STANISŁAW MAZUREK

Warsaw, 13 September 1945. Investigating judge Mikołaj Halfter interviewed the person named below as a witness. Having advised the witness of the criminal liability for giving false testimony and of the significance of the oath, the judge swore the witness, who then testified as follows:


Name and surname Stanisław Mazurek
Age b. 11 March 1904
Names of parents Jan and Elżbieta
Place of residence Warsaw, Leszno Street 73, flat 4
Occupation bricklayer
Religious affiliation Roman Catholic
Criminal record none

About a week after the Germans had left Warsaw, I took up residence in the former military prison at the junction of Dzika and Zamenhofa streets. Overall, 27 people took up residence there at that time, myself assuming the duties of the chair of the tenants’ committee.

We had lived there for some two months already when a commission arrived at the grounds to carry out an exhumation. I recognize the site plan shown to me by the interviewing judge and confirm that it corresponds to the topography of the former military prison which I am very familiar with (the witness was shown a site plan drawn up by Tadeusz Kowalski, which can be found in the case file as an appendix to the inspection report from 30 May 1945). The plan was compiled in my presence and, to this day, no noteworthy changes have occurred to the site as compared to the time at which the plan was drawn up. All the pits containing ashes, human bodies or remains, as well as all the heaps of ashes aboveground and all the buildings remain intact to this day; only near the pit marked D, in the third courtyard, from the direction of courtyard 2, is there a pit that has been dug recently; this is where the administration of the Central Labor Camp buried the bodies of the Germans who had died in the camp.

This new pit was dug in June 1945, I believe, and probably contains around 400 corpses. An exhumation in the said area was performed only once, in May 1945, in the presence of Dr. Rott, a Polish Red Cross recording secretary, Żelazowska, and Stefan Kozłowski, who oversaw the workers. The exhumations lasted three days, I think, and it was then that a number of human corpses were dug out from the pit marked C, located in courtyard 3. I don’t think it’s possible that there were only 66 corpses (excluding fragments). In my opinion, there must have been at least 600 of them.

These corpses, dug out over a couple of days (three, I think), were placed in the courtyard, filling almost completely. The corpses were examined, documents were looked for, and then, after a pit was dug in the spot marked D, these corpses as well as others, brought over from other parts of the ghetto, were buried in pit D. I think that there are some 1000 corpses altogether buried in pit D.

I am absolutely certain that after the corpses were removed from pit C, they were not buried there again but instead put into pit D. In my opinion, there are currently no corpses in pit C.

When I took up residence on Gęsia Street, I didn’t immediately realize that this was where the Germans had committed mass atrocities because initially all the traces were covered with snow. But after the snow disappeared, the traces became clearly visible, namely, there were heaps of ashes containing partly burnt bones, traces of fire pits, and gun cartridges.

At that point we also noticed buildings located in the area in question, which in my opinion were crematories, either once operating or under construction. There are three such buildings on the property. All of them are located in courtyard 5. Two of them, marked G and J, are shown on the plan. The third is not shown, but is located next to the watchtower adjacent to Gęsia Street, which is shown on the plan. (At this point, the witness was shown a site plan appended to the deposition of witness Żelazowska – f. 98 of the case records – after which the witness stated as follows:) This third building that I have mentioned is shown on the plan, it is marked 6 and is located at this exact place. Other than that, this plan (from f. 98) is inaccurate because there are no buildings or even traces of buildings on the property in the places marked 8 and 9 on the plan. The rubble of the concrete building that witness Żelazowska mentions in her report is near building 10 (according to the plan from f. 98) and also partly stretches along the garages, which are marked 11 on the plan.

This building marked 10 (the “new building” on the plan made by Kowalski) is, in my opinion, a crematory that the Germans had not finished. This building is made entirely of firebrick, it has one big chamber with an oven and chimney, and many small rooms and cells. The entire building is not finished yet, with the big chamber still without floors and the small rooms still without doors, plus not all the ovens have been built, even though one can infer from the started construction works that they were planned. Both inside this “new building” and among the rubble are thick electrical cables (wires), running there from a pylon, located between the “new building” and the garages.

The building marked 7 (on the plan from f. 98) was, in my opinion, a fully finished and operative crematory. It contained a fire pit with grates, as well as ashes and bones which remained there after the corpses had been burnt.

The third crematory, located in the spot marked 6 on the plan from f. 98 of the case records, is a one-story building made of firebrick, and this, in my opinion, is another fully-finished crematory. However, this crematory had not been used, because there were no traces of burnt corpses there. This building had an oven with grates and four steel doors.

Large amounts of ashes from incinerated bodies are found in the second and third courtyards on the property. These ashes are loosely scattered about and mixed with dirt. Inside the buildings of the former prison I have not come across any traces of killings. Therewas only artillery ammunition there, some 3000 units, for guns of different calibers. Wemoved this ammunition, on the orders of the Central Labor Camp inspector, to the bunker in courtyard 5, where it has since remained.

The Central Labor Camp was liquidated some two months ago and the premises are open to anyone. Nobody guards the ammunition stored in the bunker.

At that the report was concluded and read out.