lost her head, she stood there with her gun, pale as the wall. It took a long time to calm down the crowd, the night guards were called upon. Next day column elders testified to the management ( nach vorne.) A written report was prepared, there were some investigations, but we never got informed on the results. Afterwards I worked in U-barrack, ripping SS uniforms. The work was very hard. The clerk there beat us and persecuted. SS-man Binder beat us hard, breaking ribs. Graff flung stools on prisoners. At that time hunger started (Spring 1942,) I fainted three times of hunger. I managed to get over to the column working out of the camp, just to get something to eat. The work was very hard. We dug and picked potatoes, following machine in crazy pace. But thanks to that we got a lot of potatoes I could share to feed my companions I moved to the laundry in Fürstenberg. The camp was getting infested with lice and filth. We worked from 7 A.M. To 6 P.M., standing whole day at the machines. We stole washing powder to launder underwear for ourselves and our companions. We encountered one of the most despicable clerks there, Karolina Steger. She was one of the meanest monsters, tormenting particularly intelligentsia by kicking and beating. We met there the first time, German workers as it was the Wehrmacht's laundry. German civilians related to us badly and suspiciously. They explained to us that we are the fallen nation who will never raise again. Sometimes we managed to send letters through sailors from Silesia, they gave us cigarettes and helped us. My next work was in a column at Sanatorium. We dispatched letters there illegally, through French who worked there (from Stalags.) We provided them with underwear and socks we organized at Betrieben of the camp. They stole for us vegetables and fruits, we then carried to our companions in the camp. For Obers /elders and guards we took flowers and fruits, and thanks to that we managed smuggle out all other items. Once one of our companions got caught for sending letters, found by Gestapo at the search of her father's home in Krakow. Whole our column was then taken away, and the culprit was set for three months in bunker. I then started my work in the kitchen. At that time I begun ailing. They took my blood for transfusions to those wounded from Meuselwitz factory. I gave blood for a young girl there. From that time I started suffering of ulcers. I was weakened of my labours outdoors. Through whole two winters I worked outdoors where I froze terribly. The laundry as well was placed in the shack, so cold that icicles hang from the ceiling. I was ailing from November 1944, until the end of my camp stay. In the kitchen we had three or four selections. I had three opened abscesses on my legs, which I covered with powder to manage selections. They selected then only grey haired women. They were taken away but they survived as it was already April 1945 and the crematory was at that time disassembled as the Swedish Red Cross was expected. Manager of the Hohenlychen related to us very badly. After Templin bombing, when victims were taken to the Sanatorium, we were ordered to carry for them beds and pallets. We had to keep on working additional several hours after 10 hours of our workday. With a special malice they ordered us to Page 4 of 6

5 carry several heavy beds, mattresses and pillows. We simply bent under that load. The work was carried on in crazy tempo. We were not allowed any simple smile. The manager hated us and teased us. It was physician Gebhardt, who carried on experimental surgeries on our companions. He hated us. When passing us by, he looked at our legs, never facing us. Generally elders there behaved humanly. April 1942 we were moved to the block where the elder was Danuta Tulmacka, Polish who was to us really nasty. She favoured black triangles, prostitutes who teased us, intelligentsia, really nasty. Tulmacka addressed older women in a very vulgar way. All of us she treated very bad, chicaning us on every occasion, frightening us constantly with a block guard, one of the worst in the camp, but her best friend there. Frieda, the guard, fanatically hated Poles and tormented us by beating and kicking. Just for having small mirror and a comb one could be tortured. Tulmacka herself punished us all the time: stand-ups, carrying kettles, e.t.c. She extinguished all kinds of cultural moments, forbidding all kinds of lectures or just singing. Then she transferred all intelligentsia over to the German block of green and black triangles, where relations were monstrous. She did it purposely. One day 12 persons of our transport were taken to be executed. Danuta Tulmacka found it sensational, but never being concerned about that. She never tried to comprehend our situation, only took it out in teasing us. Block No. 15, was a block of death. Every fourth week the clerk showed up with a list over 8-12 persons to be executed. It was of our transport from Warszawa and Lublin (7000.) One survived for a month to month, being all convinced to meet the same destiny. Several of rabbits [guinea pigs] were taken to die as well. August 15, 1943, several prisoners of the Lublin transport were summoned for surgeries. The block refused to let them out. We got locked through three days in the block, in darkness, without food and air. Roll calls took place in-doors. Aide-de-camp Preuning and Ober-Guard Binz, came to the block. Preuning hold a speech, that in the future that kind of insubordination will be not tolerated and he will know how to treat us, as he has no lack of soldiers and guns. The prisoners having numbers 7000 were forbidden twice to pass gate. Those were the political transports from Warszawa and Lublin. Block No. 1, kitchen, had a very well organised help for children. We donated our food rations to them, as after all we had enough food in the kitchen. Very prominent contributions in feeding children and in help in general gave Marta Baranowska, Polish, our elder of block No. 1. Read, signed and confirmed (Signed) Helena Dziedzicka, Institute Assistant (Signed) XXXXXXXXXX, the witness Page 5 of 6

6 Notes of the one taking the record: The testimony of Mrs. XXXXXXXXXX are wholly trustworthy. (Signed) Helena Dziedzicka For conformance of the copy with the manuscript: (Signature) Helena Dziedzicka, Institute Assistant Stamp of Polish Research Institute in Lund Page 6 of 6

Polish Research Institute at Lund University, Sweden

Polish Research Institute at Lund University, Sweden at Lund University, Sweden Date of the protocol: Malmö, 6 th December, 1945 Protocol No. 30 Witness family & given names: XXXXXXXXXX Places of internment Born on: 14 th May, 1896 Time period from / to