Court No. II - Case No. 4
JERZY BIELSKI, a witness, took the stand and testified as follows:
THE PRESIDENT: Will the witness raise his right hand and repeat after me: I swear by God, the Almighty and the Omniscient, that I will speak the pure truth and will withhold and add nothing.
(The witness repeated the oath)
THE PRESIDENT: You may be seated.
DIRECT EXAMINATION BY MR. ROBBINS:
Q. Will you state your name, please?
A. My name is Jerzy Bielski.
Q. Will you spell that please?
A. J-E-R-Z-Y-- That is my first name. B-I-E-L-S-K-I
Q. And are you a Polish national?
A. Yes.
Q. And I understand you were born in Warsaw, Poland in April 1921; is that correct?
A. Yes.
Q. You are single, a medical student, and you are now residing at Weiden; is that correct?
A. That is correct.
Q. Did you attend a high school in Warsaw?
A. Yes.
Q. And have you attended a medical school in Warsaw?
A. Yes.
Q. Were you an inmate in the Auschwitz concentration camp?
A. Yes.
Q. During what period of time?
A. I was in Auschwitz from August 1942 until November 1944.
Court No. II - Case No. 4
Q. And from there where were you transferred?
A. I was sent to the concentration camps Oranienberg and Sachsenhausen.
Q. And subsequent to the end of the war you have been in DP camps?
A. Yes.
Q. At what places, please?
A. I was at Bremen, and then Coburg, and from Coburg I finally came to Weiden.
Q. And have you applied to UNRRA to be returned to your native land, Poland?
A. Yes, I have.
Q. And you are waiting now to be transferred?
A. Yes, that is correct.
Q. Do you have a serial number on your arm that you received at Auschwitz, please?
A. Yes.
Q. Will you show that number to the Tribunal?
A. (The witness complied.)
Q. It is number 66423?
A. That is correct.
Q. In Auschwitz, what kind of work were you assigned to do?
A. First of all, I was in the construction detachment. I was assistant laborer with the electrical detachment.
Q. And during the year 1944 were you assigned to work in a sand pit at Auschwitz?
A. Yes. In the spring of 1944 I was working in a sand pit at Auschwitz.
Q. And what was the name of that sand pit?
A. It was called after Hauptscharfuehrer Pallisch. The sand pit was located next to the villa.
Court No. II - Case No. 4
Q. And was there a building at the sand pit at which there was a nameplate of an industrial concern?
A. Yes. It was a structure built of wood, and on the sign was written "Deutsche Erd und Stein worke".
Q. And what kind of work were you doing at the sand pit?
A. I helped to load the wagons, and then we had to push these carts.
Q. Was there some particular reason why you were assigned to the sand pit?
A. Yes, this was done to me as a disciplinary measure.
Q. And what had you done to be disciplined?
A. In the concentration camp Auschwitz, in Block 15, during this time, in a search of our block officials of the Political Department found three Polish books and several Polish journals which I had managed to obtain. That is why I was disciplined by the Political Department by being given punitive work in the sand pit.
Q. About how many inmates were working in this sand pit?
A. I worked there for two weeks. Approximately 150 to 155 inmates worked in the sand pit at that time.
Q. Will you describe to the Tribunal the treatment that these workers received while working at the sand pit?
A. One third of the prisoners who worked there were inmates who were being punished by being forced to carry out this work, and then after they had completed the time of punitive labor, they were sent back to their original detachments. Then, of course, there were also the constant workers in this detachment.
Q. I think you failed to understand my question.
A. The conditions that prevailed in the sand pit were terrible. It was one of the worst detachments in the camp.
Court No. II - Case No. 4 All the people there did not get sufficient food.
They were beaten during their work, and many of them were shot. On the average, ten prisoners were killed every day, and ten to twenty who had lost consciousness and who were otherwise sick were returned to the camp. The work had to be carried out at double time, and the work had to be achieved at such a speed that nobody was able to carry it out. Whenever we were unable to run as fast as we were told to or whenever we showed that we did not have sufficient strength to push the carts, then we were always beaten by the foremen and the Capes, and people were shot by the SS guards.
Q. Were you ever assigned to the gravel pit operated by the Deutsche Earth and Stone Works?
Q. Were you ever assigned to the gravel pit operated by the Deutsche Earth & Stone Works?
A. Yes. I personally did not work in the gravel pit, but the conditions which prevailed there I know very exactly from the descriptions of my friends, because I had some very good friends in this command. Furthermore, the people from this command were billeted with me.
Q. And did these people who were billeted with you, your friends, who were assigned to the gravel pits, describe to you the conditions that prevailed there?
A. Yes, they described them to me exactly. Furthermore, I have personal experience. Every day I saw the entire command when they returned from work, and all the entire command consisted of exhausted people. There were about approximately three hundred inmates included in this command at that time, and every day ten to twenty dead persons were carried back, and an additional lot, a number of persons and patients had fainted, and I always saw that when they entered the camp gate, and whenever this command returned from work. My command always returned to camp earlier than they did, approximately one half hour earlier. That is why we were always in a position to observe them when the other commands returned. Amongst them there was also the gravel pit command.
Q. Did there come a time when you were assigned to work at one of the plants operated by the DAW?
A. Yes, this plant at Auschwitz belonged to the DAW, and at the time when I worked there as an electrician there were about two thousand inmates which worked there. To this assignment were a large part of these industriegelaendo work shops but in 1944 all mechanics and forgers of the management had been separated from these works and they had been joined to the DAW, and a large number of these works were also operated there.
Q. Will you tell us, Witness, how you know that this shop was operated by the DAW?
A. Well, all prisoners in camp generally knew about that. Well, at this plant there was assigned, not only documents which belonged to the assignment and always contained the letters DAW, but capos and lower capos of this assignment had an armband which was different than the one worn in all the other assignments. The capos from other assignments had yellow armbands and those of the DAW had black-blue armbands with the white inscription "DAW" and the appropriate department where they were working.
Q. Will you tell the Tribunal something about the conditions that prevailed at this plant operated by the DAW, the working conditions?
A. Very well. This assignment always worked from early in the morning until seven o'clock at night, and a half hour was taken off at noon. All the prisoners there were overworked. They had to carry out too much work. Furthermore, the civilian foreman and also the SS foreman had a very bad reputation throughout the camp because of their sadism. Especially infamous was the director of this plant, Oberstrumfuehrer Sauer. In my work I was present in many cases where beatings occurred and where inmates were beaten to death by capos and other SS men and also by civilian foreman. I know this man by the name of Obersturmfuehrer Sauer.
Q. Was there a time in June, 1943, when some prominent visitors came to Auschwitz?
A. Yes, that was in June, 1943.
Q. And will you describe to the Tribunal the circumstances of that visit and the basis of your knowledge?
A. On this day, set apart from the command of the electric and construction detachment, a capo and one SS foreman, we were sent from Auschwitz to Birkenau approximately at seven-thirty, and we arrived there and began some construction work. In this case we were to establish an electric line to the Camp F, to Birkenau, and this was part of the camp at Birkenau. We worked there and approximately around ten o'clock in the morning, in very good visibility and the weather was very good, several cars drove out with SS officers, and they stopped at the hill.
We already had heard from the day before that inspection of the camp was to take place by Obergruppenfuehrer Pohl, the Director of the Central Administrative Agency of the Main Office. However, we were very surprised that he had arrived already so early in the day. They were located approximately from sixty to eighty meters away from the gas chambers. Behind the gas chambers there was Crematorium No. 3. Thus we were able to observe the whole occurrence very well. The whole group of SS officers, amongst them Pohl, whom we had already seen in camp at an earlier period of time, after I had been in camp for three months, he left his car, and then they walked over to the crematorium. They spent several minutes in the crematorium and then they again went outside and they went to the gas chamber, and after a short time all of them went downstairs and entered the gas chamber. They remained there for approximately forty-five minutes to one hour. After this time they again came outside, and then all of them were engaged in a discussion, and then first one car and then three trucks loaded with sick and exhausted prisoners came from the direction of Auschwitz. The cars came from the main road to the crematorium, and then approximately thirty people from the special assignment came and threw the patients and the sick people off the trucks. Then the trucks left and went back to Auschwitz and the prisoners from the special task groups all took the sick people who had been brought there into the gas chambers, carried them on stretchers, and they also carried them without stretchers. Ten minutes later an additional number of trucks arrived loaded with prisoners. There were approximately four or five, and in each truck there were approximately twenty-five to fifty people. Several of them were lying in the trucks and others were still able to stand. All of them were only dressed in a very short shirt. It was very short. They did not have anything else. And then the same story repeated itself.
People were thrown off the trucks and they were carried into the gas chambers. Then two SS men appeared. They were lower, they were noncommissioned officers of the SS. Then came an ambulance with a red cross on it and which brought several tins. Already at that time we knew that the tins were filled with cyklon gas.
This was not a secret, because approximately 100 meters from our camp at Auschwitz there was a so-called theater building, where these tins of gas were stored. At that time we knew that these tins were filled with Cyklon. The two SS men then walked over with these tins to a window of the gas chamber. The windows were above ground; the gas chamber was below the ground. The window worked from above. Therefore the windows could be opened and one could look at the prisoners inside, and it was also easy to throw in the tins of gas. The SS men stood by the windows, but they did not as yet throw the tins of gas inside. And then Pohl would come, escorted by five SS officers, and all the guests who had come from Berlin, walked over to the window, and then he looked through the window for about fifteen minutes. He looked below and watched the inmates who were inside in the gas chamber. Then Pohl went back with his escort, from the gas chamber.
Q Excuse me. Where Pohl was and his party standing when the SS man took the tins of gas and dropped them in the gas chamber?
A They stood over the gas chamber, approximately one meter away from the window. Then I observed that after the tins were thrown in, the window was closed. And the whole thing lasted for approximately 15 minutes.
Q Then where did Pohl and his party go?
A Then again he went in the direction of the street, where the other group of officers were standing. And then another four or five approached the gas chamber. They approached the window there, which I was able to observe. And they did the same thing that Pohl did, that is, they looked through the window and observed. And then after 20 minutes when all of them had observed this thing sufficiently -I believe that you did not understand me correctly, because I have said the SS people who threw these tins did not yet throw the tins, but stood around a long period of time with these tins in their hands, and all the officers who were with Pohl, and Pohl himself, observed the prisoners in the gas chambers before the tins were thrown in.
And then after all of them had looked into the gas chamber, then, upon the order of our chief of command Unterscharfuehrer Jenne, and the camp leader of Auschwitz, with the Deputy of the Camp Leader, Hoffman, he approached our group and told our chief, "Now you beat it for half a hour; you go in this direction." Then our chief lined us up in five's and we marched off. We went as far as a barn in the village, Babitz. That village was already smashed and several camps had been established there, and we went there and we sat near a barn and we rested for about a half hour. Then we came back and Pohl with all his officers were no longer at the gas chamber, only because they were still standing there. They were. They were still standing where they were, on the road. And then we started to work and ten minutes afterwards Pohl and this time he was accompanied by Hoess -- he and Hoess were the two first and then the others. Also, they came to the gas chambers, and Pohl and Hoess looked through the windows and then some of the others looked through the window. And then they left the crematorium.
Q Excuse me. This was about how long after the tins of gas had been thrown into the crematorium, that Pohl and his party returned?
A Half an hour. We assumed that immediately after we left, the tins were thrown inside, and we stayed in the other place a half an hour. After ten minutes Pohl appeared once mere. So the whole matter lasted 40 minutes. This was after the tins were thrown.
Q Then were the bodies removed from the gas chamber to the crematorium?
A Yes. As I looked again, they were all there, between cars and the crematorium, and during that time about a hundred inmates from the special task groups came from the direction of the Crematoriums 1 and 2, and they, together with the others who were already there, opened the gas chamber and dragged the bodies out of there, and brought them to the cemetery. They had a sort of small stretcher and they had also small carts with one wheel and two handles.
Q About how many truckloads of prisoners did you see taken from the gas chambers?
AAltogether there were approximately nine to ten trucks in the first part. Later approximately 13. I cannot state that exactly. And then a few additional ones arrived. I assume that altogether there were about 20 trucks. And then there was a second portion in the afternoon.
Q Did Pohl and his party watch the same proceedings in the afternoon?
A Yes.
Q About how many people were in Pohl's party?
A Two or three.
Q Were they all SS men?
A Most of them. There were two civilians.
Q Will you tell the Court again how close you were to the crematorium and the gas chambers, where it was that you were working?
AApproximately from 60 to 80 meters.
Q And then did Pohl and his party after leaving the gas chamber walk in your direction?
A He was very close to us on two occasions, and he asked our chief about our work.
And at that time he was about 2 to 3 meters away from me. The others also. Amongst them there were two officers from Auschwitz, Hoffman, Grabner, Hoess, people from the political department. Emmerich. Boger. Lachmann.
Q How do you know the names of all these people you have enumerated?
A They had a very bad reputation throughout the camp. People like Grabner, or Hoffman, Hoess, Boger, or Lachmann - everyone was afraid of them.
Q What was the name of the SS sergeant that was in charge of your work detail?
A SS Unterscharfuehrer Otto Jenne.
Q Did Jenne tell you the names of any of the people in Pohl's party?
A Yes.
Q Did he point out any of the members of Pohl's party and identify them to you?
A Yes.
Q Who did he tell you was in the party?
A Hans Bobermin.
Q Do you think that you could identify Oswald Pohl and Hans Bobermin today if you were to see them?
A Yes. But only Pohl. Bobermin I only saw on that occasion. I do not believe that I would be able to recognize him again. I only remember that he was built rather strongly and had rather broad shoulders. Although I saw him very closely, I didn't see his face, because he had a highcap on his head and therefore I must say that I forget the face. But Pohl I saw several times.
Q What was there about Bobernim that makes you remember his being there?
A When we were working under Unterscharfuehrer Swoboda we had a talk about the high visitors due to arrive, and he and Jenne mentioned several names in the course of their discussion.
Then, after the messenger left his bicycle, he told us, "This guy is one of the greater men in Berlin. He is Hans Bobermin; He is chief of an Amt-- of a Main Amt--of a Main Amt, of SS. I know him very well. I know what a big career he had achieved, and I know that if he did not like you, then he could have sent all of you a long time ago into the crematory."
Q. Is there anything about the name Bobermin that makes it stick in your mind?
A. Yes. My mother-language is Polish, and of course when I speak German now, then I have to translate it from German to Polish; and the sound of the name Bobermin has a very funny meaning in the Polish language. It is very funny. The Polish prisoners in the camp had a number of nicknames in the camp, and among them we also said for a man--for an inmates who was undernourished-- "He looks like a Bober. He has a look like a Bober." "Look" in Polish means "mina"; and therefore "Bobermina" means "he looks like a famished inmate" in Polish.
Q. Herr Bielsky, will you stand up please? Will you see if you can identify Oswald Pohl as being one of the members in the dock? If you like, you may walk over closer.
A. (Witness leaves stand and walks toward the dock) This is Oswald Pohl.
MR. ROBBINS: May the record show that the witness identified the defendant Pohl?
THE PRESIDENT: The record will so show.
BY MR. ROBBINS:
Q. Do you think that you can identify the defendant Bobermin?
A. I do not think so; I only saw him on that one occasion, and that was four years ago.
Q. Witness, are you missing some teeth from your mouth?
A. Yes.
Q. Will you tell the Court how you lost them?
A. In the course of my interrogations by the Gestapo I was beaten for three months, and I was tortured. At the time the Gestapo broke my nose; they knocked out my teeth--and that was at Auschwitz. Furthermore, three ribs were broken when I was beaten. I was given five hundred strokes with a whip, and then I spent two months at the prison at Radom where I was beaten every day.
Q. Do you have any other scars on your body from this treatment?
A. Yes; I also have a wound at my heel. That comes from the year 1942 when I had typhus. For two weeks I had to walk, and then in the evening I did not want to go to the hospital because there one was easily disposed of through injections, and we preferred to die on the free fields than in the gas chamber. At that time I stood in the morning formation. One of the SS men saw that I was standing there, and I had a very high fever at the time. I was not able to stand straight. He gave me several kicks, and as a result of this I had a very dangerous wound. Then I had an inflammation of my veins and blood poison; and that is why my left leg is 16 centimeters bigger than my right, and I can not stand on my leg more than one or two hours. Then I have either to lie down or to sit down.
Q. Herr Bielsky, do you have medical proof with you to show that you have lost from sixty to seventy percent of the use of that leg from mistreatment.
A. Yes.
MR. ROBBINS: Prosecution has no further questions.
THE PRESIDENT: Do you still want to defer cross-examination until Monday? You do?
DR. FROESCHMANN: (Counsel for the defendant Mummenthey): Yes, Mr. President, we still want to defer the cross-examination til Monday.
DR. GAWLIK (Counsel for the defendant Bobermin): I also request the Tribunal to defer the cross-examination until Monday.
THE PRESIDENT: Very well, the witness may be withdrawn from the witness stand, and will return Monday for cross examination.
Just a moment.
BY JUDGE PHILLIPS:
Q. What was it the Gestapo asked you about--or questioned you about--when they were beating you?
A. They wanted me to sign the indictment, and they wanted me to admit everything with which I had been charged. And then my mother and my sister, who was eleven years old, were also tortured in a very cruel manner. They spent four months in prison and afterward they were shot because the Gestapo wanted to force me to admit everything with which I was charged.
Q. What were you charged with?
A. I was charged with having sympathies and having collaborated with an underground organization, and of working together with the clandestine press, and of assisting the partisans in the Lysa Gora mountains; because I had a hostile attitude toward the Third Reich.
Q. Are you a Jew?
A. I am half-Jewish.
Q. Where were you arrested?
A. I was arrested at Konsky, two hundred kilometers from Varsaw. That is in the district of Kielce.
Q. What were you doing there?
A. At the time I was working in the clandestine press at Varsaw. My mother was at my father's estate--that was at Hakolski. My mother was arrested three days before my arrest, together with my sister, because they had been denounced by the man who was administering my estate.
Q. What weapons did the Gestapo use in the camp to knock out your teeth?
A. This was done with the butts of pistols, and then I was put in a place--I was put into a torturing engins; I was put with my head down. I was hanged on a piece of wood and both arms were bound together, and then three Gestapo men started beating me from all sides with sticks, with pistol butts, and with a kind of whip they used to use. There was a thick wire inside and on the outside there was leather.
Q. I noticed you looking at the defendants; You shut one eye. Are either one of your eyes injured from any treatment you had there?
A. My eyes were damaged when I was maltreated; yes.
Q. To what extent were your eyes injured?
A. The sight-nerves were paralyzed.
Q. The right eye?
A. Yes, my right eye.
BY THE PRESIDENT:
Q. You said when you were arrested you were working for the clandestine press.
A. Yes; for the clandestine press, and for the organization ZVZ; that is a unit of armed resistance.
Q. You said when you were arrested you were working for the Clandestine Press?
A. Yes, for the Clandestine Press and for the organization, that is, a unit of armed resistance.
Q. You were in the Polish Underground?
A. Yes.
Q. And you were working for a newspaper?
A. Yes, I worked for a paper. I myself distributed papers and I reduced these papers and I wrote them for the Underground.
THE PRESIDENT: Now the witness may retire, to return on Monday morning at 9:30 o'clock.
MR. McHANEY: I assume the Tribunal wishes to take its customary afternoon recess at this time?
THE PRESIDENT: We want to take an inventory first.
MR. McHANEY: The Prosecution is quite ready to proceed, your Honor.
THE PRESIDENT: Do you have some documents?
MR. McHANEY: Yes.
THE PRESIDENT: Then we will take a recess.
(A recess was taken.)
THE MARSHAL: Tribunal No. 2 is again in session.
MR. MC HANEY: If the Tribunal please, I will now offer documents in Document Book No. 9. We are skipping for the time being Document Book No. 8, since it was not delivered to the defense counsel until this morning, whereas Document Book No. 9 has been in their possession for several days. The first two documents in this book concern themselves with the typhus experiments carried out in the Buchenwald concentration camp. The first document is that on Page 1, Document NO-571, which will be Prosecution's Exhibit 218. This is a work report of the typhus and Virus Institute situated at Buchenwald. The Typhus and Virus Research Institute was a department of the Hygiene Institute of the Waffen-SS. The Chief of the Hygiene Institute of the Waffen-SS was the Defendant Mrugowski in the medical case. The local chief of the department for Typhus and Virus Research at Buchenwald was Dr. Ding. He was also known by the name schueder. He was a rather ambitious man and somehow managed to have his name changed to Von Schueder in the year 1943 or so and we will see in the next document, which is a diary written by him on the typhus experiments at Buchenwald, in the first series of pages the name Ding appears, whereas in the last part of the diary he uses the name Schueder. In any event, this is a work report covered by Ding covering the typhus work at Buchenwald. It is dated January 1944.
There were in Buchenwald two separate blocks which were working on the typhus problems. In Block 46 the Typhus experiments themselves were actually performed. That was known as the clinical section. On the other hand Block 50 was the section in which spotted fever and typhus fever and typhus vaccine was manufactured, and they called that the productive vaccine department. There are only two or three entries in Document NO-571, which I wish to call to the Tribunal's attention. On page 4 of the Document Book under Roman Numeral III, it is entitled "Inspections of the 'Department for Spotted Fever and Virus Research'" and under 24 August there is the entry "Inspection of the department by the Director of the Central Building Section of the Waffen-SS and Police, SS-Obersturmfuehrer Huehnefeld, and discussion of necessary improvements."
It is the contention of the Prosecution that this Central Building Section of the Waffen-SS was subordinate to the Amtsgruppe "C" of WVHA, or their agents, who were in the Buchenwald concentration camp to effect certain improvements in the two blocks operated by the Institute for Typhus and Virus Research located there.
On the next page, page 5, under roman numeral III we find an entry on 29 September, the second entry from the top of the page, which reads: "Inspection by the Chief of Office D III in the SS Economic and Administrative Main Office (WVHA), SS-Obersturmbannfuehrer Dr. Lolling and Professor Dr. Schenk." Over these men were members of the WVHA. Lolling was Chief of Office D III, which made him the chief medical officer in Amtsgruppe D, which controlled medical matters in concentration camps. Immediately subordinate to him was the defendant Pook, who was the chief dentist. And Pook was directly subordinate within Amtsgruppe D to Lolling, and we are also familiar with Professor Dr. Schenk. The Tribunal will recall that yesterday I referred back to the table of organization of Amtsgruppe B, under the defendant Georg Loerner, and we saw the name of Dr. Schenk entered in that table of the organiza tion.