JÓZEF CZECH

On 9 September 1947 in Kraków, a member of the Main Commission for the Investigation of German Crimes in Poland, Judge of the Court of Appeal Jan Sehn, on the written application 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 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, heard as a witness a former prisoner of the Auschwitz concentration camp, who testified as follows:


Name and surname Józef Czech
Age 34
Citizenship and nationality Polish
Religious affiliation Roman Catholic
Occupation electrical fitter
Place of residence Czarodziejska Street 8 in Kraków

I was sent to Auschwitz in the second transport from Tarnów in the summer of 1940. I stayed there until April 1942, when I was transferred to the camp in Birkenau, where I stayed until April 1943. I was sent from Birkenau to the Flossenbürg camp, from where I returned to Birkenau after six weeks, where I stayed until October 1944. In the camp I was number 3412. From my stay there, I know:

1. The former Schutzhaftlagerführer [head oft he camp] Hauptsturmführer Hans Aumeier. I recognize him beyond a doubt in this photograph I have been shown. He held this position from the summer of 1942 to the summer of 1943. At that time I was already in the camp in Birkenau, where I was employed in the potato room. Aumeier came to Birkenau by car, and more often than not he would pop into the block of the punitive unit, which was located nearby, opposite the kitchen, so that from the potato room in the kitchen I could see what Aumeier was doing with the punitive unit. With my own eyes, I witnessed him personally shoot about 25 prisoners from this unit. As I recall, it was in the autumn of 1942. The punitive unit didn’t leave for work on that day, but Bednarek, the block leader, on Aumeier’s orders, summoned the prisoners in turn and Aumeier shot them on the spot. After this massacre that Aumeier had arranged in connection with the escape of some prisoners from the punitive unit the previous day, he ran into the kitchen in a fury, demanded some smoked meat from the SS man, because he was hungry, and when the SS man told him that there wasn’t any, he stormed out of the kitchen.

2. I know Unterscharführer Buntrock from 1944, when he was in the Czech camp in Birkenau. It was a family camp, where entire families lived with their children. Buntrock beat the prisoners, both men and women. He walked around with a cane all the time. I had the opportunity to observe his activities, because as an electrician I had a special pass that allowed me access to all the camps. He took part in the liquidation of the family camp, carried out in the evening when everyone was loaded onto vehicles and taken to the gas chambers.

3. I know Unterscharführer Ludwig Plagge, later promoted to Oberscharführer, from the first years of my stay in the Auschwitz camp and from his work in the men’s and gypsy camps in Birkenau. In Auschwitz he was a Blockführer in various blocks, and he also led, among others, a punitive unit. He tormented people, beat them inhumanely, killed them with his stick and murdered and mistreated them in various ways. In the beginning, he did “sport” with the new arrivals in Auschwitz. This was plain murder and the victims were numerous. Later Plagge started to drink heavily and was no longer such a slave driver.

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