FELIKS WŁODARSKI

On 19 August 1947 in Niepołomice, the Municipal Court in Niepołomice, with Judge Dr. A. Pająk presiding and with the participation of reporter J. Trzos, interviewed the person specified below as an unsworn witness. The witness testified as follows:


Name and surname Feliks Włodarski
Age 48
Parents’ names Stanisław and Marianna
Place of residence Niepołomice
Occupation trader
Religious affiliation Roman Catholic
Relationship to the parties none

Testifies: I was imprisoned in the camp in Auschwitz from 1940 until the end of 1944. Since the camp authorities knew that I was a pastry cook by trade, I was assigned to work at the food warehouse in the summer of 1943. At that time I also became a cook at the German camp kitchen and met the suspect at this warehouse. He was a German man named Schumacher, a functionary at the food warehouse who supervised and managed the potato cellars.

Schumacher was also the one who received the potato supplies which arrived at the camp. He gave them out to the kitchen. He did so every day and was the person responsible for this process. He answered, however, to head of the food warehouse, a German SS man named Schebeck. At that time I saw suspect Schumacher almost every day, three times a day (during my entire stay at the camp, until the summer of 1944 because I was then transferred to the camp in Sachsenhausen). Since I worked at the food warehouse and was also a cook at the kitchen used by Germans who supervised the food warehouse, suspect Schumacher did not treat me badly. In fact, he treated me relatively well. I did notice, however, that suspect Schumacher was hostile and disapproving towards the Poles. The suspect was hateful and revengeful by nature. He had no scruples about punishing the Polish prisoners who committed the smallest offence.

I would like to clarify that prisoners at the camp were never full – they always suffered from hunger. When the potato cellar was open (while potatoes were being brought out), prisoners would sometimes take their chance and hide a few potatoes in their pockets. This occurred almost every day. If suspect Schumacher noticed, he would beat the prisoner in the face with his hand, or hit him with a stick all over the body, or kick him and then send him to the penal company. Sending one or several prisoners at once to the penal company occurred once a week on average – sometimes more often, sometimes less. Being sent to the penal company was tantamount to a death sentence for a Polish prisoner, since they were starved there and had to carry out the most intense physical labor while being given very little food. The company guards beat and tortured the Polish prisoners for trivial reasons. After some time, a prisoner in the penal company was either brutally beaten or dead from exhaustion. Hardly anyone came out of this company alive.

I also know of other instances in which Schumacher abused prisoners. Several times a week, I saw prisoners carrying barrels which had been emptied out after dinner, with some leftovers still at the bottom. Being hungry, the prisoners would stop on their way, and together with others whom they encountered on the way, they would fish out the leftovers from the bottom or from the sides of the barrels with their fingers. When suspect Schumacher noticed that, he abused them. He beat them with his hands and kicked them either all over the body or in the privates – so hard that the prisoners often collapsed. He frequently continued to kick the prisoners who fell on the ground.

When English aircrafts raided the camp areas, suspect Schumacher was infuriated. He hurled abuse at the Polish prisoners, accusing them of bringing about such disasters. If someone got into his hands at that time, he hit them with his hand or kicked. I cannot provide the names of the prisoners who were beaten or kicked by suspect Schumacher, since there were thousands of prisoners in the camp.

Facts concerning suspect Schumacher’s criminal offences against Polish prisoners can be provided by the former prisoner of the Auschwitz camp, Edward Liszka, currently residing in Kraków. I do not know his exact address, but it is known to the Association of Former Political Prisoners in Kraków.

The report was concluded and signed.