Kraków, 2 December 1947
Stefania Rożek
24 years old
Pawia Street 6, Kraków
Telephone No: 507-45
verified prisoner of the Pawiak Prison, Majdanek, Ravensbrück and Leipzig camps
[in the years] 1942–1945
With reference to today’s telephone conversation with Prosecutor Cyprian, I declare the following:
As far as defendant Lächert is concerned, I can provide incriminating testimony pertaining to the bestial treatment of prisoners by the defendant in the Majdanek camp. I can describe individual cases in detail. I can also testify that the defendant participated in selections of Jewish women, robbed prisoners of their belongings, sent valuable packages to Germany, etc.
As far as defendant Orlowski is concerned, in addition to the above-mentioned circumstances, I can also testify about her sexual perversion and how she forced young female prisoners, mainly Russians, to engage in that sordid practice.
I attach the above-mentioned testimony.
We met defendant Lächert in the first weeks of 1943 in Majdanek. From the very beginning, she was the terror of the women’s camp. The nickname of “Bloody Brigitte” stuck to that degenerate creature, and even today when female prisoners who survived Majdanek recall her sadistic, monstrous deeds, they tremble in fear.
A few times per day, she would burst into our field like a hurricane, with tousled hair, in a windswept cape, and with a whip in her hand. She looked like a devil with her crooked legs and flashing eyes. Shouting the most vulgar insults in her hoarse, low drunkard’s voice, she leaped at the closest prisoners. Without any reason, apart from her humor or temperament, she would kick, beat and pinch them, spit in their face, scratch and slap them, and even try to choke them with her claw-like fingers. It is strange and incomprehensible that she was a nurse. We were terrified mainly by the fact that “Brigitte” did not need any reason to torture her victims, such as inadequate work, behavior, etc., but she would leap at the closest standing prisoner as if in a mad frenzy. I could provide plenty of such examples, because few people were lucky enough to avoid her.
One day during an “inspection,” she burst into one of the barracks, which was then being rebuilt, and she attacked the closest standing woman, Mrs. Jasieńska, the oldest prisoner, who was working under the close supervision of a kapo. Lächert started pulling her hair and hit her head against the wall. In that moment, her mouth was literally full of foam from rage. A little later, she talked calmly and cheerfully, grinning and standing akimbo, with an SS man who was on duty near the barrack. Defendant Lächert was famous for hitting women in the most sensitive spots during so-called baths or delousing.
For some time, she escorted the so-called Außenkommando [external work detail] to work a few miles away from the camp, where they picked sorrel, etc., which was then prepared in the camp kitchen. Of course, she also tormented prisoners there and she often set dogs on them. Local people and members of a society for the care of prisoners in Lublin sneaked in there to make contact with the prisoners. When they saw defendant Lächert’s performance, they took a risk and started negotiating with her. It was a success. From that day on, “Brigitte” received some vodka and food every day. She would get drunk and lose interest in the prisoners who were guarded by SS men. In this way, the women could get some breathing space for a few hours.
During the period of “selections” of Jewish women, Lächert was the most zealous participant, revealing the maximum brutality and savagery. Several times in the first days after our arrival at Majdanek as the first women’s transport, I was assigned to tidy the rooms of Aufseherinnen [overseers] In their dressing room, also among Lächert’s belongings, I saw piles of new, luxurious underwear, stockings, handkerchiefs, blouses, often of Polish brands and factories, and letters in which relatives of the Aufseherinnen thanked them for the packages they had received so far and asked them for more. They had even listed the things they wanted to receive, for example, a baby layette, a fur for someone, tablecloths, bedding, etc. I remember that in one of the rooms of the Aufseherinnen, there was a photograph from Germany with a typical rural background. Among the whole German family in peasant clothes, there was a girl dressed in urban fashion, with the inscription: “I look so nice in that dress you sent me”. In the rooms, there were also empty vodka bottles and other proof of nightly drinking sprees.
One day, defendant Lächert suddenly disappeared from the camp, and we breathed a sigh of relief. At that time, a rumor was circulating that due to the discovery of a significant misappropriation of a part of the Jewish jewelry, which was to be sent to Germany, one of the SS men, a friend of “Brigitte,” was arrested and placed in prison at the Lublin Castle. We thought that maybe Lächert was also arrested. Only now did we find out that she continued her activities in Auschwitz.
In Majdanek, defendant Orlowski was in charge of the laundrywomen kommando. Although working in the laundry room had its good points, because it was possible to secretly clean or wash something, nobody wanted to end up there, because Orlowski was famous for organizing punitive mass roll calls for her workers, for beating them and treating the prisoners inhumanely. Young Russian women from her kommando secretly complained that Orlowski was a pervert and would force them to perform various sexual acts in her Dienststube [office]. Naturally, we could not do anything about it, complaint or even talk about it. Consequences in such cases were too serious.