Stanisława Starostka

Stanisława Starostka (* 1 May 1917 in Tarnow , † spring of 1946 ) was a Polish accountant and resistance fighter who as so-called functional prisoner in the concentration camps of Auschwitz-Birkenau and Bergen-Belsen for war criminal was.

Life

Stanisława Starostka worked as an accountant and stenographer before the Second World War, and became involved in the Polish resistance movement after the outbreak of war. For this reason, she was arrested by the Gestapo on January 13, 1940 and sentenced to death by a German court in Krakow . After 21 days, the death sentence was commuted to life imprisonment. On April 28, 1942, Starostka was transferred from prison to Auschwitz, where she was given camp number 6865.

Starostka had a good knowledge of German and was therefore employed as an interpreter and from August 1942 as a Kapo . At the end of August 1942 she was transferred to Auschwitz-Birkenau as block elder by Johanna Langefeld , where she was successively responsible for blocks 19, 1, 10, 27 and 7. There she was known as "Stenia - the whip" because she whipped prisoners and allegedly denounced fellow inmates. But there were also witnesses who exonerated Starostka: she had taken care of a fair distribution of the food, given the women warm clothing and saved several of them from the gas chamber . In July 1943 Starostka became infected with typhus and was transferred to the prisoner infirmary. After her convalescence, Margot Drechsel appointed her as camp elder, the highest position that an inmate could achieve in the camp. As the camp elder, she was responsible for supervising the distribution of the food rations to the individual blocks, delousing the prisoners in the baths, managing the block elders, implementing the camp regulations and holding roll calls.

“If, as the camp elder, I wanted to help the prisoners, I had to win the trust of the German authorities. I had to fight for every compromise. "

Starostka was probably transferred to Bergen-Belsen on April 4 or 5, 1945, where she again took over the post of camp elder. Starostka - like almost all of the concentration camp personnel - was arrested on April 17, 1945 by the British on the camp grounds.

In the first Bergen-Belsen trial , she wore the number 48 and was charged solely with the crimes committed in Auschwitz. During her interrogation, although she admitted some abuse of prisoners, she refused to acknowledge her guilt. When asked why Starostka took on the Kapo function, she stated that as a prisoner she fought against the fascists just as the Poles did in freedom.

Starostka was sentenced to ten years' imprisonment. In the spring of 1946, barely five months after her conviction, she committed suicide.

literature

• Hermann Langbein : People in Auschwitz. Frankfurt am Main, Berlin Vienna, Ullstein-Verlag, 1980, ISBN 3-54833014-2
• Claudia Taake: Accused. SS women in court . Bis, University of Oldenburg 1998, ISBN 3-8142-0640-1 , ( series of publications by the Fritz Küster Archive ), (also: Oldenburg, Univ., Diploma thesis).
• Kurt Buck: The early post-war trials . Edition Temmen, Bremen 1997, ISBN 978-3-86108-322-1 .

Web links

• Mazal: First Belsen Trial: Logs - statement Starostkas on 31 October and 1 November 1945 (English)
• Photos and features of the defendants

Individual evidence

1. ^ ^{A b} Neuengamme Concentration Camp Memorial (Hamburg Germany): The early post-war processes . Edition Temmen, 1997, ISBN 978-3-86108-322-1 , pp. 52 , footnote 22 ( google.de [accessed on August 15, 2020]): “This was Stanislawa Starostka, who committed suicide less than five months after she was sentenced to ten years in prison. See ibid .: PRO: WO 235/23, Case No. 12, "Belsen-Trial", p. 2 "
2. ↑ Starostka in a statement during the Bergen-Belsen trial, quoted from: Hermann Langbein: People in Auschwitz. Frankfurt am Main, Berlin Vienna, 1980, p. 192