Warsaw, 30 July 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 | Jerzy Lubicz |
| Parents’ names | Olest and Emilia, née Świątkowska |
| Date of birth | 25 May 1914 in Tashkent |
| Religion | Roman Catholic |
| Citizenship and nationality | Polish |
| Education | State Manual Labourers’ Institute |
| Occupation | teacher at the Staszic secondary school |
| Place of residence | Warsaw, Prokuratorska Street 5 |
When the Warsaw Uprising broke out, I was in my flat at Prokuratorska Street 5. At the time I worked for the Government Representation as an archivist and a liaison officer, and also managed a workshop that manufactured clandestine correspondence boxes for the Department of Information. The archive was located in my flat, so when the Uprising broke out I was ordered to remain at home.
Until 8 August 1944 I communicated with the authorities by telephone. I had access to a telephone line because a friendly telephonist had not disconnected my telephone. Later on, the archive burned down together with the house. The "Odwet" Battalion commenced operations in Kolonia Staszica. Kolonia Staszica was surrounded by German units, which took up positions on the embankment at Pole Mokotowskie, in the building of the Marszałek Piłsudski Hospital, the Kraftfahrpark, the Filter Station, and in the radiolocation building at Sucha Street. In the immediate vicinity of our house, at the corner of Wawelska and Sędziowska Streets, German kitchens were set up.
On 1 August I saw the insurrectionists attacking the kitchens from Prokuratorska Street. Losses were considerable, for the Germans fired at them with machine guns from the roof. On 2 August the insurrectionists took over the kitchens, while on 3 August a German anti- aircraft artillery unit reoccupied the building, which it then burnt down. On 5 August, at around 13:00, I saw from the roof of my house that a German detachment, fanning out, was approaching from the side of Rakowiecka Street. I heard Ukrainian. The soldiers burst into the house at Prokuratorska Street 8 and I heard that one of them shot Zadrowska and Lorentowiczowa dead, who were in the ground floor flat, through the window. It later turned out that the 13-year old servant who was present in the flat survived. Immediately thereafter the soldiers appeared in our house, entering the ground floor flats. The door was opened by my wife’s mother, Chojnowska, who managed to get down to the cellar. Having pillaged the flat, the soldiers led out my wife’s father, engineer Chojnowski, her two sisters, and a young girl. I saw from the upper storey how the soldiers brought them out to Jesionowa Street, adding other people forced from their homes to the group. Amongst them I recognised the artist Maszyński. I saw the soldiers pounding on the door of Stegman’s flat in the house at Jesionowa Street 11. I heard Maszyński loudly interpret their order, namely that 30 civilians would be shot if the door was not opened. Finally, Stegman joined the group. I saw the "Ukrainians" leading a group of some 200 people into Sucha Street. Approximately 50 people, mainly elderly, who were walking at the back (among them Stegman), returned. They told us that the Germans from the anti-aircraft artillery unit kept them for a few hours in some house, and then let them go. The front part of that group was led away by the "Ukrainians", and it vanished into thin air. The bodies of these people were not found during the exhumations carried out in 1945. We can assume that they were murdered in Kolonia Lubeckiego, while their bodies must have been burned.
Until nightfall of that day I heard the shouts and singing of the "Ukrainians", who were pillaging the neighbouring houses. In the late evening I saw that the insurrectionists were still milling around. I know from stories that on 5 August other areas of Ochota were also pacified. The "Ukrainians" and Germans shot some 50 civilians at the judges’ cooperative on Sędziowska Street. In Pęcherzewski’s house on the corner of Prokuratorska and Langiewicza Streets the "Ukrainians" raped four female nurses.
On 7 August the wave of "Ukrainians" and Germans reached Aleje Niepodległości, from which they returned, pillaging the houses. Murders were also committed. At more or less the same time, in Trepek’s villa at Wawelska Street 14 they murdered his wife, shot and killed an insurrectionist who was hiding in a tree near the villa at Langiewicza Street 11, and set fire to a house at Langiewicza Street 13, where some 25 insurrectionists had sought refuge. Some of them could not stand the nervous tension and jumped out of the blazing building. These were shot – the others survived in the cellar.
The insurrectionary campaign was unsuccessful, there were insufficient weapons. The insurrectionists were scattered and their operations uncoordinated, while individual actions or those of small groups only led to losses in people and acts of terror on the part of the Germans and "Ukrainians". On 8 August I was able to make a telephone call for the last time. I called headquarters, submitted a dispatch and asked that the insurrectionists be helped to leave Kolonia Staszica. During the night from 8 to 9 August, the insurrectionists attacked from the direction of the Warsaw Polytechnic, thanks to which their comrades in Kolonia Staszica could withdraw to the Śródmieście district.
On 9 August the telephone line was broken off, and I was cut off from the authorities. The insurrectionists were no longer present, while the civilians hid in the houses. In the meantime, the "Ukrainians" ventured deeper and deeper, pillaging the houses. I heard that in Filtrowa Street, S.[...] and her daughter were raped, and that S.[...] committed suicide. On the morning of 11 August German aircraft for the first time dropped leaflets calling upon the civilian population to leave the city.
From the morning of 12 August I saw groups of civilians leaving the city, walking along Rakowiecka Street. On this day, between 07:00 and 09:00, a Wehrmacht detachment arrived at the corner of Wawelska and Prokuratorska Streets. At around 09:00 tanks took up positions along Wawelska Street. At approximately 11:00 the soldiers started entering one house after another, ordering the residents to leave. I went outside, having with me a pregnant wife and my mother-in-law. A German soldier allowed us to take a few items. We joined up with other evicted persons, proceeding along Wawelska Street to Raszyńska Street. From the secondary school at Wawelska Street 46, our group began to be surrounded by "Ukrainians". They were drunk, they robbed us and stopped the women. I noticed that some of them had SS uniforms, while others were from Kamiński’s unit – they had badges on their sleeves. Proceeding along Kolonia Lubeckiego, I saw burned down, devastated houses and the bodies of civilians lying in the roadway and on pavements, scattered around. We arrived at the Zieleniak around 13:00.
There we found groups of civilians. "Ukrainians" were milling about, and shots could be heard from time to time. I saw a woman’s body in the square. Those present at the Zieleniak told me that after having given birth, the woman was raped by the "Ukrainians", and died thereafter. We were issued bread. At around 15:00 – 16:00 a transport was organised to the transit camp in Pruszków. In the evening, people in the camp were segregated using the "at a guess" method. Older women and men were allocated to a group that was to be resettled within the General Government, while my mother-in-law and I were to be deported to Germany. My wife joined us, as she did not want to travel alone. We were loaded onto goods wagons – the train numbered some 40 wagons – and ferried off into the unknown. Bahnschutz were posted to the wagons, but the doors were not closed and many people jumped off, risking their lives. The Red Cross provided us with food when we stopped at railway stations in the territory of Poland. In Nowy Zbąszyń we learned that they were taking us to the concentration camp in Oranienburg, and from then on the wagon doors were closed. It was too late to escape, and in addition I decided against any such attempt due to the presence of my wife, who was 7 months pregnant, and her elderly mother. We passed through Frankfurt.
On 13 August 1944 we arrived at Sachsenhausen. Our transport numbered between three to five thousand people. On the morning of 14 August the train rolled into Sachsenhausen station. We were greeted by armed Germans, whereafter the whole transport was taken to the camp’s parade ground. After a while it was announced that the transport of men must be registered and written down. To this end we were separated, but assured that we would return in a while, and that there was no need to say goodbye and take our belongings. I was placed in a group of some two thousand men, which included boys aged seven and old men. We were fenced in with barbed wire and not allowed to return – the women were taken away. I then asked a senior SS man what would become of us. He said that they had not received any instructions regarding us, but that I would probably be able to rejoin my wife when we were sent to work. In the meantime we were taken to the bathhouse and issued camp clothing – trousers, while some received shirts and numbers. I was given number 89754.
We were placed in temporary barracks nos. 66, 67 and 68. Each barrack had two halls, and each of these housed some 300 – 400 prisoners. We were kept in quarantine for two weeks and then underwent board examinations, during which the sick were separated. We had lung X-rays during the examination. Next we were given typhoid vaccinations and, slowly, the work registration procedure commenced. During the period of waiting we were already subjected to the system of assemblies and strict concentration camp discipline. The barrack chiefs would beat and harass us. I therefore registered for work, stating that I was a mechanic.
A transport was formed and, in a group of some 1,400 men – natives of Warsaw, mainly from the districts of Wola and Ochota – I left for Falkensee, more or less 30 km from Berlin and the same from Oranienburg. There were factories there: the "Demag" and "Alket" tank and artillery grenades plant. The tank plant manufactured tanks, however without weaponry (this was added in Siemensstadt). The camp in Falkensee had some two to three thousand inmates. Our group was employed in the railway workshops in Grunwald near Berlin, where we were driven daily 30 km by train.
In the camp the morning reveille would be at 02:00 in the morning, we would be given breakfast in the form of coffee, there would a short assembly and we would be loaded onto cattle trucks, 40 – 80 men to each, and after an hour and a half to two hours we would arrive at 06:00 for work at the workshop. I was a member of a group that handled wheel sets during repair work on goods wagons. There were four groups there, each made up of four people and subordinate to a German foreman. The foreman of my group was one König. I became the chief of my group and the foreman would frequently file complaints against me to the Worarbeiter if my group failed to perform. Before our arrival, the workshops employed labourers sent in by the Arbeitsamt.
From the moment of our arrival, the concentration camp system came into force at work. At 09:00 we were given portions for the hard working: bread with marmalade (spread thinly using a brush) or 20 grammes of margarine. At 13:00 we received dinner, usually made from rutabaga, for three days mixed with tinned food, and for three days – when the soup was bland – with the addition of two or three potatoes, which would be rotten in winter. At 13.15 [sic] work came to an end and we would be taken back to our camp. A dozen or so times we were ferried throughout the night, and in the morning taken straight back to work. Supper at the camp consisted of a slice of bread (two loaves of 1,200 grammes would have to be divided between 15 prisoners, while towards the end one loaf would have to suffice for ten prisoners) with 60 grammes of margarine (as per regulations), although in practice we would receive 20 grammes.
Since the work was exhausting and the food rations starvation-level, infectious diseases and pneumonia were rife. We slept in bunk beds, on pallets filled with shavings; there was no soap, the halls were infested with bedbugs and lice. The work that we had to perform at the machines was dirty. Block wardens would beat prisoners to death or until they were crippled. The gravely ill were sent to Oranienburg.
From our group of 1,400 Varsovians, only 50 percent survived the first six months, while soon thereafter there were only some 300 of us left. During my stay I heard of three instances of public hangings of prisoners accused of sabotage.
From February 1945 I was extremely exhausted. I did not have the strength to lift my leg upon a stair. In March I stopped sleeping and had hallucinations. I weighed 43 kg. In February, during the selection of specialists, I came forward as a precision mechanic and started working at "Demag", the tank factory in Falkensee. I performed work, seated, doing precision tooling.
I don’t remember the surnames of the Germans at the camp and factory.
On 27 April 1945 at 11:00 the camp was occupied by the Russians.
At this point the report was brought to a close and read out.