ZOFIA KALMUS

The eleventh day of the hearing, 22 March 1947.

The witness gave the following information about herself:


Name and surname Zofia Kalmus
Age 39
Occupation sculptor
Marital status married
Religious affiliation Roman Catholic
Relationship to the parties none
President: What are the motions of the parties regarding how the witness should be heard?
Prosecutor Cyprian: We exempt the witness from the obligation to take an oath.

Attorney Umbreit: We exempt the witness from the obligation to take an oath.

President: The Tribunal has decided, with the consent of the parties, to hear the witness without oath. I caution the witness about the obligation to testify the truth and about the criminal liability for false testimony.

The prosecution has provided additional evidence in the form of witness testimony as to the removal of pregnant women from the gas chambers, provided that each would personally choke her own child to death. What does the witness know about such matters?

Witness: I arrived in Auschwitz on 12 August 1944 from the Warsaw Uprising. I was one of several hundred pregnant women. We gave birth to our children there. As for the Polish women, they were not particularly repressed. There were beatings and sporadic incidents of harassment. However, one day in November 1944, when I was in hospital, about 50 pregnant Hungarian and Slovak Jewish women were brought in. I spoke to some. It turned out that they had been released from the gas chambers as a result of the intercession of Dr. Ena, a Hungarian Jewess who was friends with a German named Dr. Thilo. She got these women released from the gas chamber, where they had been for three days without food, awaiting death because they were pregnant. But the gynecologist Dr. Konieczna received orders to “sort out” these women. So, she performed abortions on those in less advanced stages of pregnancy, and with the others she had to induce labor.

Mothers whose children were alive were supposed to kill their babies themselves. They could not agree to this. They did not believe it could happen. So these children lived for a week or two.

When the date drew near for these sick female patients to be discharged from the hospital, the hospital staff warned them of the fate that would befall them. They were told in no uncertain terms that with children they would only be going up the chimney, while without children they had a chance to save their own lives, for they would then be eligible to join the workforce. The deadline was short, and it was all to be sorted out by the morning.

A terrible scene was played out. I remember one image (the witness cries with emotion and falls silent for a moment) of a Jewish woman cruelly struggling with herself, unable to murder her own child. She kept covering the child with a blanket, then after a moment uncovering it and hugging the child. By morning, the child was no longer alive, and her mother, with an insane look in her eyes, was hugging a corpse.

President: I consider this matter to be closed. Do the parties have any questions for the witness? (No). The witness may stand down. I declare a recess of 10 minutes.