(married name: Hass)

Witness for the prosecution in the Nuremberg Doctors’ Trial 1946/47



was born on 26 January 1918 in Suchowola. She grew up in Łuków. In 1938, she began a degree in Pharmacy at the University of Warsaw. She was in Łuków, intending to spend the summer after her first year at university working in a pharmacy, when she was surprised by the outbreak of the war. She joined the Polish resistance, the Underground Army ZWZ (Związek Walki Zbrojnej – Union of Armed Struggle), and got involved in disseminating illegal press articles. At the same time she was working in the chemist’s.

On 28 March 1941, she was arrested by the Gestapo and initially jailed in Radzyń before being imprisoned in Lublin Castle. She was severely tortured by the Gestapo in an attempt to extract names from her. As she had worked in a pharmacy, she was suspected of having prepared poisons for illegal organisations.

She was deported to Ravensbrück on the transport of 21 September 1941. Her prisoner number was 7860 and she was made to do heavy forced labour, including building barracks and transporting building materials. Later, she sewed clothes for the Germans and produced shoe insoles for soldiers. She was always trying to continue her education and learnt foreign languages from other prisoners.

In November 1942, Jadwiga Dzido and nine other women were subjected to forced operations, being injected with bacteria. She lost her memory of the weeks up to January 1943 because she developed a serious fever and was unconscious. Her leg was swollen and the pain unbearable. Later, the doctors made an incision along her calf. It resulted in muscle atrophy. The nerves were partially destroyed. Jadwiga Dzido had great problems walking. She survived because prisoners were able to give her the number of a woman who had died, and in the end she was hidden beneath the barracks floor.

She testified as a prosecution witness in the Doctors’ Trial in Nuremberg. After the war, she completed her degree at the University of Warsaw and worked there as a pharmacist for many years. She married Józef Hass, an officer of the Polish army in 1939, and they had two children together.

Jadwiga Dzido died in Warsaw on 10 December 1985.

Source: Interview with Anna Hassa Jarosky, daughter of Jadwiga Dzido Hassa, May 2004. USHMM, Photo Archives.

was born on 20 January 1920 in Zamość. Before the war she studied mathematics and natural science at the University in Wilna (modern Vilnius). In autumn 1939, she joined a resistance organisation, for which she was responsible for disseminating illegal press articles.

On 9 November 1940 she was arrested by the Gestapo and taken to the prison in Zamość, along with her father and her sister. From there Maria Kuśmierczuk was moved to the jail in Lublin, and tortured by Gestapo officials. She managed not to give them any names, however.

After three months spent in a windowless dungeon, she was taken to the Ravensbrück concentration camp on the special transport of 23 September 1941. Her prisoner number was 7888 and she was forced to do heavy building work, both inside the camp and out in surrounding farms. In the furriery, she had to use rabbit fur and straw to make warm clothes for German soldiers on the front.

On 7 October 1942 she was among a group of twelve Polish women who were victims of medical experiments. Maria Kuśmierczuk was subjected to severe leg wounds; the SS doctors used tetanus bacteria and a plaster cast that kept oxygen out to induce severe inflammation. She spent months in the sick bay. When she was released, she could no longer walk – her deep wounds had not healed. Fellow prisoners gave her the number of a woman who had died and were finally able to hide her so that she survived the camp.

Prisoners in the camp were able to secretly get hold of a camera and photograph Maria Kuśmierczuk’s mutilated leg, and to hide the prints until liberation.
Maria Kuśmierczuk testified as a prosecution witness in the Nuremberg Trial. In 1946 she began a degree in medicine at the Medical University of Gdańsk. She worked in the university’s radiology department for many years.

Maria Kuśmierczuk died on 29 November 1989.

Source: Janusz Tajchert and Anna Jarosky for the United States
Holocaust Memorial Museum.

(married name: Łapińska)


Witness for the prosecution in the Nuremberg Doctors’ Trial 1946/47

was born on 15 March 1909 in Żuromin. Before the war, she was a nursery school teacher in Graudenz. At the outbreak of the war she was in Lublin, where she worked as a courier for a resistance movement. After almost eighteen months, on 13 February 1941, she and her two sisters were caught by the Gestapo, as were both her brothers-in-law. Police officers interrogated and tortured them in the attempt to extract the names of other members of the resistance group.

She was taken to the Ravensbrück concentration camp along with her sister, Helena Piasecka, on the transport of 23 September 1941. Her prisoner number was 7918 and she was made to do heavy forced labour, which included work on various building projects.

Władysława Karolewska, affectionately known as Dziunia among her comrades in the camp, was subjected to a total of six forced operations; the first of them was on 14 August 1942, in the course of which SS doctors removed bones from her left leg. She spent six months in the infirmary and it was not until February 1944 that she could walk again; even then, the wounds were not healed.

After her return to Warsaw on 28 April 1945, she could no longer work as a nursery school teacher. Władysława Karolewska suffered chronic pain for the rest of her life; her legs repeatedly swelled and the wounds inflicted during the forced operation would reopen from time to time.

She appeared as a prosecution witness at the Nuremberg Doctors’ Trial. In 1948, she married Stefan Łapiński, a survivor of Majdanek. Her sister, Helena Piasecka, also a victim of medical experiments at Ravensbrück, emigrated to the USA.

Władysława Karolewska-Łapińska died on 22 March 2002 in Lublin.

(married name: Skassa)


Witness for the prosecution in the Nuremberg Doctors’ Trial 1946/47


was born on 18 December 1913 in Warsaw. In 1936 she began her training as a pharmacist. In September 1939, she was deported to Hungary along with sections of the army and the staff of the military hospital; she was able to return from there to Poland a year later. There, she joined the resistance movement and led a group of couriers.

The Gestapo arrested her on 12 June 1941 in Terespol; she was severely tortured in the prison at Lublin castle.

She was sent to the Ravensbrück concentration camp on the special transport of 23 September 1941. Her prisoner number was 7911 and she was made to do the heaviest forced labour – road building.

On 23 November 1942, she was subjected to a forced operation in the camp. Her lower legs were wounded and infected with gas gangrene. When she was made to go back to work four weeks later, her legs had not yet healed.

In March 1943, she joined other so-called guinea pigs in protesting to the camp authorities against the operations. In February 1945, the camp management decided to kill any surviving victims of the experiments. The women under this threat were able to survive by exploiting the chaos of the last months of the war. Maria Broel-Plater sewed the number of a deceased fellow prisoner onto her clothing. This made it possible for her to “go into hiding” within the camp. On 23 April 1945, she was freed by the Red Army.

Together with three other victims of the experiments, she testified at the Nuremberg Doctors’ Trial on 19 December 1946. It was only then that the women learnt the intended purpose of the operations.

Maria Broel-Plater suffered chronic pain in her legs for the rest of her life. In 1953, she married Stanisław Skassa. In 1995, she described her experiences in Loretta Walz’s documentary film “Man nannte uns Kaninchen” [They Called Us Guinea Pigs].

Maria Broel-Plater-Skassa died in Warsaw on 21 February 2005, at the age of 91.

Source: Janusz Tajchert. Janusz Tajchert is a relative of Henryka Bartnicka-Tajchert, a Ravensbrück survivor. He has published a lot of information on his Polish website:
http://tajchert.w.interia.pl.