The survivor Dorota Boriczek described Morel as "a barbaric and cruel man" who often personally tortured and killed prisoners. Gerhard Gruschka, a local Upper Silesian of Polish descent, was imprisoned in Zgoda when he was 14 years old and wrote a book about his experiences, detailing the endemic torture and abuse in the camp. Morel was also accused of an extensive pattern of sadistic torture in John Sack's book "", which contributed to publicizing his case in the Anglophone world in the 1990s.