WINCENTA MAKOWSKA

On 29 July 1949 in Warsaw, mgr Norbert Szuman, member of the Main Commission for the Investigation of German Crimes in Poland, heard 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 Wincenta Makowska née Bieganowska
Date and place of birth 5 April 1896 in Warsaw
Parents’ names Zofia née Bieganowska
State affiliation and nationality Polish
Religious affiliation Roman Catholic
Education none
Occupation cook
Place of residence Nowosielecka Street 14, flat 15
Criminal record none

From the end of March 1944, I worked as an external cook in the barracks at 29 Listopada Street. On 1 August, I came home in the afternoon. As the Uprising had begun and our street was under constant fire, both from the barracks and the bunker near the gate of the garden of the sisters of Nazareth on Nowosielecka Street, I stopped going to the barracks. Around 16 August, a number of armed German soldiers came to our house and took two women, including myself, to help in the kitchen in the barracks. There were many prisoners of war – both Polish and of other nationalities – in the barracks, and they were being used for various tasks. I learned from the Poles in the barracks that the Germans were executing men on the premises and burying them on the spot. I learned from my friends who lived in the block of houses numbers 110, 112, and 114 at Czerniakowska Street, that in the first half of August, the Germans had taken all the men from that block to the barracks. When I was in the barracks, I didn’t meet any of these men. I also know that none of them has ever returned. I went to the barracks every day for three days. On 19 August, at around 5.00 a.m. heavy shooting started. When it ceased, the Germans began to take all the people from Nowosielecka Street, Czerniakowska Street and other adjacent streets to the Gestapo HQ in aleja Szucha. They separated the men from the women there. The men stayed at the Gestapo HQ. None of the men I knew has returned. The women were marched on foot to Pruszków.

At that the report was concluded and read out.