M. DUBOST: What was the nature of the punishments?
MME. VAILLANT-COUTURIER: Bodily ill-treatment in particular. One of the most usual punishments, was 50 blows with a stick on the loins. They were administered with a machine which I saw, a swinging apparatus manipulated by an SS. There were also endless roll calls day and night, or gymnastics; flat on the belly, get up, lie down, up, down, for hours, and anyone who fell was beaten unmercifully and taken to Block 25.
M. DUBOST: How did the SS behave towards the women? And the women SS?
MME. VAILLANT-COUTURIER: At Auschwitz there was a brothel for the SS and also one for the male internees of the staff, who were called “Kapo.” Moreover, when the SS needed servants, they came accompanied by the Oberaufseherin, that is, the woman commandant of the camp, to make a choice during the process of disinfection. They would point to a young girl, whom the Oberaufseherin would take out of the ranks. They would look her over and make jokes about her physique; and if she was pretty and they liked her, they would hire her as a maid with the consent of the Oberaufseherin, who would tell her that she was to obey them absolutely no matter what they asked of her.
M. DUBOST: Why did they go during disinfection?
MME. VAILLANT-COUTURIER: Because during the disinfection the women were naked.
M. DUBOST: This system of demoralization and corruption—was it exceptional?
MME. VAILLANT-COUTURIER: No, the system was identical in all the camps where I have been, and I have spoken to internees coming from camps where I myself had never been; it was the same thing everywhere. The system was identical no matter what the camp was. There were, however, certain variations. I believe that Auschwitz was one of the harshest; but later I went to Ravensbrück, where there also was a house of ill fame and where recruiting was also carried out among the internees.
M. DUBOST: Then, according to you, everything was done to degrade those women in their own sight?
MME. VAILLANT-COUTURIER: Yes.