Warsaw, 21 May 1946. Investigating judge, Halina Wereńko, delegated to the Commission for the Investigation of German Crimes, interviewed the person specified below as a witness. Having advised the witness of the criminal liability for making false declarations and of the gravity of the oath, the judge swore the witness, who then testified as follows:
| Name and surname | Teodor Bronisław Neuman |
| Names of parents | Albert and Maria née Kulczycka |
| Date of birth | 14 January 1904, in Ovsorok district, Russia |
| Occupation | assistant at the University of Warsaw |
| Education | Mathematics-Natural Sciences Department, University of Warsaw |
| Place of residence | Warsaw, Rożana Street 21, flat 4 |
| Religious affiliation | Roman Catholic |
| Criminal record | none |
During the Warsaw Uprising, I lived on Różana Street in Warsaw, as I do now. At the moment of the outbreak of the uprising, on 1 August 1944, I had to supply bandages to the insurgents and I was at aleja Niepodległości 132/138, where I remained, not being able to reach home. The insurgents suddenly retreated from [that] area. On 2 August, I stayed in a flat on the third floor on aleja Niepodległości. I don’t know when, SS men stormed in the yard of the house shouting: Alles raus! All of the residents, myself as well, went outside into the yard. I cannot estimate how many people there were. I know that it was a big group of people, the house in which I was staying was a big block. All together, men, women, and children were led in a convoy to the courtyard of the Stauferkaserne barracks. Escape along the way was impossible, because armed SS men stood on the street on which we were walking at every 15-20 meters. When we arrived, the men were separated, the women were led to a block where they had their IDs checked and were released. Next, the men were divided into two groups, while having their documents checked. One group was placed by the building marked with the letter b on the presented draft, the other one nearby (a situational draft made by witness Grzelski was presented to the witness). ID checking was cursory, the groups mixed with each other. Although during the occupation I worked in the Institut für Füscherei in the area of the Warsaw University of Life Sciences - thus in a German institution - I was in the group where generally employees of private institutions were to be grouped. The group to which I joined was led to the building d, where there was one, big room. The second group was led to building c, where there were a number of rooms along a corridor. I was in the building c once, I noticed that there were beds there, on each a few Poles were sleeping. There were tables and benches in the room were I was led to, it had been a canteen before. We slept on the tables, on chairs, or on the floor. Initially, there were 160 of us, later the number diminished to 100. In the building c there were more people, there could have been around 400 people in both rooms at maximum.
At the time when we were still standing in the courtyard, the Stauferkaserne commander Patz - second lieutenant or lieutenant - spoke to us. He told us, through an interpreter, that Polish bandits had acted against the Germans; as to us, it was not proven that we had taken part in the uprising. From then on, if there was a shot from a house, all the men from that house would be executed. The Germans had taken us so that the insurgents could not force us to take part in the action, we were under protection and that was why he could not release us, we were safe there. It seemed from that speech that we were not hostages, but under German protection. After the speech, we were led to the room d and left, without food. In the evening, groups of people from our room were used to unload a car with food supplies, but the workers were not given anything to eat.
On the next day, on 3 August, three Germans, SS men, including one non-commissioned officer, came to our room.
I don’t remember surnames.
He ordered everybody to stand by the wall and announced that Polish insurgents had executed Volksdeutcher numbering 30, so 30 Poles would be executed for this. 15 people were chosen from our room. I don’t know if another 15 people were chosen from room c.
After the speech, the non-commissioned officer chose the victims himself. It lasted for a long time, he walked around, looked people in the eyes and pointed to people completely unfamiliar to him, without checking their documents. Those 15 people were taken for execution to the prison area on Rakowiecka Street.
I don’t know the surnames of those taken for execution.
One of them came back - I suppose he must have bought his way out. There was silence after that incident, the Germans did not wander around the room nor did they give us anything to eat.
I don’t remember the date, but in the first days of our stay in the Stauferkaserne the same non-commissioned officer appeared in room d, who on 3 August had chosen the 15 people for execution. He sat on the table and told us to stand by the wall, and he announced that insurgents had executed wounded Germans. He moved on to his memories as a tourist, he spoke about German culture, about his knowledge of languages, finally he said that if anyone was hungry, he could lick a cauldron with food, without a spoon, or other dishes, which nobody did. We stood for the whole time, waiting for when he would start to choose men for execution from among us. We stayed like that in a state of anxious tension, and the non-commissioned officer left.
After a couple of days, the Germans started to release elderly men from our room, whereas every few days, sometimes several times per day, they would bring new parties of men. The men came from Madalińskiego Street and Aleja Niepodległości. The numbers in our group changed. Around 6 or 7 August, Kurowski (I don’t know his first name), the owner of precision mechanical garages at Grażyny Street 7, came to our room,. He said that when the “Ukrainians” came into his flat and saw a band of the Red Cross belonging to his wife from the time of World War I in a drawer, they shot his wife dead on the spot and took him to the Stauferkaserne. He was released after some time because of his old age, an interrogation was conducted again and he was executed in the prison area on Rakowiecka Street.
I don’t remember the date. I heard that the following happened: a man, led in with a new group, I don’t know from which street, had a mouth with an ironic shape. Patz was saying something, the man looked at him and Patz thought he was laughing at him, then the man was put aside and he was executed in the prison area on Rakowiecka Street. Citizen Sobiech might know the surname of that man.
Around 9 August, I don’t remember the date, after returning from labor I saw that a Gestapo car carried 20 or 40 men arrested from building c. It was said that the Gestapo had taken those men for labor, and there has been no trace of them since. Doctor Chmielewski was taken then, an assistant [in the Faculty of] Chemistry in the Puławski Institute in Warsaw, I don’t know his first name.
I don’t remember the date, around 15 August, while a crowd of Warsawians were being led on Rakowiecka Street by the barracks in the direction of the Warsaw West station, three men from the Stauferkaserne tried to escape, when being transported into the prison area, by joining those marching. As a result, SS men from the Stauferkaserne opened fire, shooting at the crowd. A small girl was killed (I don’t know her surname), and the three escaping men were captured. They were then led to the prison area on Rakowiecka Street and killed in the hospital building. After the execution, the whole hospital building was set on fire, but the corpses did not burn. On the next day, the Germans sent a group of workers from the Stauferkaserne who - adding wood - burned the bodies. I don’t know the surnames of the executed men.
I don’t remember the date, in the middle of August, the SS men led a group of 19 men from Narbutta Street to the courtyard of the barracks by the wall of building b. Without checking their documents, the group was executed with a machine gun before the wall of building b, and then they made sure everyone was dead. A non-commissioned officer of the SS told us that in a house on Narbutta Street, the second house from aleja Niepodległości (made of red bricks), a German patrol had been shot at. Thus, the men from that house were executed, and the house was demolished. Afterwards, 20 men from our room were used to bury the corpses of the executed residents of Narbutta Street at the back of the barracks, from the side of Pole Mokotowskie. I don’t know the place.
In the middle of August, I don’t remember the exact date, maybe on 12 August, a Gestapo car came from aleja Szucha, in which 20 men were taken, including me. We were brought before the building at aleja Szucha 12, where we were divided into two groups. One had to build a barricade, while I, in the other - under the insurgents’ fire - dug connection trenches in Ujazdowski Park. After a couple of hours, we were brought back. After this, the Gestapo took a party of workers from the barracks every day. A permanent group from room c was created and we even got food supplies. At these works, two Poles from the barracks were wounded and one killed. We were taken for different jobs, such as picking up cigarettes. Five from our group took a few packs for themselves, for which they suffered public punishment by flogging with horsewhips. Among other things, we cleaned tanks, carried valuable things from flats on Narbutta Street and Kazimierzowska Street, which we loaded onto cars, while the Germans set the houses on fire. We loaded beds and lamps from the school on Kazimierzowska Street. Masses of furniture stood in the barracks area in the courtyard and in the gate, which we loaded onto cars departing to Germany. On Rakowiecka Street, I don’t remember the number, I loaded machines from a shoe factory, materials, and shoes onto the cars with others. The storehouses of the prison on Rakowiecka Street were also looted.
There were no permanent provisions in the barracks, initially we were not given anything to eat. In the evening on 4 August, we received biscuits for the first time. Later, food was given irregularly. One could not count on being given food. We sometimes received rotten bread. Around 5 August, women were allowed to bring us food. It happened that from 1.00 to 2.00 p.m. we were driven to the courtyard next to the gate, there we were arranged and women in a close formation with a white flag were led in. Women brought food for their close ones and for strangers.
I don’t remember the date, one day the women were not allowed through the gate, they announced that the insurgents had built a barricade on the corner of Różana Street and Niepodległości Avenue. Because of that, the women were not let in, and we would be finished off by hunger if they did not dismantle the barricade. The Germans from the barracks told the women to send a delegation to the insurgents regarding dismantling the barricade. Indeed, such a delegation went and brought a covered letter to the barracks commander from the commander of the insurgent unit. I don’t know the contents of the letter. There was a rumor that the insurgent commander wrote that he was military and had orders to maintain the barricade, just as the German had the orders to destroy it. On the next day, the women were allowed to bring food, but they were not allowed to go inside through the gate.
Despite a permit for women to come to the barracks area, the Germans used to shoot them with no reason. Professor Kuntze’s wife died in this way. Professor Kuntze bought himself out for foreign currencies and the non-commissioned SS officer pushed him out of the barracks. His wife brought me food and tried to get me and someone else released. When she was walking to the Stauferkaserne with a white flag, she was shot dead. Professor Kuntze, [who was] in the house on the corner of Kazimierzowska Street and Madalińskiego Street, or in the next one, was led out with other men to the stairs of the house, where the Germans started throwing grenades into the crowd. In this way he died.
In the middle of August, the Germans started to cart away craftsmen from our room with trucks. Volksdeutcher and German families had been deported earlier.
On 22 August, an SS man asked who of us knew Russian and German. He said it was about interpreting a conversation of the battalion commander of the Ukrainian Sicherheistpolizei. I went. It was about the fact that the Ukrainian was looting things in the area which the SS men considered as belonging to them. The Ukrainian explained that he had requisitioned a few cars with barley for the unit’s horses, but had not taken any things. The deputy barracks commander (I don’t know the surname) answered that the horses did not eat gold or underwear; the area in Mokotów which the Ukrainian had looted was a combat district of the SS. The Ukrainian was outraged and said: “You are here looking though the windows, and we in the Northern districts were under fire for two weeks and even the insurgent tanks attacked us”. It clearly followed from the conversation that Warsaw was divided into zones for looting by the military units.
There was a gathering in the courtyard on that day, the SS men conducted a segregation, counting around 100 older men, above 39 years old. That group, including me, was added to the civilian population waiting on Rakowiecka Street, and the transport was led to the academic house in Narutowicza Square. Groups of men from Praga were led in there and the whole transport went under a convoy to the Warsaw West station. On the way, in Kopińska Street, a band of “Ukrainians” armed with rifles robbed the population, beating them with rifle butts, to which the convoying SS men did not react.
We were transported from the Warsaw West station to Pruszków, to the transit camp, from which after an hour we were moved in train cars, 60 people in each, to Westphalia, to the city of Hamm. We were not given anything to eat on the way, which lasted three days. In Pruszków, the Red Cross threw 60 loaves of bread for 60 people to the car. We were not given water at the stops. At the station in Hamm the train was unloaded and part of the transport went to Singen, and another part to Spellen.
I went to Singen. The transport numbered around 3 thousand men, around one thousand went to Singen. In the Arbeitsamt transit camp a registration took place. Disinfection, bathing, and a general medical examination, which consisted of bending down and opening your mouth. From there I went to Duisburg, where there was a labor camp belonging to the works of August Thyssen Hült (metallurgical workshops). I worked there as a laborer, loading in a factory harbor on the Rhenium, later in a laboratory. Winter was coming, we were given clogs and dungarees. Duisburg was constantly bombed, it lay in ruins, more destroyed than Berlin. The factory quickly reopened after bombing [on 20 February 1945?]. Luckily, only a few people from among the Poles had died.
The commander of the camp called “Marat”, where the Poles stayed, was Blaskowitz, a civilian, a degenerate type, who robbed us of food portions, and also beat and kicked Polish prisoners. He walked with a rubber truncheon or a spade handle. There was a tailor from Warsaw there, living in Grochów - Nissen - who became the provisions manager of the camp. He schemed with Blaskowitz, was an éminence grise of the camp, beat and robbed Poles together with Blaskowitz. Another trusted Pole of Blaskowitz was Zreda from Warsaw. In agreement with the Lagerführer he dealt with money exchange for the prisoners. Zreda took 3 or 4 złoty for one mark, when officially one could buy it for 2 złoty. He robbed us in this way. He also traded with clothes and other things in the camp, creating unhealthy speculation. Blaskowitz reportedly came from the Poznań region, he spoke good Polish in a Poznań, maybe Silesian, folk dialect. Appearance: short height, stocky, well-built, bald, light eyes, fat face, leucoma on the left eye.
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