Warsaw, 11 July 1949. Mgr. Norbert Szuman, member of the Main Commission for the Investigation of German Crimes interviewed the person named below as an unsworn witness. Having been advised of the criminal liability for making false declarations, the witness testified as follows:
| Name and surname | Stefan Mielczarek |
| Date and place of birth | 5 August 1920, Warsaw |
| Names of parents | Stanisław and Walentyna née Imięcka |
| Father’s occupation | railwayman |
| State and national affiliation | Polish |
| Religious affiliation | Roman Catholic |
| Education | 4-year craft school |
| Profession | railway conductor |
| Place of residence | Warsaw, Noakowskiego Street 10, flat 52 |
| Criminal record | none |
When the Uprising broke out I was in my flat at Powązkowska Street 41, the building standing some distance from the street, not far from the Military Cemetery.
During one insurgent operation, between 6:00 p.m. and 7:00 p.m., insurgents shelled a building inhabited by Germans on the other side of Powązkowska Street, killing one officer and one German soldier.
Barely an hour later our house was surrounded by German forces, up to 1,000 soldiers, I reckon. They swept into the building and entered flats, removing everyone they encountered. We were grouped in the courtyard. There, they searched everyone carefully and after about an hour, selected a group of women and children as well as a group of men, numbering 22 people.
Both groups were escorted, arms raised, to Fort Bema, where we saw officers conferring with one another. One of them told us that we would be set free if they could establish that we had not taken part in the killing of the Germans. However, later that group of officers issued an order – as we gathered from the dispositions and orders given, which my friend Kazimierz Barański, who spoke good German, additionally translated for me – to the effect that selected Wehrmacht soldiers would shoot us in the fort. They [the German soldiers], however, opposed this, explaining that the Germans had been killed by polnische Soldaten, while we were civilians. As a result, after lengthy arguments, the officers called in gendarmes from the Second Fort and handed us over to them, telling the soldiers we would be directed to a camp.
At that point the military left, while we were surrounded by 16 gendarmes from the penal brigade, as the Wehrmacht soldiers we were familiar with from before the Uprising referred to it. This was the brigade stationed at the Second Fort. The gendarmerie officer made a speech to the women and children separated out from the group, saying “your bandit fathers and brothers killed a German officer and soldier, for which they will be shot.” He then added that the women and children were being held as hostages and, if any commotion ensued among those being led to the execution, they, too, would be shot. We were then arranged in threes and taken to a bridge on the Powązki road, over the so-called “marsh.” There we stopped and from there two gendarmes would take people, one at a time, to be killed at a spot several meters away with a shot to the head, after which they would go to collect their next victim. The execution, given the manner in which it was carried out, was extremely drawn out, and when I – as the fourteenth to go – was being led towards the killing site, I noticed that it was 10:30 p.m. on my watch. The gendarme grabbed me by the collar, led me for several steps, stopped me, felt the base of my skull with his finger, unholstered his pistol, grabbed me by the arm with his other hand, twisted me, and fired. I passed out for a moment and fell to the ground; coming to, I heard a shot fired at my friend. I saw the bodies of my predecessors lying on the ground beside me, one of them writhing in agony. At that moment one of the gendarmes shot him several times. The victim’s blood and brains spewed out all over me, as I was right next to him. I lost consciousness again. It was night when I awoke. I crawled over to the other side of the road, to the allotment gardens, where I was given water in one of the cottages. At my request, the warden (I don’t know his last name) dragged me to the end of the allotments to Lipińska Street where my mother-in-law, Maria Krajewska, lived. From there I was taken to a medical point on Solecka Street where I received medical assistance. I was unconscious most of the time at this point, so I know most of what happened to me from my wife. From Solecka Street I was transported to Chomiczówka (Wawrzyszew) and then to Boernerowo to the collection point in front of the Pruszków camp where, however, I was not admitted because the Wehrmacht doctor let me go to Piastów, from where I finally left for Łowicz.
I have no medical documentation regarding my wound or treatment thereof. Those who treated me included Szklarek (a paramedic, I don’t know his first name) from the Solecka Street medical point, and Dr. Fiszbach (I don’t know his first name), deported from Bydgoszcz and living in Powązki (at this point the witness presented scars on the right side of his nape, the right side of his neck between the nose and corner of the lips; parts of the palate and the right side of his jaw, nearer the tongue, had been torn out).
At that the report was concluded and read out.