CHAIM KLEINMAN

On 20 August 1947 in Kraków, acting judge, Associate Judge Franciszek Wesely, delegated to the Kraków District Commission for the Investigation of German Crimes, acting upon written request of the first prosecutor of the Supreme National Tribunal, this dated 25 April 1947 (file no. NTN 719/47) and 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 connection with Article 255, 106, 107 and 115 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, interviewed the person named below as a witness, who testified as follows:


Name and surname Chaim Kleinman
Date and place of birth 16 December 1910, Gdów
Parents’ names Józef and Hanna
Religious affiliation Jewish
Occupation dental technician
Place of residence Kraków, Starowiślana Street 64, flat 9
Relationship to the parties none
Criminal record none

In 1942 I was deported from Wieliczka for labor in the “Kabel” factory in Kraków. I stayed in that camp up until September 1944. I was employed in that factory as a worker, and after my eight-hour shift I worked in a dental laboratory as a dentist.

Some time in May 1944, Alice Orlowski – an SS woman whom I hadn’t known before and whom I recognize in the photograph appended to the files beyond any doubt – arrived at the camp premises at 7.00 a.m. and went directly to the medical laboratory. I noticed this from the factory premises through the wire netting which surrounded the camp. As I learned later, Orlowski beat up Dr. Ilza Freund, now Filipowska, and threatened her and her husband that she would finish them off, as a result of which Dr. Ilza Freund poisoned herself with phenobarbital, and Orlowski forbade saving her.

Only when Orlowski left at 4.00 p.m. and I came back to the camp from work, together with Dr. Hausmann (presently deceased) and Dr. Kurt Fromowicz (whose address I don’t know) we tried to save Dr. Ilza Freund. Dr. Hausmann and Dr. Fromowicz slid a rubber pipe down her throat and pumped her stomach. Dr. Ilza Freund, however, remained unconscious. We learned from Dr. Freund’s husband that she had lost consciousness because she dosed herself with phenobarbital, as he knew that she had that poison on her all the time.

On the third day, the SS men from the Płaszów camp came by truck and took Dr. Freund and her husband to Płaszów. Dr. Freund was still unconscious at the time. I know this because I loaded her onto the car myself.

I met Alice Orlowski for the second time after I was transferred, in September 1944, to the concentration camp in Płaszów. I didn’t come into direct contact with her, but I know from the women incarcerated there that she was very cruel towards them and that she used to beat them with a whip. After a six-week stay in the Płaszów camp, I was transferred to KZ Flossenbürg, Zschachwitz (Saxony) kommando, and I have never seen Alice Orlowski since. I have nothing more to add in the case of Alice Orlowski.

At this point the report was brought to a close and read out.