JÓZEF CIECIERSKI

Warsaw, 6 December 1947. 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 Józef Ciecierski
Names of parents Jan and Franciszka née Salamon
Date of birth 1 January 1897
Religious affiliation Roman Catholic
Place of residence Warsaw, Opaczewska Street 30
State and national affiliation Polish
Education can read and write
Occupation bricklayer

During the Warsaw Uprising I lived at Opaczewska Street 28. We could watch Zieleniak through holes in [the wall of] the basement where I was staying. Before the uprising, a unit of the “Ukrainians” from the Wehrmacht had occupied the school by Zieleniak, which then retreated on the night of 4 and 5 August 1944.

During the morning hours, units of “Ukrainians” came from the direction of Okęcie and started throwing people out from the houses on Opaczewska Street and Grójecka Street. People were grouped next to number 104 on Grójecka Street, and in the afternoon allowed into Zieleniak. At the moment the “Ukrainians” entered, I hid in the school, then moved to the house where I lived, on Opaczewska Street.

On 9 August, I joined a group of people being led from Filtrowa Street. On the next day after coming to Zieleniak, I was sent in a transport to the transit camp in Pruszków. I think it was the first transport from Zieleniak to Pruszków. On the night of 9 and 10 August, I saw that the “Ukrainians” dragged P.[...] – a resident of Grójecka Street – from the group, and led her to the school. Later people said that she had been raped and murdered that night. I saw many times how the “Ukrainians” led young women to the school, and not all of them came back.

On 18 January 1945, I saw the corpses of three people in the school in the basement, they had traces of gunshots, the corpse of one woman had a deformed chest (the breasts had been cut off).

I don’t know the names of the people whose corpses I saw. Władysław Wasiak, residing at Grójecka Street 100, told me. On 5 August 1944, while leading the civilians out of the house where I lived, the “Ukrainians” murdered Józef Sado, who was ill, and a priest from the local parish, who had come to him in order to give him religious consolation.

At this the report was concluded and read out.