TADEUSZ LIPSKI

On 15 June 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 Tadeusz Marian Lipski
Date and place of birth 14 September 1922 in Warsaw
Parents’ names Władysław and Maria née Dąbrowska
Occupation of the father weaver
State affiliation and nationality Polish
Religious affiliation Roman Catholic
Education elementary school
Occupation sales clerk
Place of residence Warsaw, Potocka Street 30
Criminal record none

At the outbreak of the Warsaw Uprising I was in a house on Warszawska Street, almost vis-à-vis Potocka Street. For most of August, I remained in my house, and later – as the shelling intensified – along with my family, I took shelter for the night at my friends’ place in Żoliborz, and during the day we came back home. On 14 or 15 September during an air raid on Żoliborz, I lost my mother, sister and brother-in-law, who were killed just next to me on Tucholska Street. A few other members of my family were also injured. After the raid we scattered in all directions, I went with my father to the house at the corner of Mickiewicza and Bohomolca streets, opposite the so-called Glass House. We hid in the basement there, which already contained some 30 civilians, mainly married couples with children. At around noon on the day of the air raid, one of the people from the basement attempted to go outside and was injured. Not long afterwards, the Germans arrived and ordered us to leave the basement, shouting “ Raus.” I left the basement with the other people there and saw that the house was surrounded by a dozen soldiers in German uniforms, speaking German, who began to separate the women and children from the men. They took my sister’s child from my arms and told me to join the men’s group. The women began to wail and asked the soldiers to let the men go, but they were told to leave in the direction of Bytomska Street. Soon after their departure, the German soldiers – who let an old man, Kaczor, go – fired a score of shots with machine pistols at our group made up of about a dozen men. I was not injured but fell among the bodies of my companions. I heard groans, sounds of the injured being killed and, later, the looting of houses and a party organized somewhere nearby by the German soldiers. In the evening, I tried to make my way to the insurgents who had taken positions on the other side of Bohomolca Street, but due to heavy fire I didn’t dare go further than the house at Bytomska Street 1, abutting property number 3, where – in the garden in the back of the house – the execution had taken place. I came back to the garden and remained lying there for, if I remember correctly, some five days. Then, considerably enfeebled by hunger, I managed to crawl towards the insurgents’ positions near the Glass House. There, an acquaintance of mine, Antoni Dąbrowski (now deceased), took care of me and took me to my wife. Since I was starved, I was prescribed a liquid diet and slowly I came back to full strength. Until the surrender of Żoliborz, I remained in the fort in Żoliborz park, from where we were led by the German soldiers down the road by the Chemical Institute to Powązkowska Street, and then along Okopowa and Wolska streets to the Western Railway Station, from where we were transported by train to the Pruszków camp.

At that the report was concluded and read out.