Warsaw, 11 April 1946. Investigating judge Halina Wereńko, delegated to the Commission for the Investigation of German Crimes in Poland, interviewed the person named below as a witness. Having advised the witness of the criminal liability for giving false testimony and of the significance of the oath, the judge swore the witness, who then testified as follows:
| Name and surname | Stefania Maria Błońska |
| Marital status | single |
| Names of parents | Edward and Zofia née Możdżeń |
| Date of birth | 14 April 1919, Warsaw |
| Occupation | drama school student |
| Education | secondary |
| Place of residence | Milanówek, Sienkiewicza Street 9 |
| Religious affiliation | Roman Catholic |
| Criminal record | none |
During the German occupation and before, since I was born, I lived in Warsaw at Bracka Street 23, flat 3. My father, Edward Błoński (b. 1888), was a tailor by trade and had a tailor’s workshop and a shop in the building we lived in. During the German occupation, he was not a member of the underground. My mother, Zofia née Możdżeń (b. 1893), was not a member of the underground either. My brother, Jan Edward (b. 1912) was a student at the Warsaw Polytechnic, and during the German occupation he was a laborer at the city gas works. My brother had been a scout since he was a child. Since 1940, when the underground scouting organization, the Grey Ranks, was established, my brother had been involved in it. After he was already dead, the battalion he had been part of was named “Zośka.” I took my finals in 1937 at Werecka secondary school, I then studied at the Academy of Political Sciences [Akademia Nauk Politycznych] at Reja Street 17. During the German occupation, I stopped my studies and committed myself to housework. Also, since 1939, I had been active in the Freedom, Equality, Independence organisation (the pre-war PPS [Polish Socialist Party]), and in 1941, I transferred to the Union of Polish Syndicalists.
Our parents knew that my brother and I were involved in conspiratorial activities because our place was frequently used for meetings and storing underground press and weapons. Our parents were helping us with our work although they themselves were not involved in any organisation. In September 1942, arrests began among scouts. The first of my brother’s friends was arrested in Zakopane, his name was Kazimierz Cetnarowicz and he was executed, which was announced on a poster. I think that my father’s name was on the same poster, too. Sometime later, they arrested Tadeusz Kwiatkowski, who later died in Auschwitz, as well as a couple other people, whose names I do not remember.
On the night from 3 to 4 November, our entire family was arrested. Before I proceed with the description of the arrest, I want to stress that I do not know whether there was any connection between the said arrests. Later, when I was in prison and in concentration camps, I was not able to establish what it was that my brother had done that had aroused the Germans’ suspicions concerning himself and, consequently, myself and our parents. The bottom line is, I do not know if we were ratted out.
At this point, I need to provide some information about our acquaintance Bogusław Laskowski, a student of architecture, who visited our place although he was involved in another underground organisation, the Armed Confederation [Konfederacja Zbrojna]. Laskowski was arrested on 18 September 1942 and released on 4 November of the same year. After he was released, he met with my sister Krystyna Białous (currently residing at Sienkiewicza Street 9 in Milanówek) and my cousin Henryk Błoński (resident at Dobra Street 3, Warsaw). Laskowski said that on 4 November 1942 my brother had been brought to the Gestapo (aleja Szucha 25) for interrogation, while Laskowski had been brought there to be released. They passed each other in the so-called “tram,” reportedly even talked, but Laskowski did not say what about. After Laskowski was released, he began unambiguously to seek information about different people he did not know. On 3 December 1942, he was to report to the Gestapo, and on 2 December, pursuant to a sentence passed by the Union of Armed Struggle, he was executed for treason. I do not know whether there was any link between Laskowski and my arrest.
Concerning our arrest, I testify as follows: on 3 November 1942 at 10 p.m., someone knocked on the front door. The four of us were home and in the flat were conspiratorial newspapers and explosives, my brother’s sabotage things. My brother and my father opened the door and let two people in: an interpreter, wearing civilian clothes, and a uniformed and armed German gendarme, whose name, as I later learnt, was Krygier (he was killed pursuant to a sentence of the Polish Underground State). Krygier and the interpreter knew the layout of the apartment because they passed through it and let a man in civilian clothes in through the kitchen door. Later, after we were taken to a car, I spotted two Germans in uniforms in front of the shop. Krygier, via the interpreter (despite the fact that he knew Polish) asked in German about my brother. He did not ask about the others. He ordered everybody to put their hands in the air. One of the gendarmes stood with a revolver in his hand, the other snooped around the flat, while Krygier and the interpreter asked my brother where his belongings were, and then went there. Among his items, they found a sabotage manual, underground newspapers, and a box of explosives. When they found these items, they ordered the men to face the wall, their hands up, after which they zealously went on with the search, but found nothing more. My father, who had a heart condition, passed out. Before the search, the gendarmes clipped the telephone wire. When my father fainted, we put a pillow under his head. Krygier snatched the pillow away, shouting that it would be a waste, and kicked a straw mat in our direction to put under my father’s head. Next, the gendarmes tied my brother’s arms behind his back with a rope produced from a pocket and took everything they had found during the search, including the Kennkarte forms we were about to fold. The gendarmes ordered me to get dressed and did not allow me to put on my shoes, so I had to wear tattered slippers.
They took me and my brother away and did not allow us to say goodbye to our parents. This was because the gendarmes had a small car and as they drove away with me and my brother, one gendarme stayed in the flat; an hour later, they came to pick up my parents. My brother and I were taken to Pawiak prison, where they split us up. I suspect that my brother was taken to the transit area and then to men’s ward at the Pawiak. As for me, after they took away my valuables and took down my personal details, I was taken to the transit area, where I remained until the morning, shower time.
In the morning, I learnt that my mother had spent the night in the bathing room and that my father was also under arrest. Officially, I did not meet with my mother; we were so-called getrentki [trans. – getrennt, separated], that is accomplices and, according to the rules, we were not supposed to meet. At that time, the staff in the women’s wards was Polish and included only two German women; one of them was named Hoffmann, I do not remember what the other one was called. Both Germans were quite stupid and were a nuisance to us, but you could bribe them.
I was placed at the Serbia. There were three wards there. Initially, I was in ward 2, then in ward 3. Ward 2 was the worst because apart from the Polish warden, there was also a Ukrainian guard there. In this ward, my cellmates were Irena and Wanda Lipińska (mother and daughter), Maria Olszewska, Bronisława Lubieńkowska, Maria Sobczykowa, Tatiana Trojanowicz, Iwona Stembrowicz, Wiesława Wolska, Irena Salomońska, Wiktoria Moryc, Zofia Karpińska. Not all of them were political prisoners, e.g. Wolska and Salomońska had been arrested for trading with the ghetto. I do not remember the names of the other inmates. In any case, there were around 30 of us in the cell. In ward 3, there were around 20 of us in the cell and I remember the following names: Olga Rondlarz, Eugenia Gebartowska, Irena and Wanda Lipińska, Tatiana Trojanowicz and Iwona Stembrowicz, Alina Pleszczyńska, Maria Paliszewska, Halina Cetnarowicz, Zofia Kowalska, Irena Smolińska, Matylda Wolniewska, Irena Jabłońska, Ewa Kryńska, Zofia Dybowska. I do not remember other names.
Throughout my incarceration at Pawiak prison, I was not interrogated. During that time, my brother was summoned on one occasion to testify at the Gestapo; my father was also taken to the Gestapo headquarters to sign a waiver, giving up his rights to the flat and all movables, excluding personal belongings. I did not learn anything about my brother’s interrogation, despite the fact that I worked removing garbage and would go to men’s ward and see my brother. After I had already been sent to the concentration camp, my mother would see my brother when he brought cauldrons of food to the Serbia and my mother received them and took them to the cell. For a brief moment they could talk to each other and exchange secret messages. That way, my mother learnt that they were pressing Communism-related charges against him.
During my time at the Pawiak, the commandant of the Serbia was (if I am not mistaken) Bürkl (he was convicted by the Polish Underground State and killed). At that time, my sister was making efforts for us not to be sent to concentration camps and to be released.
In regard to remaining in Warsaw, the efforts were unsuccessful in my case and on 17 January 1943, I was sent in a transport of 350 women to Majdanek camp. Before departure, we were given half a kilo of bread and transported in lorries to the Eastern Train Station [Dworzec Wschodni], to a railway siding, where we were loaded into sealed wagons in groups of 50. The wagon floor was dirty so we stood. We travelled for a day and a half. Atthe station, we were met by Ukrainians with dogs and marched to the camp.
The camp was empty at the time. A transport from Radom had arrived before us – 80 women. The barracks had no window panes, no furnaces, nothing. There was snow on the floor and for two months there was no water. We were placed in two blocks. In mid- February, work teams were established. There was work in sewing rooms, laundries, gardens, cleaning the courtyard. I remained in Majdanek until 17 April 1944, when I was moved to Ravensbrück, where I spent seven weeks; then I was moved to a Buchenwald sub-camp in Leipzig, where I remained until the end, i.e. until 13 April 1945. On that day the first evacuation transport left, I escaped from it on 5 May 1945. This was in Saxony. I got to Poland by train.
After I arrived at Majdanek, I had no news of my family until the end of November 1943, when I learnt that both my family and brother were dead.
According to the information I gathered, on 6 February 1943, my brother, having been yet again interrogated at the Gestapo, returned from the interrogation on a stretcher and was put in a solitary cell. He asked the sergeant to be transferred to a hospital, but his request was denied. An hour later, when the sergeant on duty came to take a roll-call, my brother was already dead. As far as I could learn from different accounts, the interrogation was to establish how my brother came into the possession of explosives from a drop.
My father was executed on 12 February 1943, along with 80 other prisoners from the Pawiak, somewhere near Warsaw, but I cannot remember the name of the place. My father was taken to the execution from the Pawiak hospital and went wearing one shoe because he had phlegmon in his leg. He was never interrogated.
As for my mother, she was interrogated at the Gestapo a number of times. In winter 1943, “Mateczka,” a caretaker from the Pawiak, was ratted out; she had carried underground newspapers and secret messages to the prison, including to my mother. That way, there was more incriminating evidence in my mother’s case. On 8 February 1943, my mother, Dryfowska and two other women, whose names I do not know, were executed on the rubble of the ghetto near Dzielna Street. My mother was taken from the prison hospital, where she was undergoing surgery (breast cancer).
The report was read out.