War Crimes Trials - Vol. II The Belsen Trial. 'The Trial of Josef Kramer and Forty Four Others'

(100) DEPOSITION OF PAVEL BURGER (Rumanian, aged 21)

2. On 4th July, 1945, accompanied by No. 13041777, Sergeant Eric George Stanley, Pioneer Corps, 21st Army Group Interpreters Pool, I visited Belsen Detention Cells, where I identified a man as Anton Polanski, whom I first met at Belsen. He was assistant Block Leader of Block 12, Camp 1, Belsen Concentration Camp. I lived in this block.

3. I remember that very early in the morning of 8th April, 1945, we had to get up to bury a large number of dead. As we came from the block we had to pass a group of men. Amongst this group was Polanski. As we passed them they beat us. Polanski beat us particularly hard with a leather belt which had on it a metal buckle. Many of the men fell down a result of these beatings.

4. Polanski frequently beat prisoners with a wooden club. I remember on the morning of 15th April, 1945, when the work of burying the dead was not progressing fast enough, because the prisoners were so weary from hunger, Polanski picked on a Pole named Jacobovitsch who was working near me and who was in a very weak condition. He started to beat this man with his wooden club. Jacobovitsch sat down and said that he was too ill to carry on with that heavy work, but Polanski continued to beat him. We were continuing to carry corpses and I saw Jacobovitsch lying on the ground. He was dead. With other prisoners I was ordered to drag his corpse away and to put it in the large excavation with the other bodies. This we did.