Warsaw, 2 March 1950. Janusz Gumkowski, a member of the Main Commission for the Investigation of German Crimes in Poland, interviewed the person named below, who testified as follows:
| Name and surname | Przyłęcka Bożena |
| Date and place of birth | 10 November 1926, in Warsaw |
| Names of parents | Stanisław and Halina née Fijałkowska |
| Father’s occupation | university professor |
| State and national affiliation | Polish |
| Religious affiliation | Roman Catholic |
| Education | high school |
| Occupation | student |
| Place of residence | Warsaw, Mochnackiego Street 17, flat 21 |
| Criminal record | none |
The outbreak of the Uprising found me at home at Marszałkowska Street 35. On 5 August at around 9:00 a.m., the Germans, the Wehrmacht I suppose, burst into our house and ordered everyone to go out on the street. They separated the men from the women there. They ordered everybody to lie down facing the pavement. I lay like that until flames appeared in all the windows of our house. There was shooting on Marszałkowska Street throughout the entire time, the insurgents were shooting from Zbawiciela Square, and the Germans from Unii Lubelskiej Square. On the pavement in front of our house lay people, not only from our house but also from a presbytery whose courtyard bordered ours and was connected to it by a hole knocked through the wall. Residents of houses on Marszałkowska Street, of the lower-numbered houses which were located closer to Unii Lubelskiej Square, had been sheltering in our house and in the presbytery. That day, that is 5 August, the Germans dragged Stefan Ossowiecki, among others, from our house.
When the flames could be seen in all the windows, the Germans ordered us to get up, and took us, the women, along Litewska Street to aleja Szucha. The men stayed lying down on the pavement. The Germans kept the women in the yard by the pool, the latter made before the uprising.
Around 11:00, the Germans started to arrange us as cover for the tanks. Children were torn from young mothers and handed to older women, who were supposed to stay at aleja Szucha. Many mothers started fainting, others were screaming. We – the young – wanted to help them somehow. So we told the Germans that the mothers would only get in our way. It worked, the Germans allowed the mothers to stay and retrieve their children. My mother stayed among the older women.
Around 2:00 p.m., we set off, in eights, following a speech by one of the German officers, who told us that we had to reach the Polish Telephone Company [PASTA] on Piusa Street in order to collect wounded Germans and deliver food to those unharmed. The German told us that if there was any danger to us, it came from our “bandits.” Two Tiger tanks drove behind us. There were women tied to one of them. There was an ambulance driving behind the tank, in which the wounded soldiers from PASTA were to be transported, and again, women walking behind the ambulance. There were around 700 of us. As the first eights reached Mokotowska Street, the last ones had not yet turned into Piusa Street. We walked quite tightly together, not in eights anymore, but in a tight mass. Some women were shrieking, others praying aloud. The houses on Piusa Street were damaged by bullets. Insurgents appeared in the windows and on the walls. I noticed a boy with a bottle of petrol. I was terrified. If the tank gun had been directed at us, we would all have been killed. Luckily, the gun was higher up; when the tank was set on fire, shells flew down Piusa Street. The Germans dressed as women, who walked among us, rushed to save the tank. We were forgotten.
We started fleeing into Mokotowska and Krucza streets. Since the Germans didn’t shoot at us, I walked calmly in the direction of Krucza Street in order to see what was going to happen next with the Germans. Since the second tank, with women tied to it, started burning, a few insurgents ran out of a gate. The Germans didn’t shoot at them. They cut the women loose and pulled them inside the gate. The women had been burned. The Germans couldn’t take back the first tank, because the one burning was blocking the road. They got into the ambulance and retreated in the direction of aleja Szucha with the women walking behind the tanks.
Since my mother was at aleja Szucha, I learned from her that all the women, including those who had come back with the tanks, had been kept in the courtyard of the ministry at night, and on the next day, 6 August, at midday, they were set free down Litewska and Marszałkowska Street, towards Mokotowska Street, so on the insurgent side.
It remains unknown what happened to the men. Priests from the parish of Our Savior were also released on Sunday, the rest of the men were detained. My father and my brother were among those kept at aleja Szucha. We still have no news about the men from our group.
Regarding other crimes committed during the uprising, I heard from Reverend Ostrowski (now deceased), who was in Our Savior’s parish, that on the first day of the uprising, a Tuesday, a nurse in a white robe with a Red Cross flag was walking from Natolińska Street, where there was a medical point, to get a priest to come to the dying. The Germans from the Ministry of Military Affairs shot at her, but so as to wound her. She crawled to the sacristy of the Church of Our Savior, where she died of her wounds in the evening.
At that the report was concluded and read out.
The witness is supplementing the testimony: Before the start of the march in front of the tanks, the Germans had warned the women that they would shoot them if any of them tried to escape. When we were fleeing, the Germans didn’t shoot at us only because they were busy saving the burning tank.
Read out.