FELIKS CENDROWSKI

On 29 August 1947 in Oświęcim, a member of the Kraków District Commission for the Investigation of German Crimes, Magistrate Dr Henryk Gawacki, on the written application of the First Prosecutor of the Supreme National Tribunal dated 25 April 1947 (file no. NTN 719/47) heard in accordance with the provisions of and procedure provided for under the Decree of 10 November 1945 (Journal of Laws of the Republic of Poland No. 51, item 293) in conjunction with article 254, 107, 115 of the Code of Criminal Procedure the below mentioned former prisoner of the Auschwitz concentration camp, who testified as follows:


Name and surname Feliks Cendrowski
Age 33
Occupation brick-layer
Religious affiliation Roman Catholic
Nationality Polish
Place of residence State Museum [Auschwitz-Birkenau] in Oświęcim

On 15 August 1940, I was imprisoned in the Auschwitz camp with prisoner number 1787. I stayed there until 5 November 1944, when I was transported to the Sachsenhausen camp.

In the Auschwitz camp, first of all I went through a two-week quarantine with [so-called] sport exercises. Then I was assigned to a bricklaying kommando, where I worked for three months. Then I was assigned to the Kabelkommando, where I worked for about four weeks (setting up poles for high voltage cables to Birkenau). Then, from December 1940 and throughout 1941 and 1942, I worked in the Neubau kommando (extending the blocks in the main camp), and from 1943 till the end of my stay in the Auschwitz camp I was assigned to the fire brigade. The manager of the fire brigade and Kabelkommando was Hauptscharführer Engelschall, and the manager of the Neubukommando was Unterscharführer Lubitsch.

During this whole period I came across the former members of the armed crew, namely: Lagerführer Aumeier, who was known to all the prisoners for beating and kicking them for the slightest fault – for example, failure to march to the pace and rhythm of the orchestra. My companion from the transport from Warsaw to the Auschwitz camp, Bronek (I don’t know his surname), working in block 11 in the Reinigungskommando (filling the stoves with kindling), told me that Aumeier himself shot some prisoners at the block when he was drunk. Aumeier punished me with 14 days of so-called Stehbunker, for my alleged attempt to bribe one of the SS men to [let me] escape, which wasn’t true.

Prisoners from other work teams I met with told me and complained that Heinrich Josten was beating up the prisoners “without rhyme or reason”.

Similarly, another SS man, August Bogusch, was well-known for that.

The report was read out. The hearing and the report were concluded.