On 26 October 1945, in Warsaw, Investigating Judge Mikołaj Halfter interviewed 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 swore the witness, who then testified as follows:
| Name and surname | Józefa Marian |
| Date of birth | 4 March 1897 |
| Names of parents | Maciej and Helena Marian |
| Place of residence | Warsaw, Bagatela Street 10, flat 32 |
| Occupation | deputy director of the company Strójwąs |
| Religious affiliation | Roman Catholic |
| Criminal record | none |
When the uprising broke out, I was living at Bagatela Street 10. On 2 and 3 August the area was taken over by the “ Ukrainians”, who constantly came to our house. They were usually drunk. On 2 August, I constantly heard single shots coming from the park. I lived on the fourth floor, and at that time a few insurgents, whom I brought food, were hiding in the attic of our house. I saw from the attic window and from the bathroom windows in the flat below, overlooking the park, that on 2 and 3 August some soldiers (I couldn’t tell from a distance whether they were Germans or the “ Ukrainians”) were killing women. Those women were lying naked on the grass in the park in the place which I indicated to the judge during the on-site inspection on 18 October 1945. Two soldiers walked in between the rows with handguns and shot the women in the back of the head.
I don’t remember what time it was. I saw clothes, probably belonging to the women, lying piled up in one place. I counted around 100 women in three rows. I was around 200 meters away. I didn’t see any children. I also saw a crowd of women undressing in the yard. It was some time after. There must have been a few hundred women there. I also saw the women lie down in rows. I saw two soldiers walking in between the rows and killing them with shots from a handgun. On multiple occasions during those days I also saw the piling up of bodies in a heap in the park, and the burning of corpses in the yard. I have to note that at the time the “ Ukrainians” came to our house very often (before they came into the yard they usually threw in grenades, so I knew when they were coming and always tried to get back to my flat), so I was able to watch what was happening in the park only on occasion. I also saw, next to a wall that was there prior to the on-site inspection, a heap of naked bodies reaching up to the mezzanine. There were only men. It was 2 August in the morning. On 2-3 August, the stench of burned bodies constantly reached our flats. I could also often hear children’s voices calling for their mothers or fathers from the direction of the park.
Starting on 4 August, the executions and burning of corpses no longer took place in the park, but in the house at the back of the Officer Cadet School, partly ruined in 1939 as a result of military operations. It seems that that the property belonged to house number 12/14 on aleja Szucha. After 4 August, until the moment we left our house, I constantly saw columns of smoke rising from the windows of that house. The same house which I pointed out to the judge during the on-site inspection on 18 October 1945.
On 5 August, together with other residents of our house, I was led out by the “ Ukrainians”. We were directed to the park, but a German said on the way that it was too late and we were turned back to the Gestapo HQ on aleja Szucha. We stayed there for half an hour. I saw a very big crowd of men in the backyard, standing facing the wall. I saw a priest in that group, asking for water. After half an hour, we, the women, were led to the back of the Gestapo HQ, where maybe 4000 women were gathered in the backyard. I stood in that crowd until 12:00 on the next day. During that time we were insulted, mocked and ridiculed. The crowd included women and children. The houses on Marszałkowska Street were burning.
The next day, they ordered us to go outside onto aleja Szucha, and announced that we had to go back to our homes and call on the Poles to stop fighting, because otherwise all of Warsaw would be turned to rubble. Then they released us. As we were walking out, I didn’t see if there still were Polish men in the courtyard because we were exiting through a different yard. Luckily we reached a Polish barricade and that is how I got to an insurgent zone in Śródmieście.
I have to note that there was a flat at number 10 Bagatela Street inhabited by Volksdeutsche, who had left Warsaw a month before the uprising. On 1 August, the commander of the Gestapo Supply Department put Poles who worked in the said department (I don’t remember their names) in the flat. I know from them that the commander’s name was Hatler. That commander constantly brought them food portions (there were 3 women and 4 men there, all of them Polish). The commander had told them that the Soviet Army had withdrawn some 80 kilometers from the Praga district.
I witnessed, as the execution was underway in the park, how one of those Poles asked (it was on 3 August) the commander in German: “What are you doing? You said you wouldn’t torment us.” The commander answered back in German that female tramway workers were being executed because they had assaulted the Germans with weapons. The Pole answered that that was not the case, because they saw such executions happening all the time. The commander didn’t reply to that. The commander was German. The Poles said that he treated them well.
I don’t know what happened to those Poles. When we were led out, they stayed behind. I recently saw one of the women because she lives at Bagatela Street 8. I don’t know her first name. She is a cook in the kitchen for the chauffeurs of the Cooperative Construction Company or some other institution which has its garages there. She will probably know the surnames and addresses of the other Poles placed by Hatler in our house. I have lately heard from her that Hatler helped those Poles escape.
Read out.