Warsaw, 4 February 1946. Examining judge Alicja Germasz, delegated to the 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 took an oath therefrom, following which the witness testified as follows:
| Name and surname | Leokadia Chołodowska |
| Date of birth | 4 April 1915 |
| Parents’ names | Bolesław and Leokadia |
| Occupation | worker at the ‚Kawa Toma’ factory |
| Education | secondary school leaving exam, secondary school |
| Place of residence | Trębacka Street 4, flat 32 |
| Religion | Roman Catholic |
| Criminal record | none |
Since 1938 I had a confectionery at Trębacka Street 4, and I also lived in this house with my family. During the first days of the uprising there was no military action in the vicinity of Trębacka Street.
On 9 August 1944 a few Gestapo men with light machine guns ran into the courtyard and started shouting that everyone must leave their apartments and gather in the courtyard. Two of them remained in the courtyard, while the others went from apartment to apartment, driving out the residents. Two apartments were immediately set on fire.
All of us gathered in the courtyard, we numbered approximately 40, men, women, and children, all civilians – there were no insurrectionists among us. We were led into the courtyard of house number 5a at Trębacka Street, where a few other people joined our group. One of the apartments in the building (partially burnt down in 1939) was home to the family of Mr Ropelewski, whose mother, an old woman, lay sick in bed. When despite the Germans’ orders she failed to rise from her bed, they set her mattress on fire, whereupon her son carried her downstairs.
Next we were led through a hole in the wall to the courtyard of Focha Street 2, where again a few of the building’s residents were added to our group. Passing through the wall, I heard shots from behind me; as I later learned from Mr Ropelewski, they had just killed his sick mother. In the courtyard of this house we were ordered to pass one by one through a small window into the cellar, and from there – after passing through the burning paper depot – we exited through the door located in the annexe opposite. Next, we were driven on foot into the courtyard of the house at Focha Street 4. Here we found a larger group comprising men, women, and children – approximately one hundred people – and a more numerous group of Gestapo officers. Together, we were taken to Focha Street 5. There the Germans ordered us to hand over our jewellery and watches. If anyone refused, they took them by force after conducting a search. The men were separated from the women. The men were marched off first, and the women later. We were led through cellars to the opera. Being in the first group of women, I saw that the men were being led to the first floor. When our group entered the cellars of the opera, we found that an enormous group of women and children – numbering a few hundred, I suppose – was already present there. After more or less two hours, I managed to leave the place after offering my rings to a Gestapo man who was standing at the door. Next, with a group of some 30 people who had also been released, having on my person documents confirming that I worked for the Germans, I was led (together with my mother and sister) to the Saxon Garden, and from there to a church in the Wola district.
I returned to Warsaw in January 1945. I then met Jerzy Szajkowski, who as a resident of Trębacka Street 2 had been thrown out of it on the same day as myself (I don’t know his current address, but I know that he lives in Warsaw, in the Mokotów district I think). Szajkowski told me that he was led together with a group of men to the first floor of the opera. There the Germans singled out individual men, ordered them to stand in the opera box doorways, and shot them; their bodies then fell into the house. Szajkowski’s father, my father (Szajkowski saw him) and others were killed in this way. He himself managed to escape. Szajkowski led me to the opera building. There, in the house, I saw an enormous quantity of human remains that carried visible burn marks; charred bones, limbs, legs, hands, teeth, remnants of burnt women’s and men’s clothing, and partially incinerated papers and documents (amongst which I found my father’s war-time identity card) all lay separately.
I was later informed by the women who had remained in the cellars of the opera longer than I that they were led through the upper floors of the opera building, from where they saw piles of male bodies lying in the house. This was recounted to me by the mother of Jerzy Szajkowski (she currently lives with him) and Jadwiga Smokalska (residing in Warsaw, I can give her exact address).
I know from families which, during the uprising, were living in the same house as I, and in neighbouring houses on Trębacka and Focha Streets, that none of the men who were led then to the opera building returned, and no word has been received from them since, with the exception of those who were released on the spot due to the fact that they worked in German institutions. The same goes for the residents of all the houses standing in streets in the area of Theatre Square (Senatorska, Alberta, etc.). In numerous instances, the remnants of documents belonging to these people were found in the opera building.
I know that the documents of Józef Smokalski (the proprietor of the ‚Art Palace’ on Trębacka Street), Wierzbicki (a coal-merchant who owned a yard at Trębacka Street 4), Dr Danecki (residing on Alberta Street), and of a number of others about whom there was no information before, were found in this way.
I learned of this because the shop on Trębacka Street, which my mother continues to run, is frequented by a great many neighbours who are looking for information about their loved ones.
I would like to add that I was informed by Zbigniew Zejdlitz, who I met in a church in the Wola district and who was released from the opera, that my husband was amongst the group of men led to the opera – I have no news of him to date. I know from Roman Pietruszajtis (residing at aleja Na Skarpie 69, flat 8), who was led from Trębacka Street 5 to a church in the Wola district, that on 8 August he saw piles and piles of bodies of civilians lying at the corner of Ptasia and Zimna Streets, and saw the Mirowska Hall all ablaze.
Furthermore, I would like to state that Roman Ropelewski, whom I mentioned previously, was shot dead in the Saxon Garden after first being released from the opera (since he worked for a German institution). This was told to me by an acquaintance whom I met later, and who was in the same group of freed men.
The report was read out.