10 July 1945
In connection with the memorandum entitled The Mystery of Aleja Szucha, it is my impression that I must add a few details which could shed some more light.
Namely, from 29 August until November 1944, I was at aleja Szucha as a Gefangene. First, for five days in the SD building, then for two months on Litewska Street, in the former workshop of the Salesian monks, where before the outbreak of the Uprising there had been a penal camp for young people, and where from 4 September a so-called Arbeitslager was created.
A group of around 15 young people sat, behaving noisily, in cell number 1 at aleja Szucha, as if happy with their fate. These young men immediately drew our interest. During our stay, we learned through cell-to-cell communication that they were tasked with burning the corpses of those killed. They did well for themselves – they were totally depraved – they were drunk most of the day.
The executions took place in the grounds of the former Main Inspectorate of the Armed Forces [GISZ] in a block bordering the park (on Bagatela Street). The block was 100 meters long, burned out so that only half meter-high side walls remained standing. The executions were conducted in groups of 20 people. According to information from the first cell, as many as 300 people were executed daily. Then the bodies were burned.
A pit, one meter deep, was dug inside the building, 1.5 meters wide, covered with wood. Naked corpses were put in it, doused with petrol and burned. That was our chimney – the Szucha chimney. Before the execution, one had to undress, fold one’s clothes and stand naked for the execution. I myself saw a group of five people led to the execution, three men and two women, on 6 September. After the act (I was sweeping the street at that time) I saw Gestapo men carrying only men’s calf boots. The hill next to the boiler house was occupied by the SS, police, Gestapo, and Ukrainians during the execution, who were sitting on chairs, watching, and making cheerful remarks.
I know that a labor camp was located on Litewska Street until the outbreak of the uprising. Thus, on 4 September, when we moved to Litewska Street, we carried out from four to five thousand pieces of clothes and men’s underwear to the cars. Anyway, the camp cook, whom I still saw, confirmed that the underwear and clothes had belonged to people executed on aleja Szucha.
Towards the end of the uprising, the Germans blew up the crematorium of the heart of Warsaw.
I wish that Warsaw would always remember that place and on 1 August devote a moment of reflection to those thousands.
Stefan Czarnecki, student of the Jagiellonian University, Krakow