Statement

Written with Rudolf Klein, born 2. 7. 1915, residing in Prague-Dejvice, ulice Národní obrany č. 29 at Mrs. Dr. Papoušková’s, former prisoner of the police prison IV. in Prague and the Theresienstadt, Auschwitz, Kaufering III., Landshut, and Dachau concentration camps. Czech nationality, profession student of medicine.

I arrived in Theresienstadt on 15. 5. 1942 and was there until October 1944. From 1. 6. 1942, I worked in the dissecting room. My statement describes what happened from that day until my departure, and can be confirmed anytime in the future as needed. The facts before and after this date aren’t authentic because they are based on sources that I will make reference to in my statement.

According to the testimonies of Dr. Irma Goldmannová, chief of medical research, and Adolf Fischer, assistant in the medical research room, and according to the written materials, autopsies began to be performed in December 1941 in the cellar rooms of the Hohenelber Kaserne. Autopsies were rare and only by a special order of the head of health care. From what I remember from the written material, they consisted of several cases of bacterial meningitis (not orthogenic). The number of autopsies rose and eventually became an everyday occurrence. In the beginning, we kept written records that were later statistically processed. These records are apparently in the medical research section of the Motol hospital and are the property of Dr. Max Reichenberg, who brought them from Theresienstadt to Prague.

When I started working there, we performed autopsies in the Hohenelber Kaserne, in rooms where there is now an aseptic room, in very primitive conditions. We had one iron and one wooden table and only the most essential tools, and one set of autopsy implements. At first, we didn’t even have gloves. After some time, we began to use black technical gloves. During this time, we performed autopsies every day, and 3-4 on Saturdays. We didn’t work in the afternoons. The dead bodies that were supposed to be autopsied were selected according to certain criteria (infectious diseases, sudden death, unnatural death, rare diseases, tumors, inaccurate diagnoses, and autopsies of all young individuals, ev. judicial autopsies), and were hidden from the so-called corpse bearers (Oesterreicher, Busch) and placed in the front room. After an autopsy, the bodies were placed into caskets, shut, and stored in the cellar. In September 1942 or thereabouts, we no longer performed regular autopsies, because the room dedicated to them was to be reconstructed and turned into an aseptic room. We only performed autopsies on the most important cases and once again in the cellar rooms of the Hohenelber Kaserne and in the coal cellar of the Sudetenkaserne. The hygienic conditions of an autopsy room equipped in such a way were very bad, because most of the diseases in the camp were infectious, and there were several cases of typhoid fever. Around February 1943, the medical research room was transferred to an extension of the crematorium, where the equipment was much better. Germans allowed us to buy two marble tables that arrived completely new from Hannover. We also got more instruments that arrived together with the transports, mainly from Germany. We were finally able to work histologically since we now had a microtome. We used updated normal methods, and chemicals as possible. We couldn’t do any bacteriological analyses, due to a regulation stipulating that Jews weren’t allowed to work with virulent strains of bacteria. We could only perform bacterioscopy, and other bacteriological and serological material was sent by special police courier several times a week to the German hygienic institute of the German university in Prague

(despite our efforts, we macroscopically and microscopically identified dysentery, but the above-mentioned institute was never able to cultivate the dysentery bacteria).

Histological and bacteriological findings were added to the autopsy protocols. A special ledger was kept on bioptic material.

The protocols contained the latin diagnosis with relevant personal details under a heading. For the special cases or autopsies ordered by the Germans, except for the autopsies of high officials, clinical protocols were written up. The autopsy protocol was written in triplicate. The original remained at the medical research room, 1 copy was given to the statistics section of the health care department, 1 copy to the attending doctor, and, in the case of tuberculosis, it was reported to the lung surgery. At the end of each month, all of the deaths were processed statistically in two copies. The original remained in the medical research room, and the head of the statistics division of the healthcare system (Dr. Jiří Hahn) received one original copy. I have kept part of this written material; it was given to me by senior lecturer Stein and I will allow anybody to look into it anytime.

The autopsies were performed lege artis. Tumors were processed histologically. Pathological changes that couldn’t be macroscopically diagnosed were also histologically processed. Tissue samples were sent out to the pathological institute of the German university in Prague to be examined in order to establish a histological diagnosis. They were always stamped and signed by Dr. Hamperle. In a predetermined time frame that I can’t exactly recall but that can be ascertained by comparing the facts, autopsies began to be performed on all of the dead, which, according to my recollections, was first implemented when the public health care system established this requirement. Nevertheless, these facts can’t be useful for normal official medicine, because the conditions in Theresienstadt (separation according to age, a majority of sick people, hygienic conditions, etc.) are completely different. It’s a small historical event that is of documentary value only for Theresienstadt.

After the medical research room was moved to the crematorium, the corpses were transferred to the so-called Leichenkammer (Zentrale Leichenkammer), which was led by a cabalist, Prof. Filip Bock. Burials were conducted like this: about 8:30 in the morning, Catholic and Protestant burial rites were held first in a special chapel, led by a clergymen from Vienna. Jewish burials were held at 9 in the morning in another room, officiated by various Rabbis. The rites were spoken only rarely Czech and German, and otherwise the masses were very sober and brief. After the coffins were loaded, first onto a regular flatbed truck, which could be used in the afternoon to deliver bread, and later, during the so-called Verschönerung onto a specially constructed truck, the corpses were taken to the krematorium. The deceased’s surviving family members accompanied the truck all the way up to the police guard at the edge of town. The truck then continued along the road and turned into the crematorium. The local population often paid their respects to the dead by taking off their hats. Originally, the corpses were left in the clothes they had on when they died, which meant that the sick were transported in bed linens, and others in everyday clothes and shoes. After the komandatur’s order, the corpses had to be undressed and their clothes taken to the Verteilungsstelle. At the time, they were used to make shrouds. But soon even this was banned and the dead were covered in only a paper jute. For the Orthodox dead, hats and socks were stitched out of jute. Doctors’ jackets were then fashioned out of the shrouds.

Coffins were built in the so-called Reitschule, originally one coffin for each corpse. They were made from the thinnest, rough boards, and their firmness depended on the nails used. When longer nails were scarce, so-called paper ones were used. At the crematorium, the coffin often fell apart completely. In order to save on materials, corpses were burned only on the lid of the coffin. Then the coffins were disinfected with lysol and sent back to the Zentrale Leichenkammer for further use. The corpses of the sick and corpses from the Small Fortress, where the same coffins were sent, were burned immediately.

The organization of the so-called Leichenträgers was very important, especially in the summer of 1942, when there was a large number of deaths. This is how it went: corpse bearers had their own delineated sections that corresponded to the health districts led by the various head doctors, when the death was reported. The bearer then brought the corpses from the hospital rooms and residential houses to the morgue of the various barracks. From there, they were taken to the Zentrale Leichenkammer, which was in the underground hallway in the fortress walls by the Bohušovická gate. Whenever the death rate went up, you could find up to several hundred corpses stored in an undignified and horrible manner. The bodies were lined up and stacked on top of one another in several layers. The daily death rate went up to 142 people. Until the crematorium was built, corpses were buried in the ground. The first burial ground was the first row of the so-called Russian cemetery, then in the space between the Russian cemetery and the path.

The crematorium had 4 electric ovens that ran on diesel fuel. They were put into operation in the summer months of 1942. In these months, the death rate was so high that – although all 4 ovens were working day and night (one cremation lasted about 40 minutes) – the crematorium couldn’t keep up and the bodies were partly buried in the ground. First, single graves were dug, and, later, mass graves. The location for the cemetery was on both sides of the crematorium in the Bohušovická valley, which wasn’t suitable for a cemetery, because when they dug to a depth of 1 m the earth was so damp that when they continued digging the graves began to fill with water. This resulted in terrible difficulties when the bodies were stacked in the mass graves, and the people who were forced to bury them were loathe to perform this task. The corpses were thrown into these flooded graves and the water would splashed all around them. Then the graves were covered with chlorinated lime. As I have already mentioned, burials and cremations couldn’t keep up, and there was a time when several hundred bodies were stacked in the Zentral Leichenkammer. When the death rate went down and the morgue was empty, only cremations continued. All of the employees of the crematorium were Jews. The crematorium itself was part of the Instalation und Wärmetechnik division (Ing. Jiří Vogl) and its civil servants worked for the registry (Rab. Ungar). The crematorium was one of the most modern and best equipped crematoriums in Europe.

When the doctor or corpse bearer pronounced death, a so-called Fußzettel was attached to the body and the head doctor’s office issued a death certificate that traveled with the body to the morgue, the crematorium, the columbarium, and the registry. The list contained all of the facts about the death and was signed by the corpse bearers that brought the body, the administrator of the central morgue, the head of the crematorium, the people who burned the corpse, in the event of an autopsy by the head of the medial research room, and the administrator of the cemetery or columbarium, depending on whether the body was buried or burned. The crematorium maintained a ledger of cremations in the incinerator as did the office of the registry. Ashes were separated and saved in paper urns. These contained the ashes of the body, whose name and cremation number was written on a strip of paper that was placed with the ashes and attached to the urn. The urns were then transferred from the crematorium to the columbarium that was located in the underground hallway in front of the Zentrale Leichenkammer.

I have found out that the Germans later ordered all of the urns to be thrown into the Ohře River.

I would also like to mention 2 interesting incidents that took place during the summer months of 1942, when many old and sick people, mostly from Germany, arrived in Theresienstadt. Often only dead bodies with evident traces of violence were unloaded from the cars. These people were housed in the so-called Zeughaus. The medical services in this house, which was quickly set up for this purpose, were very poor. For several hundred sick people there was only one doctor. But the nursing staff was quite good.

I witnessed these two incidents:

A nurse on the night shift thought that a patient had died and so she had the body brought to the morgue of the Podmokelské barracks (Bodenbacher Kaserne). The presumed dead person woke up from a lethargic sleep to find herself surrounded by several dead bodies. Another time, a doctor who pronounced death didn’t have a Fusszettel with him and so he wrote the name of the deceased on a piece of paper that he found lying on the ground. He didn’t notice, however that it was the other side of an envelope. The corpse bearers then registered the body under the name that was on the envelope, but it was a different name than the deceased’s true name. The error was found out and fixed only when the person whose name was registered died.

One of the most typical and delicate questions in Theresienstadt was the question of gold. Everyone who came in contact with dead bodies was suddenly ordered to collect and submit precious metals. They were to be handed over to the court, the section charged with the estates of the deceased. These precious items were then submitted to the Lagerkommandantur. Some time later, we received an order to search the cremains for precious metals that mostly came from dentures and filling. Police guards from the crematorium building were present when the ashes were searched. Supervised by Czech police, the ashes were searched and examined. If gold wasn’t found, Germans conducted experiments to establish whether the metal would melt, become liquid, or disappear at such high temperatures. The experiment showed that gold did, in fact, melt and could not be found. Any wedding rings or other gold items that were found were handed over. No gold was ever found in the ashes.

Since I mentioned at the beginning that I had a permit to leave the ghetto, I know that the main things that were exported from the ghetto were textiles and gold, which mostly came from illegal items, but also came from teeth. Some people got very rich in this way. I even heard of someone who took half a kilogram of pure gold with him to Auschwitz. Gold was exchanged for food and cigarettes that were smuggled into the ghetto. The police guards never found any gold, but I believe that the ashes were searched once again and any valuable items were removed. We would often see bodies brought to the medical research room that had wounds to the jaw, which meant that someone had violently pulled out some of the teeth. The blood sedimentation showed that this was done after death. We saw more and more of these cases until Dr. Munk from our office was notified. He took the necessary steps to prevent this, but these sad cases never fully disappeared. From time to time, the Totenbegleitschein that I have already mentioned was put in effect. The ghetto was lucky that these affairs never reached the Germans, who punished such infractions very strictly. This was also a criminal offense in the normal criminal code in § 6 on the violation of bodies. The Totenbegleitscheins protected the head of the ghetto from the German authorities.

The Germans visited the medical research room and the crematorium fairly often. Lagerinspektor Bergl became rather fond of this building and observed autopsies and cremations with a strange relish. He was always very well behaved and nothing ever happened. He would sometimes stand for fifteen minutes without moving and observe our work in the autopsy room. He once told the head of the medical research room Mrs. Goldmannová: Sie sind aber Meisterin des Messers. He once asked me what was the cause of death of the corpse I was performing an autopsy on. When I told him that it was erysipelas and pneumonia, he said: Das heisst mein Lieber aufpassen und nicht sich stechen. In fact, the Germans treated the employees of the medical research room and crematorium much better than they did anyone else. Once, I was stopped at night by Heinl, who demanded that I show him my pass. When I said that I was an employee of the medical research room, he waved his hand and let me go without searching or investigating me. It seemed that in this building they realized how small a man was in the face of death. When a new SS-man joined the camp or when there were many visitors, they were taken here and everything was explained to them. The first press trip came here. It was surprising that the Germans agreed with our wishes about our supplies so that the medical research could continue working relatively normally. The Germans’ leniency towards us meant that we were permitted to establish a garden by the crematorium. We were officially allowed to bring the vegetables we raised into the ghetto. This leniency also extended to allowing us to take photographs of a special case whenever the medical research team requested it. Germans even ordered a pathology-anatomy museum and we had to write out an order form for all of the things we needed for it, which was hurried through. When the visit of the foreign press approached and the museum wasn’t ready yet, all it took was one note to the komandatur and we received all that we needed within 10 days. Other valuable preparations were painted by Dr. Rosenthalová (Holland) and a collection of them was established.

From time to time, corpses from the Small Fortress and the Litoměřice labor camp were brought to the crematorium. Emergency corpse bearers from Theresienstadt would travel to the fortress to collect the dead, usually Mr. Oesterreicher. I would open the casket to observe the bodies for the slightest of reasons. The people in them were emaciated or showed signs of a violent death, which could be diagnosed from their surface wounds. Later, the prisoners themselves brought the bodies. They were immediately burned under the supervision of the police or Bergl himself. We had the opportunity to speak several times with the prisoners who brought us the bodies while we were helping them stack them. They told us: be careful, friend, it’s heavy. There are two in there. Twice I found slips with the diagnosis in the casket, which were written by Dr. Filip, according to the testimony of Dr. Frant. Polák, the personal friend of Dr. Filip from Poděbrady. The diagnoses were sepsis and pneumonia. The ashes of these corpses were taken to the komandatur in urns with the cremation number and the inscription: K L F, Mann Nr …………. Originally, the records of these dead bodies were kept in the crematorium and registry office, but this was later forbidden by the Germans. Autopsies of these dead bodies were never performed. The numbers can’t be authoritative because we changed the way we numbered them several times. My estimate of the number of dead bodies from the fortress to be about 150.

Signature:

R. Klein

Statement accepted by:

Berta Gerzonová

Signature of witnesses:

Arnošt Palkovič

Marta Fischerová

Accepted on behalf of the Documentation Campaign by: 25. X. 1945 Scheck

Accepted on behalf of the archive by: Alex Schmiedt