JAN MUSZYŃSKI

Warsaw, 27 April 1948. The member of the District Commission for the Investigation of German Crimes, Judge Halina Wereńko, interviewed the person specified below as an unsworn witness. Having been advised of the criminal liability for making false declarations, the witness testified as follows:


Name and surname Jan Muszyński
Names of parents Tomasz and Waleria née Szychobska
Date of birth 8 February 1895, in Skierniewice
Religious affiliation Roman Catholic
Education high school, bookkeeper
State and national affiliation Polish
Occupation director of the financial-bookkeeping section
Place of residents Warsaw, Narbutta Street 48, flat 2

The outbreak of the Warsaw Uprising caught me at Narbutta Street 13. On 1 August 1944, just after 4.00 p.m., insurgents attacked a school occupied by a German unit on the corner of Narbutta Street and Kazimierzowska Street.

I don’t know the formation or the name of the unit.

The attack did not succeed. On 2 August, in the afternoon, a German tank came onto Narbutta Street, and an SS unit stationed in the Stauferkaserne came behind it. The SS men told the residents of our house to go out, leaving the keys to their flats. Only one woman, ill after labor, remained in the house. Other sick people were even carried in our group. Residents of the neighboring houses were also led out. Our group was led to the Stauferkaserne, into the courtyard. The women were released after an hour. A segregation of men followed. I only saw that they checked documents and divided men into two groups, and the workers of, for example, the city board were put in the first and the second one. I was in the group that was placed in the building on the side of aleja Niepodległości (on the left from the entrance, on the ground floor). Before leading us into the building, the SS men had started to shoot to terrify us from machine guns located on the roof of the buildings. The bullets went into the wall over our heads. We all thought that an execution would take place.

On the first or the second day of my stay in the barracks, I heard a rumor that some number of men had been chosen from the group of the arrested for execution. I also saw traces of blood before the wall of the opposite building, and trances of bullets in the wall. I don’t know who was executed or when.

On 3 August, the German authorities gave an order to make a list of those from the intelligentsia, stating their education. The orders concerned not only our room, but all those arrested. We did not make the list. In the afternoon, we were all led out into the courtyard. A few cars and military groups were standing there. It was said among the arrestees that these were Gestapo men from aleja Szucha. An officer, I don’t remember his uniform, but he was a German not belonging to a unit occupying the barracks, chose around 50 men of different ages, usually the young. I didn’t know those people’s names. One man, around 40 years old, was in our room. The group of the 50 chosen was loaded onto cars and none of them returned. There were rumors that they had been executed in the area of the Main Inspectorate of the Armed Forces.

The rumors came from the families of those taken, who searched for them in vain at the Gestapo on aleja Szucha.

Two days later, the military group came again, as they said, Gestapo men from aleja Szucha; we were led out into the courtyard, and they chose around twenty-something men from our group. There were rumors that these people were executed in the MIotAF area. None of those taken came back to us.

From the beginning of our stay in the barracks, the barracks authorities chose groups of men for labor from our and other rooms. I was able to avoid labor thanks to the fact that I felt bad physically and I looked old.

I don’t know the names of the Germans from the unit occupying the barracks.

On 10 August 1944, I was released, thanks to bribing an SS man, who led me out in a group of several people.

Around 14 August, the civilians from Narbutta Street and the neighboring streets were expelled by an SS unit from the Stauferkaserne to the barracks, from which we were directed to the Warsaw West station and to the transit camp in Pruszków. The sick and women were even carried in cars.

At this the report was concluded and read out.