Mirka Winer Testimony (doc. 301/1169)

Original, manuscript, 4 pages, 210 x 295 mm, Polish language

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Voivodship’s Historical Commission

In Lublin

On 15 November 1945

Mirka Winer

Testifies for the record

Born 4 February 1932

Tatooed number A 3977 in Auschwitz

Student

Before the war she resided in Bełżyce near Lublin

Presently in Lublin, 8 Lubartowska Street apt. 12

Has mother; a merchant’s daughter

Record taken by: Irena Szajowicz; Head of Historical Commission in Lublin

I was living in Bełżyce when Germans entered Poland in 1939. The commandant for the town was a German named Engel. We were terribly afraid of him, because he used to beat and shoot people. He would invade a flat and kill whole families. That’s what happened to the Silbernadel family: father Kuna Herisch, sons Usze and Jankiel for trading meat. He also stole and plundered Jewish flats. A few times a week gendarmes would come from a neighbouring town 10 kilometres away – Niedźwice. 1Note 1: NiedrzwicaThey had us give them money, autos, horses. They kept making new demands. It all started with a contribution of 20000 zlotys, and then they just kept demanding more. Once SS-men came from Lublin and took 400 men to Majdanek, many people died then, shot by the SS. In 1941 they took several hundred men and women to Majdanek. One Tuesday in 1942 Ukrainians and SS-men came. They shot at people and took people away,

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loaded them into train cars and transported to Treblinka. We stayed hidden, in a hideout under the floor there was a pit. It was in my cousin’s flat. There were 50 people there. It was terribly stuffy, so stuffy that one 2-year old child died of lack of air. The action went on for almost 2 days. After we went out, SS-men from Niedźwice, who were searching Jewish flats, caught us; they smashed furnaces, ripped off floorboards and so forth. We were locked up in a synagogue. After one day we managed to escape. Later, the SS-men demanded 20000 per family in return for making a camp and not killing us but making us work.

Hess was the commandant. The camp was fenced with wire and we were guarded only by Jewish militia. Hess didn’t torment us too much. Almost 9 months later an SS-man named Feiks2Note 2: Notorious SS functionary Reinhold Feixcame with Gestapo officers. 500 women and children were killed and the remaining 100 and the men were taken to Budzyń. I was saved because I mingled with the group who’d been selected to go.

Feiks was commandant for the camp in Budzyń, where at that time there were already Jews from other towns: from Kraśnik, even [from] Warsaw. There was a total of about 5000 of us. SS-men kept guard there. People died every day. They died of hunger (we were given a loaf of bread between 10 people; the soup was thin and the potatoes raw). From time to time selections took place; the weaker and the children were selected and machine guns were fired.

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Beforehand they had to dig their own graves, where the others buried them in later. Typhus fever decimated people. I worked in the kitchen. Women worked in the German estate and in ammunition and plane plants. Men worked in plants and built roads. Our plight was very miserable. Feiks and an SS Oberscharführer Mohe were especially cruel.

A year later they dressed us in striped uniforms and moved to a new camp named Barakenbau; it was located near Budzyń, but administered by Majdanek. Leipold was the commandant. He and SS Unterscharführer Jungfleisch and Oberscharführer Willi Kleist beat, shot and tormented us inhumanly. Leipold hanged people head down from the barracks ceiling for any petty offence. The victims hung like this for several hours and many died like this.

Some time later we were moved from Barakenbau. I can’t put an exact date on Majdanek. In Majdanek I wasn’t all that miserable. When the Red Army approached, Germans moved us to Ćmielów; we walked 170 kilometres on foot. Those who couldn’t make it were shot. For 8 days we were driven in rain with almost no food. In Ćmielów we were loaded onto trains and taken to Auschwitz. We had numbers embossed and wee directed to work right away. I worked in lager 3Note 3: Lager – (Ger.) camp B in Strassenkommando. I worked very hard. I had claimed I was 16 to save myself. And so I had to work like adults. They kept making

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selections, but I ran away every time. Later, in autumn there was a major selection. A lot of women were sent to the chamber, and the rest – including me – [were] sent to Belsen Bergen.3Note 3: Concentration camp Bergen-Belsen near Hanover.

The journey took a week. In terrible conditions and we suffered hunger. In Belsen Bergen we lived in tents. We would freeze terribly and get wet in the rain. Food was scarce. Krämer arrived later on, as did Lagerältester Stenia from Auschwitz, 5Note 5: Stanisława Starostka, capo in Auschwitz camp, promoted to Lagerälteste in Bergen-Belsen. who was terribly cruel to us. [There were] plenty of SS-women from Auschwitz and they molested us very much, but I forget the names. We did not work. Krämer introduced strict rigour and relations deteriorated to a state worse than in Auschwitz.

Next, we left with 500 women to Raguhn near Dessau. We did very hard work in an ammunition plant there. Aufseherin Lanni and Unterscharführer, whose name I can’t remember, molested us dreadfully. Americans were coming closer. We were loaded up onto auto and transported around for two weeks. They beat and kicked us terribly and gave almost no food. Finally, we arrived in Theresienstadt where we were to be burnt. There were 60000 people there. The commandant pledged with the Red Cross to spare his and his wife and child’s lives if he would disobey the order and not burn the people. The Red Cross took care of that and that’s how we were saved.

[signature] Winer Mirka