Warsaw, 8 February 1946. Investigating Judge Alicja Giermasz, delegated to the Commission for the Investigation of German Crimes, interviewed the person named below as a witness. Having been advised of the criminal liability for making false declarations, the witness swore an oath and testified as follows:
| Name and surname | Konstanty Taran |
| Date of birth | 16 September 1892 in Warsaw |
| Parents’ names | Korneliusz and Krystyna née Tym |
| Occupation | railway clerk |
| Education | six grades of middle school |
| A place of residence | Dembińskiego Street 14, flat 2, Warsaw |
| Religious affiliation | Roman Catholic |
| Criminal record | None |
During the Warsaw Uprising I was at Marii Kazimiery Street 23, where I had lived with my family for 30 years. The insurgents controlled Marymont until mid-September. I stayed with my wife and other residents (around 40 people), partly in the shelter in the garden and partly in our apartments. On 14 September 1944, the bombing of our district intensified greatly. In the afternoon the insurgents withdrew from Marymont and there were only civilians left. The neighboring houses, made mostly of wood, were set on fire. Most of the residents of our house went across the garden to the brick-built house at Dembińskiego Street 2/4. I stayed with my wife and 12 other people in the shelter in our house. From there, I could observe the Germans – uniformed soldiers who went into the house on Dembińskiego Street – take people out of the house and execute them. There was one soldier standing on each side of the entrance. When leaving, some people were ordered to go left and some to go right. However, after taking three steps each was shot in the back of the head by one of the soldiers. In this fashion the Germans killed about 40 people (women and children).
Then I could see that the rest were taken out into a field. At that time I didn’t know where exactly they were being taken. According to my calculations there were some 140 people in that house (because this was a neighboring house, I went there during the Uprising). Meanwhile our own house began to burn. Consequently, all the people from the shelter went to the building at Marii Kazimiery Street 21, which housed a school. Staying in the single-story building, I saw a tank drive up to the property and fire at it. The top floors were demolished. When the shooting had died down, from the stairwell I could see the “ Ukrainians” and tanks moving along Marii Kazimiery Street. Then I got across the garden to the property at Marii Kazimiery Street 29 (the property was mine). The house was ablaze. The inhabitants were sitting in the shelter in the garden and I hid in the drains. Soon afterwards five German soldiers appeared in the courtyard. They threw grenades into the shelter and told everyone to come out. The people (about 30) left the shelter, half of them women (all either my acquaintances or relatives). Hidden in the drains, I saw the Germans rush them across Marii Kazimiery Street. The civilians were first ordered to kneel down in front of house number 29, facing the street, and then all were sprayed with bullets from the machine gun the Germans had set up in front of them. The soldiers left, only to return after a while to finish off those still alive with their guns. After some time they returned again and threw grenades at the civilians lying on the ground.
I don’t know what happened later because I was afraid of looking out of the drains. I heard steps in the garden, the sound of music and play, and the voices of Germans and “ Ukrainians”. This all stopped after three days. At the same time my wife came to find me. We went into the shelter in the garden. A number of other people were already there. Soon after, a German soldier appeared. He told us to come out and then let us go.
We went to Bielany and then to Młociny, from where we were sent to Pruszków. I returned to Warsaw at the end of February 1945. I learned that my sister, my nephew and my brother- in-law had been killed in the execution carried out in front of the house at Dembińskiego Street 46 and that other people from the house were made to go to Marii Kazimiery Street where they were also executed. I received this information from Aniela Dudzik (the witness undertakes to provide her address), who was among those from the house just mentioned, and from Stanisława Rogalska – owner and resident of the house at Dembińskiego 2/4. Her husband was killed in the execution carried out at Marii Kazimiery Street 72.
The following members of my family were killed in the execution at Marii Kazimiery Street 29: my daughter Aleksandra Pastwa with her four-year-old child, my cousin Stanisław Zientara with his wife and son, Władysław Makowski with his wife and three daughters, Wiktoria Żak with her eighteen-year-old son and her fifteen-year-old daughter, Zientara’s sister-in-law with a nine-month-old child, and inhabitants of the house Janina Buczyńska and her two sons (18 and 15 years old), Jan Rytka and his wife, Agnieszka Lipka with her daughter, Julian Tkaczyk with his wife and four-year-old child – 30 people in total. I recognized all these people during the exhumation carried out in April 1945 with the assistance of the Polish Red Cross. The bodies were buried in a pit near the wall, in front of the house at Marii Kazimiery Street 29. They were removed from the pit and buried in the mass grave at Marii Kazimiery Street 45. Only a railwayman, my daughter’s friend, Tkaczyk’s little daughter, and a little boy from a neighboring house who found himself there by chance survived the execution.
The report was read out