Warsaw, 21 June 1946. Investigating Judge Halina Wereńko, delegated to the Commission for the Investigation of German Crimes, heard the person named below as a witness. Having advised the witness of the criminal liability for making false declarations and of the significance of the oath, the judge took an oath therefrom, following which the witness testified as follows:
| Name and surname | Ludwik Grzelec |
| Parents’ names | Wincenty and Waleria |
| Date of birth | 16 April 1907 in Wilanów |
| Occupation | bricklayer |
| Education | illiterate |
| Place of residence | village of Wilanów, house no. 56 |
| Religion | Roman Catholic |
| Criminal record | none |
I live in the village of Wilanów, where I own a house, no. 56, located near the Vistula embankment. The house is correctly marked on the site-plan shown to me (a site-plan drawn up by another witness, Henryk Wiśniewski, was presented to the witness).
I resided in Wilanów throughout the German occupation and was there in 1945. I remember that in the autumn of 1942 the German authorities erected two wooden barracks and one sentry box behind the Vistula embankment, on the pasture by the lake. In the autumn of 1942 (I do not remember the exact date) these barracks were used to house Soviet prisoners of war, and they remained there through the winter, until February or March 1943. In the autumn of 1942, on three or four separate occasions, I saw the SS men who were guarding them (I do not know their unit) shoot two or three prisoners, while one day, having led the prisoners back to the camp, they killed one of them with bayonets.
I do not remember the dates of these executions, for I saw them while I was fishing by the lake. The SS men had the bodies of the murdered prisoners sent to the Catholic cemetery in Wilanów. In the spring of 1943, the prisoners were removed from the camp, but I do not know where to. Around 400 Jews from Otwock were placed in the camp, and they remained there until the autumn of 1943, whereafter some of them were taken to a barrack in the village of Kępa Latoszkowa, and shot there; another group was driven away in an unknown direction.
For a short time, the Jews in the camp in Wilanów were guarded by blue policemen, while later on the Jews kept guard themselves. The camp was supervised by the German gendarmes stationed at Dworkowa Street in Warsaw.
I do not know the surnames of any of the gendarmes, but I would be able to recognize a great many of them if I saw them. I remember that they had a badge with an eagle and death’s heads on their caps, while their uniforms were green with brown epaulettes. Their commander had two stars on his epaulettes. These gendarmes would come to the camp frequently, and nearly always someone would be dead by the time they left. The bodies were buried by the Jews themselves on the grounds of the camp. Throughout the period of their imprisonment at this facility, some 30 Jews were shot dead individually. Even before the liquidation of the camp, a month or six weeks previous (I do not remember the date), gendarmes from Dworkowa Street selected around 30 of the weaker Jews and told them that they would be taken to hospital. This group was executed in the field between Wilanów and Powsin; the grave is still there.
Once more or less one hundred Jews had been moved to Kępa Latoszkowa, and some driven off in an unknown direction, only six men and one woman remained in the camp in Wilanów (four commandants, the wife of a commandant, and two laborers). All of them were shot dead in the barracks and buried near the camp. The Jewish graves were not exhumed in 1945; I can point out their location.
I have just remembered that the commandant in chief of the gendarmes at Dworkowa Street was one Kilanowski; in 1943 he was blown up in his motor car by soldiers of the Home Army.
The Jewish camp in Wilanów was supervised by Major Frank, a relation of the Governor General, Frank. I worked as a night watchman in the village of Stary Wilanów, and that is why I heard these surnames, but I do not remember whether it was one of the Jews who told me, or somebody from the village.
More or less a month before the camp was liquidated, a Jew – a physician – escaped from the facility; I do not know his surname, but I heard that he is presently living in Łódź. His surname may be known to Feliks Owczarek.
In the spring of 1943 the gendarmes from Dworkowa Street executed four or five Gypsies near the barracks (I do not know their surnames). The graves are located next to the barracks – they have not been exhumed.
In May 1943, I do not remember the exact date, three gendarmes from Dworkowa Street drove up in a black, private motor car with two decently dressed young men. The gendarmes shot these men close to the embankment and removed their clothes (one of the men was wearing two pairs of trousers, and the gendarmes left one pair on the corpse). A Polish blue policeman who was present at the execution (I do not know his surname) walked up to the nearest house and ordered the menfolk present to bury the bodies. Thus, since I was there, I was forced to dig a hole.
It may be that the surname of the Polish policeman who attended the execution is known to the former commander of Wilanów police station, Ludwik Uchman (resident in Piaseczno, although I do not know his exact address); it could also be that the blue policeman in question was one Szypiński, who now works at the investigative department of the People’s Militia in Wilanów.
I did not find any documents on the bodies of the murdered victims, and therefore I am unable to say who they were and from where they had been taken. From that moment on, executions were held there frequently: the gendarmes would drive up with one or two men, shoot them dead near the embankment, and thereafter men from Wilanów – duly instructed by the village leader or the police – would have to bury the corpses.
I remember neither how many people were shot, nor the dates of these executions.
In 1945, the Polish Red Cross carried out an exhumation, so maybe it would be able to provide information about the number of bodies recovered. We did not identify any of the bodies while burying them, for the Germans had taken their clothes and identity cards.
The final execution took place towards the autumn of 1943, and I remember that a man and a woman were shot. A gendarme said that the executed man was a Jew, a physician from Marszałkowska Street 63. Following this murder, the Home Army assassinated Kilanowski, whereafter the executions of Poles near the barracks of the former camp ceased.
An abbreviated version of the report was read out.