Warsaw, 18 May 1948. Judge Halina Wereńko, a member of the District Commission for the Investigation of German Crimes, interviewed the person named below as a witness, without taking an oath. Having been advised of the criminal liability for making false declarations, the witness testified as follows:
| Name and surname | Józef Świderski |
| Parents’ names | Franciszek and Feliksa, née Sikora |
| Date of birth | 22 November 1911 in Warsaw |
| Religion | Roman Catholic |
| Citizenship and nationality | Polish |
| Education | six classes of vocational school |
| Profession | butcher |
| Place of residence | Warsaw, Gościniec Street 47. |
When the uprising broke out, I was in Siekierki, Warsaw. I lived at Gościniec Street 47. The area of Siekierki was occupied by the Germans.
On 23 August 1944 at around 13.00, a detachment of SA men and Volksdeutscher in German military uniforms surrounded Siekierki. I myself and a few men who were taken from the house at Siekierkowska Street were added to the group of men from Siekierki gathered at the school at Gościniec Street 53. This group of more than a hundred men, myself included, was led to the pumping station at Czerniakowska Street, and from there to the courtyard of the building at aleja Szucha 25. Here our group was taken over by an SD unit. The Germans started checking our identity documents. Men from Siekierki were ordered to stand separately from those from Warsaw. After a while, an SD man entered the courtyard of the Gestapo building and asked whether there was a butcher in the group. He spoke in German. The men in the group pointed at me, and the SD man ordered me to follow him. We exited through the gate into aleja Szucha.
I don’t know what happened to the men who I left in the courtyard
The SD man led me to the former Chief Inspectorate of the Armed Forces (aleja Szucha 12/14), to the second wing of the building (counting from the open-air kindergarten). I found that they were keeping cattle in the cellars under this wing (cows, pigs, sheep). My wartime identity card was taken from me, and I was immediately engaged in the slaughter of cattle. My co-workers were two SD men and five men dressed in grey prison clothing, who told me that they were kept at the camp at Litewska Street, where they had been imprisoned even before the uprising.
I don’t know their surnames. One of them told me that he had been arrested for smuggling, while another for violating the curfew. From then on, they worked with me from 7.00 to 18.00. At this hour a German soldier would come around (the prisoners called him “wachsmann”) and collect them. Overall management of the cows and pigs was performed by a German, Schweizer (I don’t remember whether he was an SD man). We worked in the cellar from the side of the courtyard located near the wing of the building that had had its upper storeys destroyed by an aerial bomb in 1939, adjacent to the open-air kindergarten. While working, I would continuously hear shots. I was not aware who was shooting at whom. I later learned that the “Ukrainians” living in the upper storeys of the building where I worked were shooting at a target in the courtyard. At 18.00, when we finished work, I was led to a cellar in the corner of the building, near to the courtyard described above, where I would spend the night. After a while, the commandant of the Byelorussian kitchen, which was located on the first floor of the building, came over to my cellar. He was a Romanian German, I don’t know his surname, and he ordered me to go with him to work in the same cellar in which we were slaughtering cattle during the day. The window was open. Suddenly, hearing shouts and laughter from the courtyard, I looked discreetly to the window. Earlier on I had noticed that the destroyed wing of the Inspectorate building opposite the window of the room in which I worked had its windows boarded up with plywood – with the exception of a single window in the centre of the wall from the courtyard, against which boards held together by crosspieces had been set. The second entrance to the building was also located in the courtyard, nearer to the end of the building from the side of aleja Szucha.
When I started looking through the window, it was already dusk. I saw that in the middle of the courtyard, a few steps away from the boards set against the window of the upper ground floor, there was a group of several dozen civilian men standing (30 or 40), surrounded by SS men and “Ukrainians”. The “Ukrainians” were also shouting and laughing from the upper storeys of the building, and it was this noise that had attracted my attention. I heard one of the Germans give an order in Polish for the men to undress. I heard their cries for mercy and the laughter of the “Ukrainians”. Once stripped, they were told to lie down, and I then heard bursts of machine gun fire. However, the Germans were not shooting at the prone men, for after a while they ordered them to get up and dress, and – once they complied – to undress and lie down again; this was followed by bursts of machine gun fire, and the men would be ordered to get up yet again. All of this was accompanied by the laughter and joyous shouts of the Ukrainians. Since it was dusk, I was unable to recognise any of the men. This game lasted for some 20 minutes, after which the men, now dressed, were led into the ruined Inspectorate building over the boards set against the window. After a while I heard salvoes, and the Germans left. Silence fell, and none of the detainees exited the building.
On the next day, 24 August, I worked for the whole day in the same cellar as before. I don’t know whether any groups of men were brought in to be shot. It was difficult to look outside, for Germans were milling around near the window, while the skins that we hung in the middle of the courtyard also hindered visibility. Therefore I think that if groups had been brought in for execution without excessive noise, I may not have seen them. At 18.00 the wachsmann collected the five prisoners from Litewska Street. I was taken by an SS man, along with two bricklayers – Michał Rozczyn [Raszczyk] (currently residing in Warsaw at Podchorążych Street 4) and Madejak (residing in Warsaw at Krucza Street 3) – to the cellar in which I had spent the previous night. Then in came Schweizer, the administrative manager of livestock, who covered up the window with parcels. It was dusk again when I heard voices in the courtyard, as on the previous day. Finding a crack, I looked through the window. I saw that a group of men was being brought in.
I don’t know exactly how many there were. As a rough estimate, there might have been more than 30. I didn’t recognise any of them. Once again I saw how they were ordered to undress, lie down, how shots were fired over their heads from a machine gun, I heard the cries and laughter of the Ukrainians surrounding the group in the courtyard and those on the upper floor of the building in which I found myself. After some 20 minutes the men, dressed, were led into the ruined building over the boards set against the window. I heard salvoes, saw the Germans exit after a while, and then silence fell. None of the men who had been led into the building came out.
The next day, while working in the cellar adjacent to the courtyard, we covered up the window with boards so that the Germans milling around the courtyard could not peek in on us. I did not see whether any groups were brought in for execution. However, four or five days after my arrival I once again heard laughter and shots. I think that the same thing was happening as in the evenings of 23 and 24 August. After a few days (three or four) I looked through the window during the daytime and saw that smoke was rising from within the ruined building (the building did not have a roof), and smelt the characteristic whiff of burning. As far as I could tell, in September the shootings were less frequent and smaller groups of victims were brought in. On a few occasions I saw the Ratajczyks, father and son, residents of Siekierki, as they were walking to work in the open-air kindergarten near the buildings where I was employed. Three or four weeks after my arrival at the Inspectorate (I don’t remember the exact date), the majority of SD detachments left Warsaw, so that there were only some 16 or 20 SD men left, and these moved from the kitchen to the house at aleja Szucha 16. On the morning of the day before the SD departed, I saw the SD officers leading men in groups through the courtyard and towards the boards leading up to the window of the destroyed Inspectorate building. All of a sudden I recognised amongst them the four prisoners from Litewska Street, who had been working with me at slaughtering the cattle. I saw that four or five groups were brought in. I saw the cook from the camp at Litewska Street 4 being led in in his white apron (I don’t know his surname). After each such group was led in, I would hear the sound of gunshots coming from the ruined building. That day, in the evening when I finished work, I was ordered to go for the night to the boiler room at aleja Szucha 25. In the boiler room I found a few women who worked in the SD men’s kitchen, and the stoker, one Jan Staśkiewicz (I don’t know his current address). I saw jackets strewn around the boiler room. The women and Staśkiewicz said that these were the jackets of prisoners from Litewska Street who had been working in the kitchen. They had been taken on the morning of the previous day and had not returned. I think that these were the people that I had seen the previous morning, as they were being led into the destroyed Inspectorate building.
I don’t know their number. One of the five prisoners who had worked with me at the cattle slaughter survived. I don’t know his surname. Earlier on, the prisoners had told me that 15 inmates of the camp were kept in a tramcar (a cell) at aleja Szucha Street 25 and were used for burning the bodies of the civilians murdered at the Inspectorate building. In all probability, it was they who had been shot.
From then on I slept in the boiler room at aleja Szucha 25 and went to the Inspectorate building to work slaughtering cattle. When I came to work on the day following my transfer to the boiler room, I saw a detachment of technical police drilling holes in the wall of the ruined Inspectorate building from the side of the courtyard, opposite the building in which I worked. After some time, the Germans entered the building in which I was working dragging fuses that were hooked up to the wall of the destroyed building. I saw how they connected the fuses to an electric detonator, and a moment later the wall of the ruined building fell to pieces.
A few days later, the cook from the Byelorussian kitchen located in the Inspectorate building, where I worked on the ground floor, took me with him to the first floor, from where we were to bring down a divan bed. Then in one of the first-floor rooms I saw bed linen, clothes, women’s underwear, a great many handbags, and documents stuffed in rubbish bins and strewn all over the floor. The cook left for a while. I started sifting through the documents and found my wartime identity card, which had been taken from me on 23 August. Previously, the room in which I found my identity card had housed Schweizer’s office. When I entered it, there was no one there. I worked at the Inspectorate building for two more weeks, after which I was employed in the kitchen at aleja Szucha 25. Following the capitulation of the Śródmieście district, the SD men, Ukrainians and Byelorussians left Warsaw. The building at aleja Szucha 25 was occupied by a detachment of Schutzpolizei from Górnośląska Street, where they had been billeted in the Hostel for Female Students. In November, I, along with the women working in the kitchen, was transported to Piastów under a Schutzpolizei escort. Just before Christmas 1944 I was granted a pass, which I hereby submit as an attachment to the present report.