Sopot, 22 February 1946
To
the Commission for the Investigation of German Crimes in Warsaw
In February 1940, the Gestapo took my brother, Tadeusz Grabowski, and brother-in-law, Edward Zakówka, from the house at Browarna Street 17/19 in Warsaw. A greater number of people from this tenement were detained. On the next day the Gestapo arrested my sister, Leokadia Zakówka, and put her in prison. In May those taken from the tenement – together with my brother-in-law, Zakówka – were sent to Dachau; he died there on 20 December.
My sister and brother remained in prison. My brother managed to send a letter through the agency of a guard. He wrote that the German thugs had beaten and kicked him to an unconscious pulp, breaking his bones, and thereafter turned to the doctors who happened to be detained in the same cell, saying: – Polish doctors, can you bring this swine back to life? He was placed on a stretcher and, after six weeks, regained consciousness – only to be beaten up again. He further wrote that he would see his sister every Sunday at mass in the chapel; he played the organ, and she would stand near the pillar.
The Germans replied to my father’s numerous inquiries that my sister and brother had died in June 1940 in Warsaw.
I found, or indeed recognized my brother amongst other murdered Poles in an edition of “Żołnierz Polski” dated 1 November 1945. In the picture, a woman – maybe my sister – is lying near him (however the photograph is too small to identify her positively), while above it is the inscription “A photograph found in a German archive”.
My brother was educated at the Music Conservatory in Warsaw, while shortly before the outbreak of hostilities he broadcast folk songs on Polish Radio.
I beg and request that anyone who was detained in prison along with my siblings inform me of what happened to them – how they perished and where.
Wanda Jaworczak
Sopot
Stalina Street 675