WŁODZIMIERZ MICHALSKI

On 9 January 1948 in Warsaw, the member of the District Commission for the Investigation of German Crimes, Judge Halina Wereńko, interviewed the person specified below as a witness. Having been advised of the criminal liability for making false declarations, the witness testified as follows:


Name and surname Włodzimierz Michalski
Names of parents Jan and Joanna née Wegner
Date of birth 30 January 1905, in Anielew village, Konin district
Religious affiliation Roman Catholic
Education seminary
Occupation provincial of the assembly of Orionine Fathers
State and national affiliation Polish
Place of residence Warsaw, Barska Street 4 (Educational Establishment of Father Toporski)

During the Warsaw Uprising, I was the director of an establishment for orphans named after Father Toporski. A week before the outbreak of the uprising, trucks from the “Herman Göring” Division came to the area of the establishment. It was a supply unit. On 1 August 1944, the Germans attacked the insurgents from the side of Barska Street, taking the building of the establishment. They retreated two hours after the attack. The nearest sanitary point of the insurgents was located on Kaliska Street, in Nasierowski’s factory. On 3 August, the gendarmerie from the academic house threw the population out from the houses at Grójecka Street 40 and Barska Street 3 and 4. Having conducted a personal inspection, in which they were looking for weapons and checking documents, they led a group through to the academic house. We remained there for nine days. Having led the group through to the academic house, a gendarmerie officer showed a few bodies of German soldiers to the gathered and announced that for every German killed by a Pole, ten men from our group would be executed.

The establishment for orphans was located on the first floor. The remaining people stayed on the ground floor. However, contact was maintained, every day men from the ground floor brought us soup, given by the Germans once a day. Around 5 August (I don’t remember the exact date), the gendarmes […] the men and announced that this group would be executed in revenge for killing […] gendarme. They led those ten out into the courtyard, [fragment of the text cut off] corpses of around ten men were lying. A group of men buried those corpses in a pit dug in the garden.

On 11 or 12 August (I don’t remember the exact date), we were led out to Zieleniak. Having gone in, the gendarmerie handed the group over to the “Ukrainians”, who straightaway robbed us of valuables. During the looting, Count Czarnecki (residing at Grójecka Street 40) did not want to allow them to check his clothes and the “Ukrainian” shot him for that. We found a few hundred people already at Zieleniak. At night I saw how the “Ukrainians” were kidnapping women from among those gathered, and in a few cases I saw how they were raping them on the square. I was told that on that night the “Ukrainians” shot a few women, having committed rape upon them. I did not see that myself.

On the next day I was sent to the transit camp in Pruszków in a transport.

At this the report was concluded and read out.