Warsaw, 9 March 1946. Judge Halina Wereńko, delegated to the District Commission for the Investigation of German Crimes in Warsaw, interviewed the person specified below as a witness, under oath. Having advised the witness of the criminal liability for making false declarations and of the gravity of the oath, the judge swore the witness in accordance with Art. 109 of the Code of Criminal Procedure.
The witness testified as follows::
Name and surname:
Date of birth:
Names of parents:
Occupation:
Education:
Marital status:
Religion:
Place of residence:
Zofia Bekier née Pogorzelska
17 April 1882
Jakub and Marianna née Leszak
resident with her daughter
knows how to read, cannot write
widow
Roman Catholic
Warszawa, Redutowa Street 29
I was in the house at Wolska Street 132 in Warsaw when the Warsaw Uprising broke out. I lived in this house (a so-called magistrate house) with my daughter, Wacława Gałka. On 5 August 1944 at 9.40 the SS-men and “Ukrainians” burst into our house, ordering all of the residents out. They threw grenades into the flats, so the house started to burn. I came out onto Elekcyjna Street with a group of residents from our house. We were herded to Wolska Street where, near Sowińskiego Park, I saw corpses lying around.
I later learned that these were the corpses of residents of Hankiewicz’s house.
Our group was executed with machine guns and light machine guns.
I got shot in my hip and fell to the ground. My daughter, Wacława Gałka, collapsed, although she was not hurt. After the salvos I heard single pistol shots. I figured these were Germans killing the wounded. I lay still. The Germans brought five more groups of civilians to the site to be executed.
I did not recognize anyone among the persons who were brought.
I later heard that in Elekcyjna Street, in Bogucki’s house, all the residents were executed, so that no-one survived.
I lay among the corpses until nightfall. By around 8 p.m. a couple of people were still alive – my daughter Wacława Gałka, Żabicka, Wójcicki, Kucharski, my son-in-law Szczepan Gałka. My son-in-law, seeing that his daughter was dead, lost his mind and started yelling that he wanted to bury the children. The soldiers then took Edward Wójcicki and my son-in-law and executed them both in Sowińskiego Park. In the evening, at the fence along Sowińskiego Park, I saw a great number of corpses, there could have been a thousand of them. There were also corpses in the park by the earthwork near the Orthodox cemetery.
Germans herded our group of five execution survivors to Saint Lawrence church. On the way, by the earthwork near the Orthodox cemetery, we were ordered to stand in a line on the earthwork. I got the impression that they were going to execute us in a minute. Then a car came driving down Wolska Street from the direction of the city, stopped, and from the inside some German gave an order not to kill us.
I did not recognize the division which this German was from. He was in a uniform and had some sort of rank.
By Sowińskiego Park we were being executed by soldiers in black uniforms with skulls on their caps.
Apart from the persons mentioned during the interview by Żabicka, also the Żukowski family – Stanisław, Waleria, Stanisława, Ryszard, and Ksawera – were killed at Sowińskiego Park.
In Saint Lawrence church we met a group of civilians from Wola and Bishop Niemira, who was providing religious consolation. We were taken to the Pruszków transit camp. At the execution site in Sowińskiego Park there are graves now, where the ashes had been buried.
The report has been read.