The following are excerpts from a personal testimony of a prisoner who escaped from Auschwitz in 1944.
"After the escape of 2 Slovakian Jews from the camp on April 7th, 1944, there was a big commotion. The political department led an extensive investigation, the friends and the superiors of the fugitives were severely interrogated, but to no avail. Since most of the fugitives were writers for the department, all Jewish functionaries were dismissed as a punishment or as a cautionary measure. It was rightly assumed that the escape was carried out through building sector No. 3.
Regarding inmates 176,000-181,000: On April 1st, 1944, a transport of Greek Jews arrived. 200 of them came to the camp and the rest, approximately 1500, were gassed immediately. Between April 10th and 15th 1944, about 5000 Arians arrived at the camp, mainly Polish, including 2000 - 3000 women from the abandoned camp Lublin-Majdanek. They received the numbers 176.000 – 181.000. Among the women were about 300 Polish Jewesses. The new arrivals were mostly sick and utterly weak. After receiving their information, the healthy Arians from Lublin were sent to German Concentration Camps. Regarding the remaining Jews we were able to receive the following information:
On December 3rd, 1943 all Jews of the camp Lublin Majedanek, about 11,000 men and 6,000 women, were executed. The Jews had to dig out a long and deep ditch in the area of the camp Lublin-Majdanek. On November 3rd they were brought in groups of 200-300 to the ditch, shot and pushed into the ditch. During the mass execution there was loud music playing, so the shots would be drowned out. 300 girls remained alive and were occupied in the cleaning up department or as writers. These 300 girls came 3 days later after the arrival of the mentioned group and were later, on special order from Berlin, gassed and burned. As a result of a mistake of one of the writers, 2 girls were not brought to the gas chamber, this was noticed the following day and the girls were immediately shot and the writer lost his function. In the end of April more Greek Jews arrived. 3000 were killed and 300 were brought into the camp."
The writer than commences to describe the fate of the Hungarian Jews that arrived at the camps in daily transportations of 14,000-15,000:
"The transports were being led directly to the crematorium. Of those transports only about 10% stayed in the camp, the rest were immediately gassed and burnt. In Birkenau there were now more Jews gassed and burnt than ever before. The “Sonderkommando” were increased to 600, and later to 800 men, the cleaning up group from 150 – 700. Three crematoriums were working day and night and the fourth was being repaired. Because the capacities of the crematoriums were not enough, four ditches 50 meters long and 15 meters wide were dug out, in which the bodies were burnt day and night."
The Auschwitz – Birkenau camp was one of the largest projects within the Nazi killing machine, and as such, it attracted visits from high ranking Nazi leaders. The writer describes the visit of Himmler, the commander of the SS and the Gestapo:
"According to the information of a Jew, who worked in the “Sonderkommando”, “Reichsfuehrer Himmler” visited Birkenau on May 15th or 16th. During this time I saw 3 cars with 5 men in civilian clothes which were on their way to the crematorium. My informant explained to me, that he and others recognized Himmler. He visited crematorium No. 1 and after about a half an hour's visit, he departed with his entourage. The following day, the Silesian papers wrote that Himmler was in Krakow, so the information could be true."
One of the most fascinating paragraphs in the document is a mention of a visit of four Dutch Jews that were invited to the camp by the Nazis in order to refute rumors of mass killings:
…"a commission of four Dutch Jews visited Auschwitz. The camp management was already informed ahead of time, and thus the Dutch-Jewish prisoners in Auschwitz received good clothes, decent eating utensils and better food. The four men were received in a friendly manner and were shown parts of the camp in which the buildings and the rest of the area made a good impression. They were told that this was just a part of the camp and that the rest was in similar condition. The men seemed satisfied and composed a statement in which they declared that they found Auschwitz in perfect order. They then requested to see the crematorium, of which they had heard a lot of. They were brought there, where they were shot in the back. Later on, allegedly, a telegram arrived in the Netherlands, which stated that the four members of the commission were victims of a car accident after they had left the camp."
Auschwitz was also the site of a biological research camp in which the Nazis performed experiments on the inmates:
"A biological research station exists in Auschwitz, in which doctors of the SS, civilians and prisoners are housed. The women and girls on whom experiments are done live in Auschwitz in Bloc X. After the experiments many die. As we know, many of the experiments are done with artificial insemination, castrations etc. Experiments are also done on Gypsies. Bloc X, where the test subjects are held, is totally isolated. No one is allowed to enter and the shutters are always closed."
The original German text follows below