3 Jan. 46

WISLICENY: I mentioned before that these first 17,000 laborers were followed by about 35,000 Jews, including entire families. In August or the beginning of September 1942 an end was put to this action in Slovakia. The reasons for this were that a large number of Jews still in Slovakia had been granted — either by the President or by various ministries — special permission to remain in the country. A further reason might have been the unsatisfactory answer I gave the Slovakian Government in reply to their request for the inspection of the Jewish camps in Poland. This state of affairs lasted until September 1944; from August 1942 until September 1944 no Jews were removed from Slovakia. From 25,000 to 30,000 Jews still remained in the country.

LT. COL. BROOKHART: What happened to the first group of 17,000 specially selected workers?

WISLICENY: This group was not annihilated, but all were employed for enforced labor in the Auschwitz and Lublin Concentration Camps.

LT. COL. BROOKHART: How do you know this?

WISLICENY: I know this detail because the Commandant of Auschwitz, Hoess, made a remark to this effect to me in Hungary in 1944. He told me at that time that these 17,000 Jews were his best workers in Auschwitz.

LT. COL. BROOKHART: What was the name of that Commandant?

WISLICENY: The Commandant of Auschwitz was Hoess.

LT. COL. BROOKHART: What happened to the approximately 35,000 members of the families of the Jewish workers that were also sent to Poland?

WISLICENY: They were treated according to the order which Eichmann had shown me in August 1942. Part of them were left alive if they were able to work; the others were killed.

LT. COL. BROOKHART: How do you know this?

WISLICENY: I know that from Eichmann and, naturally, also from Hoess, during conversations in Hungary.

LT. COL. BROOKHART: What proportion of this group remained alive?

WISLICENY: Hoess at that time, in a conversation with Eichmann at which I was present, gave the figure of the surviving Jews who had been put to work at about 25 to 30 percent.

LT. COL. BROOKHART: Referring now to the 25,000 Jews that remained in Slovakia until September of 1944, do you know what was done with those Jews?