BRONISŁAWA KOT VEL KOTOWSKA

Warsaw, 12 March 1946. The investigating judge Halina Wereńko, delegated to the Commission for the Investigation of German Crimes in Poland, heard as a witness the person specified below. Having been advised of the criminal liability for making false declarations and of the significance of the oath, the witness was sworn and testified as follows:


Name and surname Bronisława Kot (alias Kotowska) née Adamowska
Date of birth 29 August 1897
Names of parents Kazimierz and Anna née Banaszczak
Occupation laborer
Education literate
Place of residence Żoliborz, Wyspiańskiego Street 10
Marital status widow
Religious affiliation Roman Catholic
Criminal record none

During the Warsaw Uprising I lived in Warsaw at Powązkowska Street 33a with my husband Antoni Kotowski (born on 29 May 1897).

On 2 August 1944, at the moment when my husband had left the flat and was on the stairs, an SS man with a rifle in his hand, who had just mounted the stairs, called him and took him to the street. A neighbor from another house (I don’t remember his name) told me later that he had been taken at the same time as my husband, and that in total the SS men had taken six men from the house at number 35 then. They had marched that group to Spokojna Street (by the Powązki cemetery), where they used the Poles as a shield against the insurgents who were attacking from Okopowa Street.

At one point, taking advantage of the fact that the Germans had created a smokescreen, that friend of my husband’s fled, and all the other men, except for my husband, fled as well. None of them knew anything about my husband. Only on 5 April 1945, when an exhumation was carried out on Spokojna Street, was the corpse of my husband uncovered; thanks to the fact that he had his identity papers with him, I was notified of that and I could bury him in the Bródno cemetery.

On the same day, 2 August 1944, half an hour after my husband was taken, the German troops took all the men from our house to the Bem Fort. One of our neighbors told me later that the men had to dig a grave for themselves and that they were to be executed. However, some higher-ranking officer arrived in time and forbade the execution of the Poles, so they were sent to the Pruszków transit camp instead. Currently they have all returned.

The report was read out.