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 Birth place: Sanok 15 th April, 1940 / Profession: School Principal 25 th April 1945 Citizenship: Religion: Parents names (F/M) Last residence in Poland: Present residence: Polish Roman Catholic Jan / Teofila Bydgoszcz Bydgoszcz Placed in: The testimony consists of 3 pages of handwritten text and covers the following main items: 1. Description of the living conditions during the quarantine (year 1940) 2. Daily schedule and working conditions. Punishments. 3. Sanitary conditions. Prisoner data (triangle, number, letter) Notes RAVENSBRÜCK Red, 3150, P Political prisoner Page 1 of 5
INSTITUTE MEMBER AT THE PROTOCOL: Helena DZIEDZICKA (Translation from Polish by Roman Solecki 1 ) Record of Witness testimony No. 30 Name: MRS XXXXXXXXXX Born: 14 th May 1896. In: Sanok Profession: School Principal Religion: Roman Catholic Parents 1 st names: Jan, Teofila Last domicile in Poland: Bydgoszcz Current domicile: Bydgoszcz 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: 15 th April, 1940 RAVENSBRÜCK to: 25 th April, 1945, as a political prisoner number: 3150, 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 3 pages of handwritten text and covers the following main items: 1. Description of the living conditions during the quarantine (year 1940) 2. Daily schedule and working conditions. Punishments. 3. Sanitary conditions. 1 Translator s notes (if any) are in cursive, enclosed in parenthesis
Date of the protocol: at Lund University, Sweden Malmö, 6 th December, 1945 Testimony of the witness: XXXXXXXXXX Protocol No. 30 I was arrested on April 9, 1940 in Bydgoszcz and informed that I shall be released immediately. I was accused of teaching the children to sing Rota [Polish patriotic song: We won't forsake the land we came from.. ] by Konopnicka. At the same time all school principals were taken away. After a week stay in in our own school transformed into a jail, where we were treated relatively well, we left being sure that we are being sent to work in Mecklenburg. We were transported to Ravensbrück. In the bathroom those that have pretty hair had it cut, all our belongings were taken away. We were sent to the block 16. This was the first transport of Polish women, more or less 130 (Bydgoszcz, Toruń and Gdańsk). The windows of our block were whitened and grilled, they couldn t be opened and there was only a tiny slit at the top. For 6 weeks we sat in complete silence, it was not allowed to pray or to sing and we had nothing to do. We got up at 5AM and after the roll call in the block (we were not allowed even to stand at the door step) we sat idle the whole day. It was stuffy and tightly, and initially cold. We were very lightly dressed in summer dresses. We looked only through the slits in the windows to see the sky and at least a branch from a tree or grass on the ground. At that time my hair became white. Lack of information from the world, lack of letters, only the Aufseherin constantly came to us yelling insults at us. After 2 ½ months they transferred us to the block #15 at Corpus Christi day. We were ordered to clean the entire block. Here were more of us now, arrived other female prisoners from Działdowo, Poznań and other, there were 270 of us. At the beginning of July they took us to work. Especially Polish teachers were selected to kitchen and to the vegetable peeling room in the cellar. The work was very hard from 4AM till 8-9PM. We sat in the cellar very poorly lighted, our eyes hurt us, we had to do daily 10 big pails of potatoes, and in addition we cleaned thoroughly the whole cellar. It was so terribly stuffy that the throat burned while breathing. The cellar was cluttered with decaying vegetables. We carried waste of rotten vegetables and peelings in big kettles beyond the gates to load them on the carriage. It was beyond our power; women toppled under the load and were insulted for this. During the work we were guarded so that we didn t eat the vegetables and we were so hungry that it darkened in our eyes. One of the prisoners lifted a carrot from the ground during rinsing, the Aufseherin saw that and reported on her. She could expect 10 whips or the Strafblok. But at the same day she was discharged. This was a Czech woman. After few months we were forcefully enlisted to give blood to German soldiers. We defended ourselves, we didn t want to go voluntarily. I, already on the way to the sick-bay, run to the toilet and sat there locked for ½ hrs. I went out when all was finished. The women were put on the tables because they defended themselves, they were tied with belts and their blood was drawn forcefully. One of the prisoners whose blood was once already drawn by force fled to the block when they wanted take her blood for the second time but the doctor caught her on the bicycle. Those who whose blood was drawn were given one time only extra ½ liter of skim milk, a serving of bread and margarine. For the smallest offense (being late for work even 5 minutes only) we went to the Strafblok. One of the prisoners, the teacher Warsicka, while washing the dishes turned her head and watched through the window the prisoners released from the camp. The guardian saw it and for work dereliction was condemned to ½ year of Strafblok. The worst thing in the Strafblok, as she told, was the surrounding, in addition to few innocent Polish women, there were there mostly German streetwalkers and Gypsy Page 3 of 5
women who in 99% had venereal disease. Sleeping near such an ill woman or below her threatened an infection and caused a most horrible repulsion. /they eliminated themselves in the bed on the heads of the neighbors underneath./ The work there was very hard, outdoors, in the cold, rain and frost. When she was released from the Strafblok her face was covered with powder from misery and cold. It was not allowed to dry clothes. They folded them into the bed and dried it with their own body. They were rushed to work with the dogs. The dogs savaged the people. When the Aufseherin found they moved too slow, she beat them in heads with keys. Hunger was terrible. Bread she brought to work she had to hide to the straw mattress to prevent theft. During the night she cried from hunger and consumed bread reserved for the morning and hungry she went to work. There were constant punishments, they would take away food and punished with stand-up. They would stand two or three hours without food, hungry, in rain and frost. For any attempt to escape, whole block was punished by starvation and stand-up until the escapee was caught, sometimes standing that way through whole nights. There was a case when escapee returned caught and beaten by the SS-men, and her colleagues, prompted by the Aufseherin, beat her with the kettle covers, broken her bones, pulled her to a bunker where she died next day. Winter 1940-41 was very hard, we had summer dresses with short sleeves and light jackets. To protect against frost we wrapped ourselves with paper. When the Aufseherin had once caught such a wrapped woman, she convicted her for 8 days of 1 hour stand-ups without supper, in front of the bunker. There was terrible hunger in 1942, the potatoes rot and only dried vegetables were available. They allowed us to obtain parcels that were always burgled by the Aufseherinnen. Finally two Aufseherinnen were sent to a bunker for stealing the parcels. There was constant increase in transports, a two shift labor routine was introduced. Because of lack of space, while one shift slept the other worked 12 hours. Then they went to sleep in the same beds. There was a piece wage work. For insufficient results one was beaten with a stool in the head. Before sunrise, after the work we stood barefooted at the roll call despite of frost. It was not allowed to put a piece of paper under the feet. The diseases started to spread, rheumatism and bladder infection. In 1940, 1941 and 1942 we walked barefooted from April to October. In 1943 all-female Polish political prisoners were called to the front of the command post and asked who wants to work at a bordello. Because there was indignation the protesting block 15 was punished with a package-ban for 2 weeks and food from the packages we had in the blocks was confiscated. During the first two years the hygienic conditions were bearable, we had bed sheets and once a week the personal lingerie was changed. Then they took away the bed sheets, the lingerie was changed less and less often as finally one year before the end they stopped the change even though there was plenty of elegant lingerie from new transports. All our clothes that were confiscated were most often stolen and the remainder cut and sewn as stripes on the dresses and coats which were given to the prisoners. The clothes were marked with stripes to make the attempts of escape more difficult and also to make us look different than other humans, to demean us even more.. During last two years, because of doubling the size of the camp, the throng got terrible and hygienic conditions unbearable. We slept 3 or 4 in one bed. On the bed there were thorn pallets, covered with one blanket. Various diseases started then, in particular dysentery, typhus and typhoid fever. We saved ourselves with wooden coal from the oven, with burned bread and water in which we dip red hot iron. At the end of the camp time ruled the Haftlings, Aufseherinnen adopted a humble tone, and the worst pest were the police women. During the period of selection in January, February and
Date of the protocol: at Lund University, Sweden Malmö, 6 th December, 1945 Testimony of the witness: XXXXXXXXXX Protocol No. 30 March 1945 two chimneys of the crematory smoked continuously, it was visible how the flames blazed from the chimney. One had the impression of being in hell and seeing the infernal fire. Collecting the cadavers from the blocks made an unforgettable impression on me. Nude, purple bodies, heads shaven, bodies partially eaten by the rats, were pulled by legs and arms through the block bathroom window, and thrown as pieces of wood on bodies piled there already on the wagons. They were transported to the mortuary and then to the crematory. Read, signed and confirmed (Signed) (Signed) H. Dziedzicka, XXXXXXXXXX, the witness Comments by the Institute assistant accepting the interview: The witness XXXXXXXXXX does not remember some dates and the sequence of events but she tells the truth. (Signed) Helena Dziedzicka, Conformable with the original: (Signature) Helena Dziedzicka Stamp of Polish Research Institute in Lund For conformance with the original: (Signature of H. Dziedzicka) Stamp of Polish Research Institute in Lund Page 5 of 5