| Name and surname | Wanda Lurie |
| Date and place of birth | 23 May 1911 |
| Place of residence | Podkowa Leśna, Bukowa [Dębowa] Street, Krüger house |
[The testimony] concerns the mass shooting of civilians at the Ursus factory on Wolska Street, 5 August 1944.
On 5 August 1944, at 11.00 a.m., “Ukrainians” together with SS men burst into the premises of the building at Działdowska Street 18, and ordered everybody – men, women, and children – to vacate the flats and basements. I was the last to leave, with my children Wiesław, aged 11, Ludmiła, aged 6, and Lech, 3½ years old. The entire group from our building was directed to the Ursus factory on Wolska Street (there were about 150 of us; I have given a list of the surnames I remember in the appendix).
We were stopped in front of the factory gate and split into small groups, arranging us in fours, while neither sex nor age was taken into account. I was put together with my children. Then we were ordered to go into the middle of the factory yard. On the way I saw piles of killed men, women, and children. When we drew close to the place of execution, the “Ukrainians”, under the command of an SS officer, fired a shot to each of us individually, from a pistol, to the back of the skull. They shot from such proximity that the revolver could be felt on the neck. I could hear constant screams, groans, calls for help, prayers, etc.
Together with my children, I retreated from one group to the next, wanting to put off the moment of my death as long as possible. That was possible due to a certain amount of confusion. There was no question of finding a way out of the factory premises, since all exits were guarded. When a particular group had been shot, the executioners walked about and finished off the injured. I can vouch for nobody [else] in the grounds of that factory having been taken officially as an insurgent. Seeing what was happening, I proposed to the “Ukrainian” who was escorting me that he hide me and my children for gold and money, which he agreed to. Once my valuables had been taken, when I was retreating towards the exit, the criminals’ commander, an SS officer (who earlier on had taken part of my ransom), kicked my son Wiesław, shouting in German: “Polish bandit”. And he shot him dead in front of my eyes. Then, the Ukrainian shot the two younger children I was holding by the hand, one in front of the other, such that they both died from a single bullet. I was shot in the neck. I fell on my side. Because of severe hemorrhaging I couldn’t see what was happening, although I heard shots and the screams of people murdered after me. The execution lasted until the late evening. I can assert that up until the moment when I could no longer see, about 4,000 people had been killed. Two workers from the City Gasworks, Świątkowski and Iwanowicz, who managed to survive, claim that about 10,000 people were murdered there, because later they were executing with machine guns.
Going back to my own case, after I had been injured, four men who were shot later fell on my body, one of them taking a very long time to die, and attempts were made a few times to finish him off. I laid like that for three days. There were no more executions. I have to mention that at the time I was in my last month of pregnancy. At night the “Ukrainians” would come and plunder the corpses for valuables. On the last night my watch was taken from my wrist. That was what led me – once they’d walked away – to push the corpses off of me and go to the factory halls, which I managed to get to by climbing a ladder and through a narrow window. At dawn, seeing that there was no way out onto the street, I went back down to the yard where I met citizen Zofia Staworzyńska and an old man of 75 years of age, who like me, hadn’t been finished off. With them, I found a way out through a gate onto Skierniewicka Street. We went out by ourselves without the old man I mentioned, because he was scared. At the corner of Wolska Street I was caught again by “Ukrainians”, and was rushed along Wolska Street together with other people. Along the way the young men and women were separated, and directed in groups to another building behind Płocka Street, by Wolska Street. I reached the church in Wola, where I lay for two days in a makeshift hospital set up by the main altar. Afterwards, some Wehrmacht soldiers took me away at night to Pruszków, from where I was sent to the hospital in Komorów, [and] finally, I was taken to the hospital in Podkowa Leśna, where I remained until I recovered my health. I also gave birth to my son there.
Warsaw, 13 May 1945.
Concerning the additional testimony, inform Wanda Lurie’s sister Janina Zofia Bartold, Górnośląska Street 6, flat 13.
Appendix I to the Testimony of Citizen Wanda Lurie
On 10 April 1945, I went to the premises of the Ursus factory on Wolska Street in order to find the corpses of my children, and I found out the following: that on 8 August at 8.00 a.m., “Ukrainians” arrived together with other men for the machinery. When they saw the corpses, they lit an enormous fire in the middle of the yard, and threw the bodies into it. Afterwards they poured petrol onto the remains and burned them once again, and buried the remaining handful of ash. Citizen Zbyszewka, whose brother had been employed in burning the corpses, told me about this. Puddles of blood and the remains of clothing are still there in the factory grounds to this day.
Warsaw, 13 April 1945.