WIESŁAW STYŚ

On 16 August 1947 in Kraków, a member of the Main Commission for the Investigation of German Crimes in Poland, Appellate Investigating Judge Jan Sehn, acting at the written request of the first prosecutor of the Supreme National Tribunal, this dated 25 April 1947 (file no. NTN 719/47), in accordance with the provisions of the Decree dated 10 November 1945 (Journal of Laws of the Republic of Poland No. 51, item 293), in connection with articles 254, 107, and 115 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, heard as a witness the below mentioned prisoner at Auschwitz concentration camp, who testified as follows:


Name and surname Wiesław Styś, engineer
Age 43
Religious affiliation Roman Catholic
Citizenship and nationality Polish
Occupation co-owner of an electronics company
Place of residence Kraków, Zagrody Street 2

I was imprisoned in the concentration camp of Auschwitz from 19 August 1942 until the end of October 1944 as a Polish political prisoner no. 60016. As a professional electrician, I was immediately employed in the electricians team of the central construction committee (Elektriker Kolonne der Zentralbauleitung) and therefore stayed all the [time] in the Auschwitz parent camp. I was almost a permanent resident of block 15a.

By mid-1943, the first Schutzfaftlagerführer of the camp was SS-Hauptsturmführer Hans Aumeier. He beat the prisoners on every occasion for the smallest reason, and more often than not without any reason. He beat with whatever came to hand. He often kicked prisoners. I remember one time (I can’t specify the date) he was harassing the prisoners employed in the camp fire brigade. He beat them – there were a dozen prisoners – so hard that most of the beaten lay on the ground, and Aumeier kept on kicking them.

For a long time during my time there, the Blockführer in block 15a was Kurt Müller. He was supposed to have been a would-be pastor. He was one of the cruelest Blockführers, tormenting the prisoners under him, beating and kicking them inhumanely. I remember one time – in the summer of 1943 – he along with some other Blockführers kicked a Hungarian Jew to death for oversleeping and being late for a roll call. This Jew was staying in a block under a different Blockführer. After finding the prisoner missing at the roll call, he found the Jew in his block, led him to the roll call square, beating and kicking him along the way. The Blockführer was joined by others, among them Müller, and they proceeded to beat and kick the Jew until he died. Müller would take margarine and other items from the block for himself, stealing the rations of the already hungry prisoners. He later took up a position at the Arbeitsseinsatz office. In this capacity he supervised, among other things, the work teams as they worked at their workplace. If he found any fault, he would beat the prisoners on the spot and additionally report on them.

The report was read out, upon which this hearing and report were concluded.