Warsaw, 24 January 1946. Court assessor Antoni Krzętowski, delegated to the Warsaw- City District Commission for the Investigation of German Crimes, 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 | Stefania Popielnicka, daughter of Jan and Kazimiera |
| Place of residence | Warsaw, Bagatela Street 8 |
| Occupation | cook in the Social Construction Company |
| Religious affiliation | Roman Catholic |
| Criminal record | none |
The Warsaw Uprising caught me at Bagatela Street 8. At that time, I lived at Obozowa Street 64, but I was on Bagatela Street every day because I worked there as a cook, cooking dinners for Poles employed there as workers at the SS staff on Aleje Ujazdowskie. A certain Florian Hatler was the head of the kitchen I worked in. He was a decent man, his attitude towards us, the kitchen workers, and also towards the Polish workers who used to eat there was perfectly fine.
When the Uprising broke out, without notifying Hatler, I immediately escaped into the neighboring house, at no. 10, because there were basements there. The house was big and provided more safety. I stayed there until 5 August in one of the flats on the third floor. There were more of us there, but I had not known any of the others before. I still don’t know their surnames today. I only knew the Kubickis – a married couple, but I don’t know their current fate.
During those few days I had the possibility of watching what was happening in the park grounds, but I personally looked just once through a bathroom window. It was then that I saw women being executed. There were around 30 of them. They were lying in a row on the ground and the German soldiers (I don’t know what formation) walked up to them and shot them from a short firearm as they lay facing the ground. It was on 2 or 3 August. I couldn’t look longer at the execution, it made such a powerful impression on me that I never looked through that window onto the park again. The people staying with me in the flat, however, did watch what was going on there and spoke of executions of civilians constantly taking place there.
I myself constantly heard shots coming from the park.
The women whom I saw executed lay on the ground clothed, but those who watched the executions regularly said that in other cases women, and men, were also executed naked. I was told that children were also executed. As I was told, after an execution the Germans doused the corpses with liquid from a barrel they kept nearby and then burned the bodies.
During my entire stay at Bagatela Street 10, we were very troubled by the stench produced by the burning of the corpses. I myself didn’t watch the burning of the corpses, because – as I said before – I couldn’t look at what was going on in the park. The flat in which I was staying had previously been inhabited by Volksdeutsche. It was located opposite flat number 34. On 5 August, everyone from our flat, that is a total of six people, was taken by the “Ukrainians”. Having grouped us with other people from the same house, they led us, 100 people, towards the park. We were convinced that that they were taking us to be executed. However, we were turned back from the park gate by a German soldier, who ordered that we be taken to the Gestapo HQ. Having come to the Gestapo HQ at aleja Szucha 25, we were detained until the next day in the courtyard of that building.
On 6 August at around 9:00 a.m., a German soldier, speaking good Polish, informed those gathered in the courtyard, several hundred people, that we would go to the frontline to tell the bandits to stop fighting. The Germans called the insurgents bandits. Soon after, we were led out onto aleja Szucha and directed towards Unii Lubelskiej Square. I, however, bumped into Hatler on the way, who said that I had worked in his kitchen and that I was still needed at work, having pulled me from the crowd he ordered me to go to the SS staff headquarters on Aleje Ujazdowskie. I knew the kitchen staff there because I would often go there to fetch dinners for Hatler, so I was employed immediately. I remained at that job until 15 October, after which I was taken with other kitchen staff to Sochaczew. Once there, having dropped us off at the market, they ordered us to go to the local German quarters and report for work in the kitchen. I didn’t obey the order, but escaped from the Germans and went to Stara Sucha village located some kilometers from Sochaczew, where I found shelter with the local village head and stayed there until the arrival of the Soviet Army.
When we were taken to the Gestapo courtyard, some of the women there told us that the Germans would probably push us in front of the tanks against the insurgents. I talked to a woman who told me that she had been put on a German tank to stop the insurgents from shooting at the tank. Her eyes were so filled with blood that the whites were completely red. Although she herself was not wounded, she said that the insurgents had shot at the tank she was on. She pointed out a small boy standing nearby and told me that his mother had been killed on a tank.
During the period when I worked in the SS headquarters kitchen on Aleje Ujazdowskie I didn’t see the Germans rape any Poles. I had no outside contacts at the time, my only company was the Polish and German kitchen staff and I don’t have any interesting observations from that period.
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