ANTONINA CHUDZIKIEWICZ

Warsaw, 28 February 1946. 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 in accordance with Art. 109 of the Code of Criminal Procedure.

The witness testified as follows:


Name and surname: Antonina Chudzikiewicz née Goleczyńska
Age: 48
Names of parents: Ludwik and Anna née Zwaniecka
Place of residence: Warsaw, Wolska Street 114, flat 30
Occupation: none, presently a reservist, previously lived with husband who was a court clerk
Religion: Roman Catholic
Criminal record none

During the Warsaw uprising I lived in Warsaw, at Wolska Street 114. On 5 August 1944 at 11 a.m., armed German soldiers and “Ukrainians” burst into our house and ordered all residents to get out of the house. I left with my daughter, Łucja Wojciechowska (25), with the caretaker Zofia Grot and with other tenants. In the first yard (the house had three yards), I saw a group of armed German soldiers in helmets (I am unable to distinguish their unit). I was later told by Leszek Lewandowski, a seven-year-old resident of my house, that some of the young men had been killed by German soldiers already when they had been exiting their flats. When I was leaving, I did not see any corpses. The group of our house’s residents, mostly women, children and elderly men, were herded by the soldiers, being pushed and shouted at, down Wolska Street towards Elekcyjna Street. Near the square at number 124 they turned us around and brought us to a forge, which stood further back in that square. They ordered us to lie down in front of the forge. Then the German soldiers brought a new group of civilians. I recognized tenants from the house in Wolska Street 115, whom I knew by sight, in that group. While I was lying I saw that the soldiers brought groups of people from houses in Wolska Street 112, 114, 116 and 123 in front of the forge. Later, even more groups of civilians were brought. After the liberation, talking to people from Wola, I realized that the German soldiers brought the residents of houses located at Wolska Street 113, 115, 117, 119, 121, 123, 125, 127, 112, 114, 116, 118, 120, 122, and 126, as well as people from Grabowskiego Street and from two or three other houses, to be executed in front of the forge. All the people brought were ordered to lie on the ground, from the stories told by the residents of Wola I know that the entire square in front of the forge, from our house up to the backs of the houses in Elekcyjna Street, was covered with lying people. While I was lying there, I could not look around, I only saw the people who were lying, tightly packed, in my immediate vicinity. Perhaps an hour after I had been brought to the square the German soldiers fired at us. I heard salvos from machine guns, handguns (small arms), I could hear grenades exploding, people screaming and moaning. Between shootings, German soldiers were walking alone or in pairs among the people lying there, killing whoever was not dead yet.

I am unable to identify the division of the unit that carried out the execution. I got hit with grenade shrapnel in both of my legs and I was lying covered in blood. Around 6–7 p.m. I heard shouting in German. People who were still alive around me started to get up, somebody told me that a German officer came along and ordered the soldiers to stop the execution and send the people still alive to work in Germany. From among the execution survivors I know the name of Leszek Lewandowski (I don't know his current address). When I got up, I saw that civilian men were walking around the square picking up corpses and putting them into a pile near the forge. I found that my daughter was dead, I saw her body being thrown onto that pile. Later, the German soldiers brought me, together with the group of people who had survived the execution, to Saint Adalbert Church in Wola. In May 1945, having returned to Warsaw, I saw signs of a pyre in two places near the forge, I also saw the grave where the unburnt remains of the execution victims were buried. In the gate of the house at Wolska Street 116 I found partially charred human bones (a skull, parts of legs), and I buried them in the grave by the forge.

At that the report was concluded and read.