Warsaw, 27 January 1947. Acting Investigating Judge Halina Wereńko heard as a witness the person specified below. Having been advised of the criminal liability for making false declarations the witness testified as follows:
| Name and surname | Małgorzata Janina Damięcka, codename “Duda”, “ Świder” |
| Date of birth | 8 January 1927 in Warsaw |
| Religious affiliation | Roman Catholic |
| Marital status | unmarried |
| Place of residence | Saska Kępa, Dąbrówki Street 15, flat 2 |
| Education | student of the Faculty of Humanities |
During the Warsaw Uprising, I was a paramedic-courier with the AK [Home Army], and in the course of action I achieved the rank of a corporal z cenzusem [with secondary education at least].
A week after the outbreak of the Uprising I was transferred to Czerniaków, to the group of Capt. “Kryska” [as] a courier for major Netzer. At the beginning of September, the groups of colonel “Radosław” from Starówka [Old Town] came to Czerniaków. During military action, the Germans forced us to retreat from Książęca Street 1 and 7, and later from the gas works, the Social Insurance Company building, Czerniakowska Street, Zagórna Street, Idzikowskiego Street, Cecylii Śniegockiej Street and Szara Street up to Solec and Wilanowska Street. I have listed the places that the insurgents had left in the same order as I was retreating from them with my unit.
As the insurgent troops were retreating, we heard that the Germans had carried out mass executions of civilians and injured insurgents on the seized territories. I heard, for instance, that on the premises of the Social Insurance Company, which was captured on the night of 13/14 September 1944, the Germans and the “Ukrainians”, amidst raping, forbade taking the injured out of a building which had been set on fire by aircraft bombs, and were murdering people.
Couriers from that territory, Teodozja Paszkowska (residing in Łódź, Magistracka Street 16, flat 16) and Łucja Stanisławska (residing in Sopot, Grunwaldzka Street 35, Milka kiosk), can testify about those events. A few days later, when the Germans seized control of Idzikowskiego Street, they burnt the injured insurgents in a shed and hanged insurgents who had been caught, paramedic “Myszka” and “Bobek” from the 3rd platoon of the 24th company.
How many of the injured were burnt, I don’t know. I learned about the execution at Idzikowskiego Street from cadets “Trep” and “Butrym” who escaped from the execution site and were later killed in subsequent action in Czerniaków.
On the night of 15/16 September, when they seized control of the insurgents’ hospital in a school at Zagórna Street, the Germans executed the injured insurgents. More details concerning the execution can be provided by Lucyna Gabrysiewicz (currently employed in the Maritime League at Widok Street 10), who was a paramedic of the 3rd platoon during the Uprising.
On 18 September, when I was in a house at Solec Street 43, I received a message that the insurgents’ field hospital at Solec Street 41 had been set on fire by the Germans, who forbade the injured to leave the burning building. As I wanted to save two injured friends – cadet “Stach” and master corporal “Rakowski” (I don’t know their names), I went to the hospital with a paramedic, “Cygan” (i.e. Elżbieta Kuleszanka). On our arrival the building was already on fire, and the SS soldiers who were standing around the building were shooting at us and at everyone who was trying to leave the hospital. We managed to enter the building running, and we saw injured insurgents in the room. I pulled “Stach” quickly from the room and managed to bring him to an adjacent house. “Stach” later died. Paramedic “Cygan” did not come back from the hospital.
How many of the injured died in the hospital, I do not know.
In April 1945, I went to the hospital and I saw in a basement some 60 charred bodies. I know that the hospital was in the basements and on the ground floor. In April 1945 the house was burnt to the ground and the ceilings were collapsed, so I could not find the bodies from the ground floor. Near the building I saw some dozen half-charred corpses of, I believe, the injured who had tried to crawl out of the burning building.
On 21 September 1944 (I’m not sure of the date) I heard, just as my friends did, desperate screams and shooting from a building at Wilanowska Street 18. Later I learned that the Germans were executing the insurgents there. Citizen Wilamowska may testify in this case.
On 19 September, the insurgent troops were forced by the Germans to retreat to Wilanowska Street and Solec Street. From that point on we were retreating house by house. The Germans’ superiority was marked. The troops from the Berling Army which came to our aid under the command of major Łatoszyn and his deputy, captain Olechowicz (now a deputy commander of the 9th Infantry Regiment in Hrubieszów), since they were not trained in street fighting, suffered losses and on 18 September began to retreat to the right bank of the Vistula. On 20 September, also, major “Kryska” who was injured, his wife, lieutenant “Klamra”, and 30 other people crossed to the right bank, and few of them swam back after three days under German fire. About the same time colonel “Radosław” went through sewers to Mokotów. Captain “Jerzy” from the “Zośka” battalion and his deputy, lieutenant “Witold” from the “Czata” group – both from Starówka – assumed command of the remaining troops.
On 19 September, I found myself in a group of some 60 people, including seven women, comprising the AK members from various troops, but the majority was from Starówka. We were surrounded by the Germans, the sewers at Wilanowska Street 1 were collapsed, and we did not have torches. The group stopped at Solec Street 53. The front of the house was burnt down. In the outhouse in the yard there were civilians, but the garages on the side of Wilanowska Street 1 were empty. We stayed there without water and food, under heavy fire. Lieutenant “Jerzy Szumski” – Stanisław Warzecki – was of the most senior in rank. On 20 September, the Germans dropped leaflets from aircraft, reading that after surrender the military people were to go to Wilanowska Street 5, and the civilians to the church of the Holy Trinity in Solec. The parlementaires who were parleying with the soldiers from the Berling army who had stayed on the left bank at Wilanowska 1 were saying the same thing. After surrender, the members of the Berling army were treated by the Germans as prisoners of war. Due to heavy shelling, on 22 September only 30 people from our group remained on the premises at Solec Street 53. We had nothing to shoot with, there was nowhere to escape to, we did not have clothes to dress as civilians. Only lieutenant “Szumski” managed to get plain clothes, and the chaplain of our company, priest Stanek “Rudy”, also wore plain clothes. The rest were at least partially dressed as military people, in parachute jumpsuits; those who had come from Starówka had camouflage jackets and the majority of them still had their armbands. I had boots, a jumpsuit and a police coat then; I took my armband off on the order of lieutenant “Szumski”.
On the night of 22/23 September, I found myself in a garage with lieutenant “Szumski”, whose courier I was. The rest were grouped in an extant outhouse. The civilians were hiding in basements. On 23 September at 6.00 a.m. I heard shouts in German. I left the garage with “Szumski” and I saw an SS man standing in the burnt window of a house at Solec Street 53. The civilians from the outhouse were using this window to reach a square between Solec Street and Czerniakowska Street (near a demolished paints factory).
As we did not see other friends, I approached the window with “Szumski”. There we were stopped by the SS officer. He called me bandit right away and began to search “Szumski”, finding in his wallet a photograph from the Uprising times and a whistle. He repeated bandit and placed us both by the wall of a demolished house on the side of the field, where our chaplain had already been standing, without the AK armband and in a soutane. The civilians were gathered some 30 steps away on the square. A few steps away, two couriers from Starówka whose names I do not know were standing under German escort. The SS man, the same who called me bandit, approached us and fired two rounds at “Szumski” with a rozpylacz [“sprinkler”, i.e. a submachine gun] and then administered the coup de grâce at the injured man’s request. The SS men who were present there, about 15 of them, rushed to search the civilians, robbing them of gold and their better things. At that time other Germans brought 20 soldiers from the Berling army, told them to deposit weapons on the square and, without harassment, along with the robbed civilians, led them under escort through a hole in the paints factory wall in the direction of the city centre, as I learned later to aleja Szucha, and then probably to the Pruszków camp. When the square emptied, the SS men brought some 20 AK members from our group, including five women, from the direction of Solec Street. Men were placed in a line, the SS men fired several rounds, and then they shot those lying injured in the back of the head.
Paramedic-couriers were taken through the hole to the paints factory. Later, as I was leaving the square, I saw – crossing the paints factory – that all five women had been hanged on telephone lines. I also saw three men in plain clothes, unknown to me, who had been hanged, I think, several days before. Just after the execution of my friends I heard inhumane screams and I saw that the SS men were dragging the five injured people from our group, who were lying in the outhouse of the Solec house, by their legs, arms and hair. I saw the SS men hang them all from the beams connecting the wall of a single storey building in the middle of the square. The building was burnt down, without a roof, so one could see very well what was going on inside. I was standing with the priest by the wall, under the guard of the young SS man who had killed “Szumski”.
Other SS men began to say that we had to be finished with. He answered them in German, “they belong to me”, and hanged the priest on the wall of the house on his own scarf. We were standing by the wall of a house at Solec Street 51.
At that point over a hundred civilians were brought to the square, I think they were from the houses further along as I did not know their faces and they had fine clothes. On the Germans’ order, the men began to dig graves in the middle of the square. The SS men were robbing the rest of the civilians, causing a commotion.
At that time the SS man who had murdered “Szumski” and the priest came to me and told me to turn around to face the wall. I knew that he wanted to kill me and I told him that I would not turn around. Then he told me to put my hands in the air but I did not obey saying that I did not have anything in my pockets. At that point he began to cock the gun and at the same time he noticed a gold cross on my neck. He wanted to take it from me and at the same time he looked at me. Then he turned around without saying a word, and I walked, step by step, to the group of the civilians.
When the civilians had all been robbed, and while the men from that group remained on the spot digging graves, our group was led to aleja Szucha, opposite the Gestapo headquarters. The Gestapo men were walking among us and choosing, off the top of their heads, young men and women who struck them as being AK members, and then they were taking them aside, and I could hear shooting. After seven–eight hours I was taken with the civilians to the West Railway Station, from where we were transported in groups to the Pruszków transit camp.
On the way to the West Railway Station, there was a stop of a few minutes at Narutowicza Square, during which the escorting Germans halted several insurgents from the AL [People’s Army], checked their identity papers and led them in an unknown direction.
At this the report was closed and read out.