JULIAN CHWAZIK

On 12 December 1945 in Warsaw, the investigating judge Halina Wereńko heard as a witness the person specified below. Having been advised of the criminal liability for making false declarations and of the importance of the oath, the witness was sworn and testified as follows:


Name and surname Julian Chwazik
Age 33 years old
Parents’ names Wincenty and Wiktoria
Place of residence Warsaw, Kępna Street 8, flat 8
Occupation tailor
Religious affiliation Roman Catholic
Criminal record none

On 12 November 1943, there was an execution of Polish people at Kępna Street in Warsaw, by the wall of the slaughterhouse. As I lived then at Jagiellońska Street 12 and my windows looked out on Kępna Street, I could see the grounds on which the execution took place.

On that day at 8.00 a.m., a unit of soldiers came to Kępna Street and surrounded it. At 12.00 noon the gendarmerie came with the prisoners who were to be executed. I noticed that the gendarmes brought the prisoners in a car, and were taking ten people at a time to the wall. I saw that the prisoners were wearing rags and had their eyes blindfolded with white shawls.

Whether they had their mouths gagged or whether they were saying something before the execution, I could not see, as the shawls covering their eyes were large enough to cover also their mouths, and besides I was looking at the execution from a distance of some 50 meters so I could not see their faces very well.

How many gendarmes there were, I could not observe, as my townhouse is on the right side of Kępna Street (when walking in the direction of the Vistula), and the gendarmes were standing on the same side of the street some 50 meters away from my house; the prisoners, in turn, were standing by the slaughterhouse wall on the left side of the street so I could see them clearly.

What weapons they used to murder those prisoners, machine guns or small firearms, I don’t know, since – as I have mentioned before – I could not see the gendarmes but only the prisoners. I noticed that the prisoners were very weak, they could not walk on their own, the gendarmes were holding them by the arms when leading them to the wall, and there the prisoners could not stand on their own but had to lean on the wall. Whenever ten people were placed by the wall, I could hear a volley of shots and see people fall down. I noticed that they were being shot on the chest, as the blood was splashing at this height. After the execution of the first ten, some workers in gabardines, I could not see their faces very well but I think they were Jews, took the corpses of the ten executed men to another car. At that time the gendarmes brought the next ten. The execution of these 40 prisoners lasted from 11.00 a.m. to 1.00 p.m.

I would like to emphasize that I counted 30 convicts carefully, but I could not count the last ten as the gendarmes began to pay attention to those who were looking out of the windows, and I did not look out of my balcony any more. I did not count the last group and only heard the fourth volley, so I suppose that ten people were put in a line as before.

After the execution, the fire service arrived with a hose and washed the blood off the pavement, and the gendarmes left. About 4.00 p.m. the gendarmes returned to see whether a crowd was gathering at the execution site, and for three subsequent days the blue police kept guard on the spot.

I don’t know the names either of those executed on 12 November 1943 or of the gendarmes who carried out the execution.

The report was read out.