Warsaw, 27 February 1950. Janusz Gumkowski, acting as a member of the Main Commission for the Investigation of German Crimes in Poland, heard the person named below, who testified as follows:
| Name and surname | Franciszek Fitol |
| Date and place of birth | 9 December 1907, Sędziszów Małopolski |
| Names of parents | Florian and Magdalena, née Idzik |
| Occupation of the father | farmer |
| State affiliation | Polish |
| Religious affiliation | Roman Catholic |
| Education | 4 grades of elementary school |
| Occupation | wagoner |
| Place of residence | Warsaw, Orla Street 3, flat 2 |
| Criminal record | none |
When the Warsaw Uprising broke out, I was in the house at Mirowska Street 1. On 7 August 1944, the Germans ordered all the residents of our house to go out to the street. The people were gathered in the basements at the time. We all exited to the street. The Germans separated the men from the women. The women were marched to Wola, and we were marched to Hale Mirowskie [the market halls]. From the halls they led us on through Żelaznej Bramy Square, by two tanks, in the direction of Saski Garden. The insurgents were shooting from Graniczna Street. We were not far from our destination when the German who was leading us got wounded in the face. He took us back to Hale Mirowskie. Then I began to run in the direction of Krochmalna Street, that is, to the insurgent side. I got wounded in left foot, but I managed to escape. I didn’t know what the Germans had done with the rest of the men from our house, but I thought that they had executed them, as they had done with so many others. When we had been in the halls, I had seen many corpses in the shop through which we had been marched by the Germans to be used as human shield for the tanks; it was in the first hall opposite Żelaznej Bramy Square.
From Krochmalna Street I went to Pańska Street, and on about 13 August I got to Czerniakowska Street 138, in the vicinity of Mączna or Zagórna Street, I don’t remember exactly now. I stayed there until 18 or 19 September; I no longer remember the exact date. The Germans had already begun to capture that area. I didn’t want to fall into their hands again, so late in the evening of that day, together with the wounded people and the soldiers from the Berling’s Army, I swam holding to a dinghy to the other side of the Vistula. The dinghy was launched from an outpost controlled by the insurgents, which was approximately level with the house at number 41 Solec Street.
I got to Praga that way, and from there I went to Rembertów, to my brother Józef Świder (now deceased).
After the Uprising, on the second day after the liberation of Warsaw, I got to Żelaznej Bramy Square and to the halls. I saw many places with charred bodies there. (The witness draws a rough plan of Żelaznej Bramy Square, the halls and neighboring streets, marking the sites where he had seen charred bodies). In a shop in the first hall, opposite Żelaznej Bramy Square, I found the remains of the men with whom, on 7 August 1944, I had been taken from the house at Mirowska Street 1. I recognized some of these bodies by the remnants of unburnt clothes.
I cannot tell how many corpses might have been there in the shop in the first hall.
I also saw corpses thrown into a bomb crater in the roadway at the junction of Zimna and Ptasia streets. I also saw a pile of charred human bodies in the square between the halls, and in the basement with the collapsed ceiling in the second hall. The tailor Antoni (I don’t remember his surname), currently residing at Miedziana Street 12, survived the execution of the civilians from the house at Mirowska Street 1 which had been carried out on 7 August 1944 by the first hall.
At this the report was concluded and read out.