JADWIGA KWIATKOWSKA

Warsaw, 26 February 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 Jadwiga Kwiatkowska, née Batte
Parents’ names Henryk and Zofia, née Hernik
Date of birth 5 September 1911
Religion Roman Catholic
Citizenship and nationality Polish
Profession milliner
Place of residence Warsaw, Focha Street 5/7, flat 64

When the Warsaw Uprising broke out, I was in my apartment at Focha Street 5/7, from where, due to the gunfire coming from Saski Square, we moved for the night to a bunker beneath the main building of the opera.

On 8 August at 5.00 units of Germans and “Ukrainians” ran into our bunker from the direction of Theatre Square; they had death’s heads on their caps and black epaulettes, while some carried the German eagle on their field-caps. There were a great many people in the bunker. The soldiers drove everybody out into Theatre Square, where we were arranged into a human barricade, under the cover of which the Germans attacked theinsurrectionists, who at the time occupied the town hall, the Blank Palace, Daniłowiczowska Street, and the corner of Senatorska and Focha Streets. The advance broke down, many German soldiers fell, as did Poles from the human barricade. When the attack floundered, the Germans drove us back into the building of the opera, separating us inside however from the men, who were marched upstairs (among others my neighbour, citizen Tokaj with four children, of which two – twins – were three weeks old).While ascending the stairs, I suddenly heard a few salvoes, which seemed to come from the interior of the National Theatre building. After some time, the Germans summoned mothers with small children, and – a while later – the sick and women born in lands annexed to the Reich to leave the bunker (into which we were again driven). I left in this group.

One of the men, whom I knew by sight, got himself mixed in with the women and was shot by the Germans.

We were taken through the Saski Garden (where opposite Żabia Street I saw a chain of some 50 men, with their hands tied to each other with barbed wire, from behind whom the Germans were shooting at insurrectionist positions on Żabia Street), Żelaznej Bramy Square, and Wolska Street up to the Western Railway Station, from where we were transported to a transit camp in Pruszków.

On 20 January 1945 I returned to Warsaw, to my apartment. In March 1945 I saw large quantities of partially charred human remains, bones and skulls lying in the house of the opera. I witnessed a similar sight on the premises of the National Theatre, where there were large bloodstains on the walls.

During exhumations performed by the Polish Red Cross at the opera I found my husband’s keys and cigarette case amongst a host of personal items; they were lying amongst other remains in the National Theatre.

The report was read out.