Warsaw, 13 December 1945. Investigating Judge Alicja Germasz 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 swore him in, following which the witness testified as follows:
| Name and surname | Juliusz Gołębiowski |
| Age | 34 years old |
| Names of parents | Mieczysław and Józefa |
| Place of residence | Pustelnik, Lipowski’s tannery |
| Occupation | tanner |
| Religious affiliation | Roman Catholic |
| Criminal record | none |
During the Warsaw Uprising, having left my home at Ogrodowa Street 30, I found myself in the shelter of the building of the Ministry of Industry and Trade at Elektoralna Street. This was on 7 August 1944. A few hundred people had sought refuge there, mainly women and children. On the afternoon of that day, once the insurgents had retreated from Elektoralna Street, a German guard post – a single soldier – was set up at the gate of the Ministry. Thesoldier assured us that nothing untoward would happen to us. At around 9.00 p.m., two gendarmes entered the shelter and ordered all the men out. The soldier at the guard post had assured us that we were only going for labor. We were led in threes (our group comprised approximately 150 people) to Mirowski Square, to the area between the two market-halls. There, we were ordered to tidy up several dozen bodies lying on the ground, and then to remove the rubble from the roadway and pavements. At the time we arrived, there were a few hundred Poles in the square – all of them occupied with cleaning up the area – and a few hundred German gendarmes. The gendarmes behaved very brutally, hitting and kicking us, calling us ‘Polnische banditen.’ After some time they ordered us to stop working and called for those who were not Poles to step out. A man with Byelorussian documents (I knew him personally as an evacuee from Baranowicze) complied, and was immediately released.
After an hour and a half of labor, the gendarmes started to arrange us in threes; I was in thesecond group. We were forced to stand with our hands up. An old man in the first group was unable to keep his arms raised – he was beaten savagely on the face by a gendarme. After ten minutes, five groups of three were counted off and, under the escort of five gendarmes with rozpylacze [submachine guns], we were taken to the building of the hall from the side of Chłodna Street. By chance, I heard the surnames of two of the gendarmes – Lipiński and Walter.
When we entered the building and passed through two gates, I noticed a deep crater more or less in the middle of the hall, with a fire burning in it. The enormous black clouds of smoke suggested that it was fuelled artificially.
(The witness pointed out the spot marked with the number 6 on the site plan).
We were set up against the wall left of the entrance, near a toilet (the witness stated that on the site plan the toilet was erroneously marked with the number 3; this toilet was located at the lateral wall to the entrance to the building). We stood separately, with our faces to the wall and hands up. After a few minutes I heard a salvo from behind and fell to the ground. While lying there, I heard the hoarse groans of those who had fallen beside me and further salvoes.
When the gunfire had died down, I heard the gendarmes counting the bodies. But they only counted to 13. They therefore started looking for the two missing men. They found them, a father and son (they had come with me from Elektoralna Street, but I do not know their surnames), in the toilet near to which we had been put. They led them out, and I heard the boy cry out, “Long live Poland”; then I heard a salvo and groans. After some time I heard some Poles drawing near. I cautiously lifted my head and saw the gendarmes standing beside the fire-filled crater, and Poles who were carrying the bodies of the dead and throwing them in. They were taking the bodies in succession, and soon came near to me. I then managed to escape to the toilet and hid there on a partition that functioned as the toilet’s roof. While sitting there, I heard further salvoes and Germans shouting from the direction of the crater.
At some point another Pole, who had escaped from the house through the toilet, came up to hide with me on the partition. He was a doctor, Jerzy Łahota, a laryngologist, who at the time lived on Chłodna Street and worked at the Child Jesus clinic. We sat there for a few hours. Throughout this time we heard the sound of bodies burning, and the crackle and hiss of theflames. Upon hearing certain characteristic sounds, Dr Łahota informed me that these were given off when the human brain burned. We also heard the sound of salvoes coming from the second hall (closer to Zimna Street).
Dr Łahota told me that after the salvo had been fired he fell to the ground with the others. The gendarmes came up to check whether he was still alive, beating him most brutally in the process. However, he played dead.
I would like to state that when I collapsed to the ground after the salvo, I saw the gendarmes checking the fallen; those who moved were finished off with shots. I managed to flee beforehand.
At around 2.00 a.m. we came down and walked through the now-empty hall, in which only the fire was burning; we went outto the street and proceeded to Krochmalna Street.
The report was read out.