Q Then you were sentenced to Mauthausen on 12 December 1940 for six months and you stayed there until May 1945?
A Yes, that is correct.
Q. Herr Krysiak, are you Jewish?
A. No.
Q. What is your religion?
A. I am a Catholic.
Q. Would you repeat that please? I wonder if you have the correct translation.
A. I was brought up a Catholic and later on I turned to the Christian Science Movement.
Q. Are you a pacifist?
A. Yes, indeed.
Q. You state that you were in Mauthausen for about four and a half years. Will you give the Court an explanation of the physical setup of Mauthausen in relation to the out-camps surrounding Mauthausen?
A. Yes. I arrived on 12 December 1942 on Mauthausen. Three days later I was sent to the outside camp in Gusen. The first two years in Gusen I, worked in the quarry.
Q. Excuse me just a moment. How many out-camps were there around Mauthausen?
A. Mauthausen had roughly 25 outside camps.
Q. Mauthausen was the central camp; is that correct?
A. Yes, that is correct.
Q. Can you give us the names of some of the out camps?
A. Yes, some of them. Gusen I and II.
Q. Gusen I and II?
A. Gusen I and II. Weiner Neudorf, Weiner Neustadt, Linz, I,II, and III; Ebensee, Passau I and II, and then there were a number of smaller camps, the names of which I do not recall.
Q. Were you assigned to one of these work camps in the neighborhood of Mauthausen?
A. Yes, I belonged to Gusen I camp. Later on, from April 1944 onwards, I was transferred to Gusen II.
Q. What was the quarry Kastenhofen? Was that a part of Gusen I?
A. Yes, the quarry Kastenhofen was part of Gusen I.
Q. Did you work there?
A. Yes, I worked in Kastenhofen and in Gusen.
Q. How long did you remain in Gusen I?
A. I remained in Gusen I from 1940 up to April 1944.
Q. You mentioned a quarry by the name of Wienergraben. What was that? Was that under Gusen I also?
A. Wienergraben was part of Mauthausen.
Q. And do you know under whom -- or, do you know who had the control over the quarries that you have named, namely, Gusen, Kastengofen and Wienergraben, what concern?
A. The quarries were under the D E S T. The German Earth and Stone works, Ltd., Berlin.
Q. Do you know who the local director of the D E S T was?
A. The local director for Gusen I and Mauthausen was Otto Walter, and he lived near Gusen.
Q. About how many inmates were in Gusen I?
A. There were about 10,000 inmates.
Q. About how many worked in Kastenhofen?
A. About 8,000 of them worked in Kastenhofen and Gusen, in both places.
Q. But they were different inmates; is that correct? The same inmates did not work in both places at the same time, the same period of time?
A. No.
Q. Did I understand you correctly that 10,000 persons worked in Gusen I?
A. Yes, 10,000 were in the camp. Eight thousand of them worked in the quarry.
Q. Will you describe how the work was carried out in the stone quarries in Gusen I?
A. The work in the quarry Gusen was incredibly difficult for the simple reason that we had no technical equipment and had to work with our hands.
The only thing that helped us a little in the quarry was the crusher installation. Everything else was done by hand. The transport and loading of the stones was all done by hand.
Under the conditions of work and life prevailing there, it was quite impossible for the inmates there to live very long. The average duration of an inmate's life there was three months.
Q. Will you describe just what kind of work was done? Were the stones cut out of the earth; were they finished there at Gusen I, polished?
A. Yes. The stones were broken from the quarry. Then there and then they were worked on. Originally they were meant for the reconstruction of the Reich capital and for other new buildings which were planned. The whole method of work was manual; even the transport of these very heavy stones was done by the inmates.
Q. You had to carry heavy stones?
A. Yes.
Q. You stated that the life span of the inmates was very short. Will you tell us what caused the deaths of the workers?
A. Undernourishment and exhaustion.
Q. What kind of food were you given in Gusen I?
A. In the morning we were given a half liter of black coffee, at lunchtime a thin, watery soup with beets or spinach with rotten potatoes, and in the evening a certain quantity of bread, which varied, at seven o'clock.
Q. Did you work the year around in this plant, in the quarry?
A. Yes, for two years in the quarry.
Q. Summer and winter?
A. Summer and winter, in the winter under particularly difficult circumstances because we were not given any gloves and had to work outside in the cold.
Q. Did the hands of the inmates often freeze?
A. That was a daily occurrence.
Q. What kind of clothing were you given for work in the quarry?
A. Up to 1942 we were wearing zebra suits. In some cases we were given stockings, in other cases not. It depended on whether they were available. In the winter we were given a thin overcoat, again zebra colored, which was insufficient for work outside. When it was gone we were not given a new one.
Q. The clothing that you were given was not sufficient to protect you from the climate, in other words?
A. No, certainly not.
Q. Will you describe for the Tribunal in some detail the treatment that was given to the inmate workers by the SS guards?
A. When our daily work quota was not done, punitive work was allocated. That punitive work worked the following way: You had to walk through a so-called lane, and you had to carry heavy stones, and every five or ten meters there was an SS man with a stick or a gun. We had to run while we carried these stones. They hit us without mercy. Whether we were heavily burdened or running, that was not important to them.
Q. Did you see guards throw stones at the workers?
A. Yes, I also saw that.
Q. Did that happen very frequently?
A. It is difficult today after all these years to give concrete statements because at that time, one was only too glad if he himself were not the one who became a victim of this treatment. One saw it, true, but one really didn't record it in his memory. In Gusen, one was only too glad if in the evening he could go back to the camp without being beaten.
Q. Did you observe the guards beating workers?
A. Yes.
Q. Would you say that that happened every day?
A. That depended on the detachment leader.
Q. Would you say that beatings by the guards were frequent?
A. Yes. The man who had to do this very heavy work had no power of resistance against this beating.
If he went to the hospital with a wound, his wounds were not bandaged because there were no drugs, or he was not received by the hospital because the hospital was overcrowded.
Q. Did those same workers who were injured by the beatings have to return to work the next day?
A. That also happened, because the detachment had to go to work and whether a worker was ill or not did not matter. If he could not walk, he was helped along by two healthy comrades and dragged along to the place of work.
Q. During the four years that you were in Mauthausen, how many people, inmates, would you estimate were killed there during that time?
A. I estimate that in Gusen I and II together, at least 10,000 inmates were killed. I would like to recall only one case, which occurred in 1944; in the winter of 1944 there was an epidemic of typhoid in the camp, and 800 inmates died in one night, and that went on for two months. As I recall, there were 60 to 80 dead every morning.
Q. What was done with the bodies of the dead?
A. The bodies were taken to the crematorium in Gusen I.
Q. Do you know when the crematorium in Gusen I was constructed?
A. I am not quite certain but I should say roughly about 1941 because up to that time the bodies were taken to Mauthausen or Steyr, but as the camp grew and grew there was a crematorium in Gusen I with three ovens.
Q. Where were the workers of Gusen I billeted? Were they billeted in the Gusen I camp?
A. Yes, the workers, the inmates, were billeted at Gusen I: that is to say, some of them. In some cases two or three of them were in one bed, whereas at Gusen II there was an average of four persons in one bed.
Q. And about how large were these beds?
A. They were normal beds, 90 centimeters broad and one meter, eighty or ninety long.
Q. Were you given blankets?
A. Yes, each bed had two blankets.
Q. And was there a mattress on the bed?
A. Pallets.
Q. Pallets?
A. Yes, straw sacks.
Q. Straw sacks.
A. Yes.
Q. And were these wooden beds, made of wood?
A. Yes, they were wooden beds.
Q. How many people were the barracks constructed to house?
A. Originally they were supposed to house 300 inmates but to each block there was a so-called living room which later on was also used for billets.
Q. About how many inmates were housed in the barracks that were built for 300 people?
A. In Gusen I the normal number was about 600 or 800 inmates to the block, whereas in Gusen II had over one thousand normal complement.
Q. This was in barracks built for 300 inmates?
A. Yes.
Q. Was running water available to the inmates for their use?
A. In Gusen I the sanitary conditions as compared to Gusen II were very good because in Gusen II there was neither running water nor toilets nor bathing pots nor anything else. That is why there were so many cases of illness there.
Q. Were you given any opportunity at all to bathe?
A. In Gusen I regularly once a week, but in Gusen II never at all.
Q. What kind of shoes were issued to you?
A. We were given wooden shoes. As I said before, in some cases we were given stockings and others not, and many inmates had no stockings and no underwear in the winter.
Q. Did the local manager of Dest, Walter, make frequent inspections of the quarry?
A. Yes, the so-called director, Walter, walked through the quarries almost daily.
Q. What was the length of the work day in the quarries?
A. Twelve hours in summer and in winter from sunrise until dusk.
Q. And where did you eat your noon meal?
A. At noon we had an interval of one hour, from twelve to noon.
Q. And you ate your meal at the quarry?
A. Yes, we had to eat our meals in the quarry.
Q. How many days per week did you work?
A. In the quarry we worked six days but as far as armaments were concerned work was done throughout the week, including Sundays.
Q. Seven days a week?
A. Yes.
Q. Do you know the name of Mummenthey?
A. I only know the name of Mummenthey from files as they were found later.
Q. Did you yourself examine the files?
A. Yes, during the collapse.
Q. You were then working for the CIC, were you?
A. Yes, that is true.
Q. Can you state anything about the connection of Mummenthey with the work in the stone Quarries there from your inspection of the official records?
A. I cannot say whether this Mummenthey made the inspections in the Gusen camp. I know his name from the files which were found at Otto Walter's place.
Q. Did you ever see Oswald Pohl on an inspection of the camps at Mauthausen?
A. I saw Oswald Pohl in fact all the time - that is, in Gusen II saw him in the tunnel quite frequently, that is to say, in 1944 and 1945.
Q. Do you think from seeing Oswald Pohl there that you could identify him if you were to see him today?
A. Yes.
Q. Will you please stand up and see if you can identify him in this courtroom?
A. Yes, the first one there.
MR. ROBBINS: May the record show the witness identified the defendant Pohl?
THE PRESIDENT: The record will so indicate.
BY MR. ROBBINS:
Q. Were you show a picture by us, by the prosecution, of the defendant Pohl?
A. No.
Q. In the spring of 1943 were you transferred to another kind of work?
A. Yes, I remained in Gusen I and was taken into the armament work I was transferred to a different detachment.
Q. And what kind of work was that?
A. In the Spring of 1943 Steyr and Messerschmitt came to Gusen I. The work done for Steyr was relatively easy. The Messerschmitt commando became a hell to us inmates. In some cases it was more difficult work than the one in the quarry.
Q. For the purpose of building armaments was it necessary to construct certain buildings at Gusen I?
A. Yes. Steyr was taken to the former Steinmetz barracks and for Messerschmitt new barracks were erected, so-called halls.
Q. In Gusen I were these built, and were these constructions underground or above ground?
A. In Gusen I we were above ground. They were sort of hangers.
Q. And in Gusen II?
A. In Gusen II they were tunnels.
Q. What sort of armaments was produced at Gusen I?
A. In Gusen I the Steyr works produced armaments, guns, machine guns and pistols, where Messerschmitt produced aircraft, ME-109.
Q. In other words, how many inmates were working for Steyr?
A. For steyr there worked about 10,000 inmates and the same applies to Messerschmitt. We worked in two shifts.
Q. About how many buildings did Steyr have?
A. Steyr had about ten, twelve, or fifteen hangars.
Q. And Messerschmitt?
A. Messerschmitt had four hangars and another building which used to be the workshop before in Gusen I.
Q. What was the length of the work day in Steyr?
A. Twelve hours, two shifts.
Q. And how many days a week?
A. Seven days, all holidays and all Sundays included.
Q. Was the same period of work carried out for Messerschmitt as well?
A. Yes, all armament, in Gusen I and later on in Gusen II, worked the two shifts, day shifts and night shifts, all holidays, all Sundays.
Q. And were two shifts used in these plants, two twelve-hour shifts?
A. Yes, that is correct.
Q. What kind of work were you doing for Steyr?
A. I was taken to the messerschmitt armament work from the beginning. I worked for Messerschmitt. I was the only expert among 36,000 inmates who knew anything about aircraft construction.
Q. What did your job consist of?
A. I had to teach other comrades.
Q. You were transferred to Messerschmitt, I believe, in the autumn of 1943, is that correct?
A. Yes, that is correct.
Q. And was the ME-109 in the Messerschmitt factory in Gusen I ?
A. Yes, we built the plane completely on the rolling band.
Q. You built the body and the wings of the plane?
A. We built the fusilage and the wrings, and both on the assembly belt.
Q. Did you construct the motor of the plance at Gusen I?
A. No, the actual engine was added in Strangling. All we built was the fusilage and the wings.
Q. And the wiring and the panel instruments and the motor and the radio were put in in another place.
A. We built the electric wiring and the undercarriage, wings, fusilage, whereas the engine was built by civilian workers near Straubling.
Q. Was the ME-262, the so-called jet turbine, constructed by Messerschmitt in Gusen I?
A. The 202 was built underground in Gusen II, and that was built with the equipment complete, except for the turbines which were built somewhere else.
Q How long did you continue in this job at Gusen I?
A. In Gusen II worked on the ME-109 until April 1944, and in May, 1944, Messerschmitt took over the tunnels in Gusen II, and that is where the 262 was started. From that day until the collapse I was working in Gusen II.
Q. Will you describe for the Tribunal and in some detail the working conditions at Steyr and at Messerschmitt?
A. As I said before, in the case of the Messerschmitt factory the working conditions were very bad, for the simple reason that the civilians in Messerschmitt were worse than the SS. In Gusen II the underground tunnels were always worked on, were extended, and so forth.
We had to work there without any air conditioning, without any fresh air, for twelve hours a day. Many of the under-nourished inmates contracted tuberculosis of the lung and perished later in the camp. Then, in Gusen II, when somebody was no longer capable of working he was then sent away on what was called an invalid transport, from which, of course, nobody ever returned. The way they got these transports together was that they told the people they were going to recreation centers for workers and that once these people recovered they would be reallocated to their detachment. But during the long time I worked for Messerschmitt I never saw anybody return from a transport.
Q. Yow many buses were usually used in the invalid transport?
A. As a rule there were two buses, which came from Mauthause, and they could take about fifty or sixty inmates. In some cases it happened there was only one transport per month. Sometimes it happened that three or four transports left a month.
Q. Do you know where the buses went, what their ultimate destination was?
A. Yes, they went to Harzhein, near Linz.
Q. Going back to the work at Gusen II, when was construction on the tunnels, the underground tennels in Gusen II, commenced?
A. These underground tunnels were begun to be constructed in February, 1944. The building commandos consisted of men up to one thousand. Later on it was three or four thousand inmates.
Q. Do you know under whom these work details were carried out?
A. Yes, for these so-called tunnels Gruppenhuehrer Kammler was working on the 262 by orders of the Fuehrer, and he was assisted by Obersturmfuehrer Eckermann. He had to see that the work was carried out.
Q. You say he was working on the 262. I take it you mean he was working on constructing the tunnels for the 262, is that correct?
A. Yes, these tunnels were meant exclusively for the construction of the 262.
Q. About how large were those tunnels and how many were there?
A The tunnels on on average were about ten meters high and tive meters broad. Apart from that, thirteen tunnels went through that particular mountain, the height of which as a rule was about fourteen meters, and eight to ten meters broad.
Q. About how deep were the tunnels? How far into the earth did they go?
A. At the time of the collapse ten thousand meters of tunnels were ready. Up to Tunnel 16. Tunnel 16 was taken over by the Messerschmitt people. We worked in it actually.
Q. And did the workers live in the tunnels, an well us work there?
A No, the detachments left their billets to go to their place of work and when the other shift took ever one party went back to the camp and the other shift went on with the work.
Q About how many inmates were employed in Gusen II?
A. In Gunse II, in the Messerschmitt Commando, we were 4,800 inmates, and I think the same number worked on the construction of the tunnels.
Q. Was the construction of the tunnels carried our continuously up until the end of the war?
A. Yes.
Q. They were building new tunnels?
A. Yes, the tunnels wont on all the time?
Q. Did you hear of any plans to evacuate the tunnels in case the Americans should overtake this place?
A. Yes, the plan was that should, for instance, the Americans or the Russians approach the camp, all inmates were to be poisoned. But there wasn't enough poison available, or perhaps it was because the rumor had spread about this, but the matter was dropped, and when the collapse occurred Gusen I and II were to be taken to St. Georgen which was to be blown. Explosives and everything was prepared. The dynamite was taken from the tunnels only after the collapse.
Q. You spoke of a typhus epidemic. Do you know what kind of treatment was given, what kind of medical treatment was given to the inmates who contracted typhus?
A. No, very simple. First of all, there were no drugs; and secondly I myself saw that when somebody was suspected of having typhus he was simple killed, in order to save the camp.
Q. How was he killed?
A. I myself saw that people whom they suspected of having typhus, people with temperatures, they were selected by the block leaders, taken to the washing place and there there were two people who literally beat them to death. Of course, nobody will believe me here, because nobody was present. It may sound incredible now, because nobody thinks that is possible. But all the inmates of Gusen who were there between 1943 and 1945, all of them will be able to confirm this.
Q. You say that the inmates who had contracted typhus were taken to the wash room and there beaten over the head until they died?
A. No, they were beaten on the head and then they were put into a barrel of water and then they were drowned. The man was thrown on the side and the next one was called in. And the peculiar thing of this affair, which probably nobody will believe, nobody is able to believe, is that the inmates who were selected for this, they stood there and waited literally their turn. The Poles, for instance who had been very strictly brought up in religious matters, they began to pray, and then they were beaten on the head and killed. That happened in Gusen, in February, 1945.
Q. What was done with the bodies then after they were killed in the wash room?
A. The bodies were put together, because the roll-call had to be correct and their heads were put in front so that the block leader who walked past could see how many inmates there were dead and alive, and then could report how many inmates he had in his block.
Q. Is this wash room the same place where the inmates had their stove for cooking potatoes and so forth?
A. Yes, that is the same place. In that wash room it happened there was an oven there, and one work detachment which worked on the potato situation, they brought back potatoes with them and people in the wash room cooked these potatoes and ate them in the wash room too.
Q. And at the same time the bodies were piled up, I believe?
A. Yes, of course; nobody cared at that point.
Q. Will you describe to the Court how a human life was regarded by the SS men and by the inmates in the camp?
A. After all, we were only numbers. And dogs were treated better than we. They were given better and varied food, whereas we were given the same monotonous food every day -- potatoes, unpeeled potatoes, rotten potatoes, thrown into our soup, and then were we handed this as a meal.
Q And the point was reached where human life, I take it, became very cheap to the SS-men and to the inmates as well?
A Yes, we, as inmates, I must add here, were completely indifferent. We all knew that sooner or later we would be killed; we would perish in the camp. Only in July 1944 -- after the American pilots were shot down over Linz, and they were sent to the Mauthausen camp-were we told by the Americans and assured by them that no concentration camp would ever be bombed by Americans. They had special maps.
And from that day onwards our only interest was an interest for everything which happened in the camp -- and we tried to remember as much as possible in order to exploit this later on and to make the Nazi people responsible for their crimes later on.
Q I want to ask you one more question about the work in the stone quarries under the DEST. Did you see people there in the stone quarries actually worked to death?
A That was in 1943; two Russians came from the Steyr Kommando, they escaped. The whole camp had to do punitive work Saturday and Sunday. We had to carry stones while running on the double, and the SS beat us mercilessly, and I saw how one inmate was torn to pieces by dogs. He fell on the ground. Whether he was actually dead, I don't know. These were moments, so to speak, which one's memory records immediately as you ran past.
Q And in the stone quarries under the DEST, did you see men beaten to death by the guards?
A Yes, but I did not see it myself.
Q Did you --
A Rumors reached me because, after all, these detachments were so large and the quarry was so big that the various detachments amounted to fifty men sometimes, and one could not see what another detachment was doing, and I could not say anything about it under oath that I had seen it myself.
All I can say is what I have seen.
THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal will be in recess.
THE MARSHAL: This Tribunal will recess for fifteen minutes.
(A recess was taken.)
THE MARSHAL: Tribunal Number is again in session.
DIRECT EXAMINATION (Continued) BY MR. ROBBINS:
Q Herr Krysiak, about when were the quarries at Gusen I and Gusen II converted into munitions factories, about when?
A The armament started there in autumn, 1942 or early in 1943.
Q And prior to that time the quarries had been operated both in Gusen I and Gusen II by the DEST; is that correct?
A Yes, by the DEST.
Q And then at the time of their conversion into armament plants?
A Yes, it was under the DEST.
Q And then when Steyr and Messerschmitt started their munitions manufacture there, did they lease these quarries and tunnels from the DEST?
A No, it was the other way around. The DEST leased the halls and these tunnels and workers to the armament factories. They had to pay rent. The pay for the skilled workers was 8 to 12 marks which had to be paid and 4 marks for the regular workers; in other words, from 4 marks and upward. The payment actually went through the Kommandantur of the concentration camp to the DEST.
Q Then Steyr and Messerschmitt leased the plants from DEST?
A Yes, yes, quite. That is, at least, they leased the halls and the workers.
Q Is it a fact that the inmates in the concentration camp sometimes failed to report the deaths of their fellow prisoners in obtain their food rations?
A Yes, that's the way it was. In winter, for instance, when an inmate died, then he was left in the washroom for two or three days or was only dragged to the roll call so that the number was correct, and during that time the food was kept back; in other words, the part for the dead man was drawn by the living inmates.
Q They were piled in this same kitchen where the inmates had to cook their potatoes; is that correct?
A Yes, that was in the washroom. That's where some those blocks maybe three blocks together had one washroom and the dead from all three barracks were then taken into that washroom, and if one of the inmates finally succeeded in getting something -- for instance, after '42 it was also permitted to receive food parcels into the camp; then the inmates could take something into the washroom and eat it there. If he couldn't sit down any place, if he couldn't find any seat, he just sat on the bodies. The feeling for death absolutely disappeared in these people. They had no feeling whatsoever for it. They couldn't feel it any longer because death in the camp was something that happened all day and every day so that nobody was afraid of it.
Q In the munitions factory what was the punishment meted out to the inmates for mistakes in their work?
AAt the Messerschmitt, for instance, it occurred once in a while that the leading forces; that is, the civilians working there, had no interest whatsoever in their work and they just stood around in groups and made some sort of conversation. However, since the armament came into the concentration camp and representatives of all nations were there, if one or the other of the inmates could understand the language he could understand what the foremen were saying, and if you made a mistake, then either his boss himself beat him or he reported him for sabotage, and such a report meant nothing else for that inmate but that he would be hanged, because sabotage was always punished by death. He was hanged.
Q And were relatively minor mistakes punished as sabotage?
A Sometimes it occurred that the inmate, due to exhaustion or to undernourishment had to -- for instance, they had to bore so and so many holes, for instance four millimeter holes, and if the drilling machine was sort of heavy and it might have slipped off his hand, instead of being straight it was bored in an oval form. Such a profile could have been corrected, however, through a special nail because it could have been used just the same, and if this was reported though to the Kommandofuehrer, then that man, the Kommandofuehrer, had him hanged immediately because it was considered sabotage although it really wasn't.