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

(109) DEPOSITION OF SEVEK KOBRINER (Pole, aged 30)

2. On 20th June, 1945, I was shown by No. 14573509, Sergeant Edward Dinsdale, 86 Special Investigation Section, Corps of Military Police, a man whom I recognised as a Kapo in Drütte Camp. I knew him by the name of Burgraf, and I have now been told that his full name is Medislaw Burgraf.

3. At Camp Drütte, Burgraf was in charge of the working party to which I belonged. We worked in a shell factory, a branch of the Hermann Göring works, in day and night shifts. One night in February, 1945, a friend of mine called Wachtel, who came from Cracow [Kraków], was very weak and could not work as quickly as the others. Burgraf approached him and commenced to beat him with a thick square stick all over the head, face and body. His eyes became very swollen and he had a bleeding nose. My friend was unable to continue working and had to sit down. When we left the factory at the end of the shift he was unable to walk, and another man and myself assisted him to the camp. When we arrived at our block my friend started shouting and throwing his bedding about. He spoke in a confused manner and generally behaved strangely, as if his mind was unbalanced. Burgraf called a warden of the hospital and I assisted the warden to carry the man to the hospital. Two days later friends in the hospital told me that Wachtel had died. I have not seen him since that date.

4. One day in January, 1945, I saw Burgraf beating my friend, Wolf Platkewitch, who worked in the same shell factory at Drütte. He hit him partly with his fists and partly with a wooden stick on the face. I do not know the reason for the beating, but I noticed that some shells which should have been stacked had collapsed. Immediately afterwards the Kapo, whom we called Siga, in charge of the working hall, appeared and I heard Burgraf tell him that Platkewitch had committed sabotage. Both Kapos then took him into a small wire-partitioned place where they laid him over a box face downwards. Then they commenced to beat him with iron bars all over the body until he lost consciousness and fell off the box. The two Kapos then went away. He was unable to work any more that day and had to be carried back to his block at the end of the shift. His body was badly bruised and he was in hospital for four weeks. Siga was a deserter from the German army. He was about 28 years old, 5 foot 7 ins. tall, slender, with fair hair, thin face, long nose and pale complexion, clean shaven.