Warsaw, 12 March 1946. Investigating Judge Halina Wereńko, delegated to the Commission for the Investigation of German Crimes, interviewed the person specified 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 swore him in, after which the witness testified as follows:
| Forename and surname | Teofil Markowski |
| Names of parents | Jan and Florentyna, née Górecka |
| Date of birth | 20 December 1890 in Żyrardów |
| Occupation | owner of a house in Piastów, bookbinder |
| Education | vocational craft school |
| Place of residence | Piastów, Reja Street 36 |
| Religious affiliation | Roman-Catholic |
| Criminal record | none |
My stepson, Jan Hoppe (born on 25 July 1913 in Żyrardów), finished the Wewelberg State Mechanical Engineering School some three or four years before the outbreak of the war. After he had finished the school, he worked as a trainee in the Szpotańskis’ company on Mińska Street and later in the Perun company on Grochowska Street, from where he was sent to Paris, as a scholarship holder, to attend a welding engineering course.
On 6 September 1939, he returned to Piastów with his wife and daughter. In Warsaw, he joined the Polish army, holding the rank of second lieutenant. He returned wearing civilian clothes in December 1939; in 1940, he started work on the construction of a municipal gasworks, and in 1941 in the Miłobędzki company at Polna Street 12, in an ironware factory. The factory’s production was mainly used on the railways.
I know that my stepson was a member of an underground organization whose aim was to fight the Germans. I do not know precisely when he joined it. In 1941, my stepson moved from Piastów to Warsaw, where he settled in Praga. He told me that due to his clandestine activities he felt more at ease in Warsaw rather than in Piastów.
On 13 July 1943, my son, accompanied by three engineers and two foremen, left the factory and went to Polna Street to have lunch. Next to the Lardelli bakery shop was a hut with gendarmes in it, who stopped my son together with the people who were accompanying him. I do not know whether they stopped them accidentally or whether they had been waiting for them. Later, when I brought a parcel to the police station on Krochmalna Street, I established that my son was in Pawiak prison, and had been registered at no. 100, with the letter T next to his surname.
I do not know the surnames of the people who were arrested with my son, except for engineers Tatarczuk and Szaniawski (I refer to my stepson as my son because this is how I treated him). These names might be remembered by my daughter, who will also come to testify. Two people out of those who had been arrested were released, one of them was engineer Tatarczuk, who, as far as I know, was in Warsaw before the Uprising; I will try and find him. The engineer Tatarczuk told me that all the arrested people, together with my son, had been taken for interrogation to the Gestapo at Aleja Szucha 25 on 16 July, where they had been transported in a car from Pawiak prison. I do not know what they were asked about. I know that they answered that they worked in a company at Polna Street 10. A ring with a white eagle on it had been found on one of the foremen.
On 15 July 1943 on Aleje Ujazdowskie, some Poles threw two grenades at Fischer’s escort; in retaliation for this, 150 prisoners were taken from Pawiak prison to be executed, and on 16 July 600 more prisoners. I was told by the engineer Tatarczuk that my son had been called out of his cell on 16 July and that he had never returned. Three other engineers and foremen arrested with him were called out after him, including the engineer Szaniawski.
The engineer Tatarczuk did not know where the prisoners from Pawiak prison were executed on 15 and 16 July 1943; and I have not determined that so far either. At that time, no notices had yet been put up.
A notification was delivered by post to the flat in Praga where my stepson had lived, which I am showing now. (The witness shows a sheet of paper with a printed inscription on the left side: Der Polizeipräsident in Warschau, geschäftsstelle V Warschau, den 21-9-1943. Bescheiningung Warschau den 21-9-1943 Es wird nie mit bescheiningt den Jan Hoppe geboren am 25-7-1913 in Żyrardów am 16-7-1943 verstorben ist I.A.-A.A. the signature, illegible, is a facsimile copy, the seal imprint is roundwith the following inscription in therim: Generalgouvernement Der Polizeipräsident in Warschau and a swastika.)
Together with my daughter, I submitted an application to the Patronat organization in the Pawiak prison and we received my son’s belongings: his watch, cigarette case, money and his flat key.
The director of the factory where my son had worked, Miłobędzki, went to the Gestapo HQ to request the release of his employees. He offered Hagen, the chief of the Gestapo-Polizei in Warsaw, or else Halle, 100,000 zloty for each of his employees, explaining that he would have to close the business down due to lack of employees. To this, Hagen smiled and replied that he did not need money, but people. Miłobędzki knew Hagen personally since he visited him every month to collect passes for the employees of his factory. This was so because the employees of the factory were entitled to night passes, which were usually universally recognized by the Germans. So, I think that the Gestapo men at the Lardelli bakery shop must have been waiting for my son and his companions.
There was no search of my son’s flat in Praga.
I want to add that my son, as a Polish officer, did not disclose to the Germans that he was a soldier; he burnt his commission certificate. It is possible that the Germans found some records containing a list of officers of my son’s regiment and that was the reason they caught him.
The witness interview report was read out.