Warsaw, 29 August 1947. Member of the District Commission for the Investigation of German Crimes, Judge Halina Wereńko, interviewed the person specified below as an unsworn witness. Having been advised of the criminal liability for making false declarations and of the wording of Art. 107 and 115 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, the witness testified as follows:
| Name and surname | Stefan Jakub Mrożewski |
| Names of parents | Wincenty and Sabina née Wolańska |
| Date of birth | 26 July 1907 in Włocławek |
| Religion | Roman Catholic |
| Place of residence | Warsaw, Szustra Street 35, flat 4 |
| Education | Warsaw University of Technology |
| Profession | chemical engineer |
| National and state affiliation | Polish |
During the Warsaw Uprising I stayed in my flat, in a large three-storey building at Płocka Street 17. I did not participate in the uprising, I stayed in the basement with other residents of the house.
On 5 August 1944, before noon, a few SS-men burst in (they had green uniforms with SS markings on the collar lapels), ordering everyone to put their hands up and get out into the yard. Around forty people went out, including around twenty men. The group was herded down the middle of Wolska Street to Saint Adalbert Church. While I was walking, I saw that soldiers with guns ready to fire were standing on both sides of Wolska Street. In the church cemetery the SS-men separated the women, taking them into the church.
They searched the men, looking for weapons, all the time yelling that they were Polish bandits.
After several minutes two very excited SS-men came running towards us. They lined us up in threes, including men brought from the church into our group. The group numbered twenty-five persons in total. In front of the church, the SS-men lined us up in such way that we were facing them, and then one of them asked whether there were any persons of foreign national affiliation among us. He mentioned names of various nations, including the Jews. Nobody said a word, so everyone in the group was Polish. During the halt in front of the church, another SS-man took a gold ring from the finger of my neighbour Just, from Płocka Street 17. We were ordered to march on. The SS-men took us to the yard of Kirchmayer and Marczewski’s agricultural tools warehouse at Wolska Street 81. There were tools lying in the yard. There were two sheds deeper inside – we were ordered to go in front of the one on the left, looking from the direction of the entrance. At that time nobody else was in the yard and none of us had any idea that the Germans were taking us to an execution. There were only two of them, and they were so young; besides, we were civilians taken away from the basement of a house that had nothing to do with the uprising.
While I was walking with my side to the shed, I saw that one of the SS-men took a hand machine gun, rozpylacz, off of his shoulder, and then I heard a series of shots. It seemed to me that the bullets flew over our heads. Nobody collapsed on the ground or was bleeding. In response to the bursts the entire group was cowering lower and lower…
All of us lay down, partially some on top of others, and at that time I still did not hear any moaning and I did not see any blood. I heard the SS-man asking: Leben sie. He was answered by […], nobody said a word. A moment passed and then the SS-men started shooting [?] at the men on the ground, I heard moaning, wheezing, I was spattered with blood. I heard someone get up and yell: Mein schwager ist Deutsche ofizer, and then was hit by a bullet. Apart from that person, none of the executed men asked to have their life spared.
At the beginning I was lying with my face to the ground without being injured, but after some time a man lying under me twitched, so I also moved and immediately got shot two times. (The witness presents a medical certificate from the county hospital in Pruszków dated 11 August 1944, stating that Stefan Mrożewski received two gunshot wounds in the chest and in the shoulder at the neck, on the right side of the body. The certificate was signed by the doctor on duty, L. Żegilewicz).
After I got shot, I lay covered in blood, arms spread sideways. At some point I felt that one of the SS-men took a watch and a ring off my hand. The SS-men were taking away any valuables they noticed from other persons lying on the ground as well. They did not turn the bodies over.
I am unable to specify for how long the execution continued and how long I lay among the corpses. When the footsteps of the SS-men faded, I saw that Gołębiowski, who was lying next to me, was dead. Lifting myself on my arms, I crawled behind the shed, where I found Just, severely wounded, who was unable to move and stayed there.
At some point I heard the tramping of many people’s feet, shrieks of horror in Polish and then two shots. Then all went quiet. I crawled to the second shed and lying down, I again heard tramping of many feet and grenade explosions, and after that the shed in front of which we were executed burst into flames.
I am unable to report whether any more people had been executed before the shed was set on fire.
The SS-men left the ground. I lay under the second shed under a netted fence. A young woman living in the vicinity approached and applied a preliminary dressing to my wounds. Then, after haggling with him, she convinced a male nurse from a German hospital, who just happened to be passing by, to tear open the fence netting and to let her take me to the house of Wawelberg’s Foundation in Ludwika Street, where the local civilians provided me with care and shelter.
On 10 August 1944, together with the civilians from the house in which I had been taken, I was herded on foot to Saint Adalbert Hospital and from there to the transit camp in Pruszków, where I was set free.
Living in Pruszków, I was being treated in the county hospital.
One more man, whose name I don’t know, survived from the group executed on 5 August 1944 in the agricultural tools warehouse.
I submit the certificate from the county hospital in Pruszków to be included in the files.
At that the report was concluded and read out.