MAREK KORGANOW

Oliwa, 3 October 1946. Barrister Tadeusz Barydowski, a member of the Gdańsk District Commission for the Investigation of German Crimes in Poland, heard Marek Korganow as a witness. Having been advised of the criminal liability for making false declarations, the witness testified as follows:

Name: Marek Korganow, son of Władysława and Paweł, 15 years old, Roman Catholic, secondary school student, domiciled in Sopot, Grunwaldzka Street 62.

On 5 August 1944, after 10.00 a.m., the Gestapo came and led all the inhabitants of the house at Marszałkowska Street 33 in Warsaw into the street. After separating the men, they took the women to the Gestapo HQ on aleja Szucha. The men were told that those who didn’t have weapons would not be executed. Then they marched us to the corner of Litewska and Marszałkowska streets and told us to lie down. The Gestapo men checked our identity papers – men who had a gray Kennkarte, thus confirming Polish nationality, were taken one by one into a burnt shop and executed by a shot to the nape with short firearms. Almost all the men were killed, only I and Aleksander Łanigowy, about 56 years old, were saved as, for reasons unknown, a Gestapo man told us to get up and run in the direction of aleja Szucha.

I want to correct my testimony: all the men lying on the ground, about 100, were killed. Some attempted to escape, but were brought back and killed. I was standing with Langowy [sic] for five hours with my hands up by the wall on aleja Szucha. During those five hours I saw that men were continuously being led into the park. I constantly heard machine gun fire. Nobody came back from the park.

For six days we were kept with the women, children and a few old men at Litewska Street. We did not receive any food. We searched the basements of the house for hardtacks. The house was surrounded.

On 11 August 1944, we were marched to Okęcie and through Pruszków, without checking our identity papers, and from there we were deported to Auschwitz. There were a number of foreign citizens among us. I know that there were also Swiss and Turkish citizens.

My father, Paweł Korganow, is currently in Russia.

I heard that younger women were placed by the Germans in front of tanks in order to take the barricades, but to no avail, as the insurgents nevertheless set the tanks on fire with gasoline bottles. Some women survived and came back to the Gestapo HQ. The Germans let them join the insurgents, but shot after them.

The Gestapo raid on 5 August 1944 was due to the construction of barricades.

The report was read out.