WŁODZIMIERZ BADMAJEFF

Warsaw, 24 May 1950. Janusz Gumkowski, acting as a member of the Main Commission for the Investigation of German Crimes in Poland, interviewed the person named below, who testified as follows:


Name and surname Włodzimierz Badmajeff
Date and place of birth 10 December 1884, Chita, in Siberia
Parents’ names Budda and Handa, née Tupczyńska
Father’s occupation steppe farming, regional council member, social activist
Citizenship Polish
Religious affiliation Roman Catholic
Education university
Occupation doctor of medicine
Place of residence Warsaw, Langiewicza Street 12, flat 1
Criminal record none

When the Warsaw Uprising broke out, I was in my flat in the house at aleja Róż 10. Apart from myself, only the housekeeper and my children’s tutor were present at the flat. The other household members were in town. On 4 or 5 August 1944 (I don’t remember the exact date) the Germans entered our street.

I don’t know what unit they were from. They started hammering on the gates of houses, ordering everyone to come out into the street. On that day the Germans also evicted people living on neighboring streets: Służewska Street, Koszykowa Street, aleja Przyjaciół, 6 Sierpnia Street. The crowd of people, numbering – as I later heard – six thousand, was brought to the courtyard behind the officers’ casino. There we stood the whole night, until the morning of the next day. While standing in the courtyard, we saw how Germans dressed in women’s clothes drove on tanks towards the insurgent barricade at Piusa Street. Polish women walked in front of, around and behind the tanks, and also sat on them, serving as a human shield for the German tanks and soldiers. I don’t know what happened to these women. I heard that many of them managed to escape.

On the morning of the next day the Germans separated the men from the women. The women were released, together with the children, to the area occupied by the insurgents. The men were divided into groups and taken to the basements of the Gestapo building. After my wartime identity card was checked, I was attached to a group of six men standing on the side. Amongst them was a Hungarian. After a while, however, the German officer who was leading the men down to the basement approached me and wanted to take me, as a Pole, down to the basement, too. I was saved by a young German officer whom I did not recall; I don’t think I had ever met him before. Our small group was led to Litewska Street. For a few days, I don’t remember now how many, I stayed in one of the houses there, together with the regular residents of the building. Throughout this time I didn’t see any signs of the crimes committed by the Germans in aleja Szucha. I heard that the Germans murdered all six thousand of the people whom they had taken down to the basements of the Gestapo building.

After a few days the German sentries standing at the corner of Litewska and Marszałkowska streets allowed all three of us, [myself] together with the Hungarian and Irenka, to walk over to the area occupied by insurgents. We said that we were going to fetch our families, who were in the area occupied by the insurgents.

I remained in the house at Piusa Street 18 until 6 October 1944, in my laboratory, and I was reunited with my family there. On that day I went with the entire population of this area to the Main Railway Station, from which we were transported to Pruszków.

At this point the report was concluded and read out.