Warsaw, 21 January 1946. Judge Alicja Germasz interviewed the person specified below as a witness. Having advised the witness of the criminal liability for making false declarations and of the gravity of the oath, the judge swore the witness in accordance with Art. 109 of the Code of Criminal Procedure. The witness testified as follows:
Bronisława Wąsowska, 34 years old, daughter of Aleksander and Franciszka, residing in Warsaw, at Zawiszy Street 43, no occupation, Roman Catholic religious affiliation, no criminal record.
I lived and I am still living at my parents’ house at Zawiszy Street 43.
On 2 August 1944 the Germans burst onto our property. Initially, two German soldiers entered and, immediately throwing grenades into the courtyard, they ordered everyone to get out of their flats. We all went out to the courtyard, around one hundred of us. Here, yelling and insulting us, they ordered everyone (women, men and children) to line up in a long row, just one person deep, alongside the house. Then, four more Germans entered from the direction of the garden, carrying grenades and machine guns; they went into the house and threw incendiary grenades in there. The house caught fire. At that moment I managed to run away with two children, through the gate to Zawiszy Street (I was standing in the line near the gate); my husband remained in the yard. Standing on the street, by the fence of our property, I heard the Germans ordering all women to leave the yard and go in the direction of Górczewska Street (the opposite direction from where I was hiding). Soon after that, I heard a series of gunshots from a machine gun. I then continued running down Zawiszy Street.
Ten minutes later, I went back to our property. I then saw the house on fire and the corpses of the executed men lying in the yard, one on top of another. There were twenty-three of them. One of them was alive, this was Kazimierz Szajewski (presently residing on Wolska Street in the house directly opposite Franaszek’s factory, I don’t know the number of the house). Among the dead there were my husband, my husband’s brother, my sister’s husband, and other tenants from our house, all of them civilians, and one insurgent, who had come to us on the previous day, without military markings. Together with other people who had come back to our property, I moved these corpses to Zawiszy Street, where we then buried them. These corpses were later exhumed in April 1945 – partially by the families of the executed, partially by the authorities with the participation of the Polish Red Cross.
I wish to add that when I ran away from our house right before the execution, I met a neighbour from the building at Magistracka Street 9/11, who said that the Germans had executed the men in her house as well. When I went there, I saw an entirely burnt down building and male corpses lying in the yard. There were around fifteen of them. Those were tenants of that house whom I had known.
A few men from that house managed to survive. Among the living are the son of the owner of the house, Czesław Kielak (residing at Zawiszy Street 49), who was wounded during the execution.
The report was read out.