JANINA CHEŁMIŃSKA

Warsaw, 1 October 1949. The person named below was interviewed as an unsworn witness. Having been advised of the criminal liability for making false declarations, the witness testified as follows:


Name and surname Janina Chełmińska, née Abramowicz
Date and place of birth 21 February 1900, Russia
Names of parents Piotr and Stanisława Gajdowska
Father’s occupation railwayman
State affiliation and nationality Polish
Religious affiliation Roman Catholic
Education university
Occupation housewife
Place of residence Boernerowo – radio station
Criminal record none

Throughout the Warsaw Uprising I was the head of a first-aid post at Lipińska Street. I remember from this period that in the very first days of the Uprising the German soldiers executed a group of six or seven young insurgents who were hiding in the allotments near Chełmżyńska Street. They were shot behind the housing blocks in Przybyszewskiego Street.

The bodies of these boys were buried by local residents, and were exhumed in the spring of 1946. I was present at the exhumation as the then head of the branch office of the Polish Red Cross in Bielany.

Apart from the widely known instances of rape committed on women by Vlasovtsy [Russian Liberation Army soldiers], the displacement of residents from Bielany and the burning down of houses, I am also aware of a few events concerning the abduction of men, who were ordered over loudspeakers to report to Konfederacji Square or Kleczewska Street, from where the vast majority, and in particular the single, the younger and those who had not managed to escape, were sent in an unknown direction. If I remember correctly, the first such operation was carried out on the first or second Sunday of August. The fate of many of these men remains unknown to date.

I cannot give the exact number of men who were thus abducted, but in any case there were hundreds of them, while those still missing number several dozen. It was not known where these men had been sent, although some ended up in a camp.

At this point the report was concluded and read out.