Warsaw, 29 May 1946. Investigating Judge Halina Wereńko, delegated to the Commission for the Investigation of German Crimes in Poland, interviewed the person specified 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 the witness, who then testified as follows:
| Name and surname | Henryk Rydz |
| Names of parents | Józef and Maria Stelmarczyk |
| Date of birth | 28 August 1906, Warsaw |
| Occupation | laborer |
| Education | elementary school |
| Place of residence | Warsaw, aleja Niepodległości 132/136 |
| Religious affiliation | Roman Catholic |
| Criminal record | none |
On 2 August 1944 around 5.00 p.m., the house at aleja Niepodległości 132/136 in Warsaw, where I lived, was stormed by the SS-men from the unit stationed at the Stauferkaserne. Shouting, they ordered all residents out. Then, they escorted a group of around one hundred people – men, women, and children – to the courtyard of the barracks in Rakowiecka Street. There, men were stood by the wall marked with ”b” on the schematic diagram shown to me (the witness was shown the schematic diagram drawn up by witness Grzelski). Women were grouped separately, farther into the courtyard. At the same time, around 40 men were taken out of the basements: as I later learnt, they had been detained on 1 August. This group was merged with ours and we stood facing the wall, our hands in the air. I heard some cracking sounds behind. We had been standing that way for an hour.
Someone told me later that the “cracks” I had heard from behind were the sound of machine guns being set up against us by the Germans. I did not see that, because we were not allowed to turn round and there were armed SS-men around us. Eventually, an officer reportedly served another order and after two hours, part of the group was placed in building “d”, while others ended up in building “c”. I was in building “d”. At that time, only the men remained, while women had been released earlier. While in the building, I noticed that some people, having spoken to an SS-officer, got out. Later I learnt that around 20 rather affluent people, having reached an agreement with the SS officers, moved to building “b”. There, 127 people stayed in another room. In the rooms of building “c”, there were more men, I believe. I do not know how many. A number of persons who received preferential treatment also stayed in building “b”. There were no Poles in the basements.
I do not remember the exact date, but on the first or the second day of my stay in room “d”, a non-commissioned SS-officer came and announced that in retaliation for the fact that the insurgents had murdered wounded Germans in the hospital in Bema Street, 30 Poles would die, including 15 from this room. Then, he randomly picked out the victims from the room, after which 15 men were taken away, among them Michalak (I do not remember his first name), the caretaker of a house in Kwiatowa Street (I do not remember the number).
I do not know where or when these 15 men were executed.
On the evening of that day, by the wall of building “b”, the Germans executed 24 men from the house in Narbutta Street, in retaliation for the fact that a shot had been fired at a German patrol from that house. I do not know the names of those murdered. Immediately after the execution, the SS-men took 10 men from our room so they would remove the bodies. I was one of those men. We buried the corpses on the premises of the prison in Rakowiecka Street.
In the spring of 1945, the Polish Red Cross carried out the exhumation of that grave and other graves in the area. Being on the grounds of the prison, I saw that there were two pits recently filled with earth; we buried the bodies of 24 people in the third grave, which had been already dug.
Some time after 5 August 1944 (I do not remember the exact date), SS-men took eight men from our room, including myself. They took us to the rear of the barracks, to the embankment running parallel to building “c”. The bodies of four men in civilian clothes were lying there. I did not recognize anyone. All had bullet wounds at the back of their heads. We buried these bodies 250 meters away from the barracks, in Mokotów Field (Pole Mokotowskie), parallel to building “a”.
I do not know the location from which the murdered men were brought for the execution.
Soon after the event described (I do not remember the exact date), the Germans called me and another man from room “d”, gave us shovels and took us beyond the location of the grave previously described, a little closer to the barracks. At the same time, they brought a young, ragged man, his knees scuffed as if from crawling; I do not know his name. The man was executed and then we had to bury him on the premises of the barracks, by the wall, opposite the courtyard near building “a”.
I do not know if these graves are being exhumed. I could indicate the location.
On the day when the Allies made the first air-drop into Warsaw, on the orders of the Germans, I, together with some other men, set fire to the hospital-prison in Rakowiecka Street. At one point, an SS non-commissioned officer called us and we saw four men, who were lying in the sewer, shot dead, their legs pointing upwards. On the orders of the non- commissioned SS officer, we threw the bodies into the burning hospital. It turned out that five prisoners from the Mokotów prison had hidden themselves in the basements. On that day, four of them were shot and it was their bodies that we threw into fire, while the fifth one, a man by the name of Sowiński, had been captured and taken to the barracks, to our room. Already after I left for Germany, I heard that Sowiński had been eventually hanged by the Germans. It is possible that apart from the executions I have described, there were others, but I only knew of those detailed above. There were no mass executions at the beginning of August 1944, apart from that of the 15 men from our room.
Around 10 August (I do not remember the exact date), the Gestapo came to the barracks and randomly picked out 40 men from room “c”, who were then taken away in vans. Additionally, around 15 persons held in a separate room were taken away.
I do not know for sure, but I think they may have been the men selected from among us at the beginning of August, with Michalak, an acquaintance of mine, among them, as I stated.
These groups of 40 and 15 never returned, having disappeared without a trace. Among the 40, there was Janosik, a carter, whose first name I do not know; he used to live in Wiśniowa Street, but I do not remember the number. I do not know the names of other people taken away.
On 22 August, an SS non-commissioned officer called all the men from our room to the courtyard and there, he selected those relatively older, whom he included in the transport of civilians gathered in Rakowiecka Street. I was 39 at that time, so the SS-man included me in the group which was to leave.
Having passed the transit camp in Pruszków, I was sent to the camp in Duisburg.
The principle commandant of the Stauferkaserne was Obersturmführer Baumeister. Additionally, there were a few senior ranking officers, for instance Patz, who was Baumeister’s deputy. When I was in the barracks, the number of Poles being detained there was in the order of 300. These people would come and go, as the Germans released elderly people and brought in, virtually on a daily basis, and sometimes a few times a day, groups of people from Kazimierzowska Street, Wiśniowa Street and other locations as they seized them one by one.
The report was read out.