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

(104) STATEMENT OF MARIA SYNOWSKA (Pole, aged 24) (Not sworn)

I arrived at the concentration camp at Auschwitz on 16th January, 1943, and was sent as a woman prisoner into Block 13. Stanislawa Starostka, called "Stenia," was at the same time Block Leader of Block 7. I saw myself when Starostka punished women prisoners who were under her command. She liked to punish as follows: the women prisoners had to kneel with their hands in the air and with stones in their hands. She has beaten women prisoners until they lost their senses, which caused their death. She placed women prisoners between wires loaded with electricity. She was perfect in causing the slow death of women prisoners under her orders. She was a sadist, and therefore she becomes the Camp Leader. As a Camp Leader she was the only master in the camp. She received the records during roll-calls. I saw myself, during a roll-call, one of my comrades, Kashmiere Grabarek, comb her hair on one side of the head with a ribbon in the hair. That did not please Starostka. She had put the head of the woman prisoner in a bucket of water and kept her head in the water for half an hour. It was in October. Starostka was mercenary; for food and linen one could get her favours. She exterminated ill and old people because she did not like this sort of people. Ill and old people she sent to the crematorium. She ill-treated little children in the same way as adult persons, and she caused the death of thousands of Poles. Starostka is a beast in a human body. I can recognise her always.