STANISŁAWA WĘZIO

Warsaw, 10 May 1949. A member of the Main Commission for the Investigation of German Crimes in Poland, Norbert Szuman (MA), 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 Stanisława Węzio, née Okrasa
Date and place of birth 17 November 1900 in Warsaw
Names of parents Michał and Franciszka, née Skorópa
Occupation of the father founder
State affiliation and nationality Polish
Religious affiliation Roman Catholic
Education four grades of a finishing school
Occupation lives with daughter
Place of residence Warsaw, aleja Wilanowska 6, flat 3
Criminal record none

When the Warsaw Uprising broke out, I was in the house at aleja Wilanowska 6. On 1 August 1944 our street was completely peaceful. There were neither insurgents nor Germans. On the morning of the following day, small groups of insurgents began to appear in Wilanowska Street, and as I saw from the window of my flat, they were coming from the potato field located at aleja Wilanowska behind the Matia [Matla?] factory. The closest German units were stationed in the Dominican monastery in Służew.

At about noon I saw, on the roof of the house of the former minister Jastrzębski, which is situated on aleja Wilanowska opposite my house (it is no. 11, I think), two Germans in grey uniforms with four red-and-white “check marks” on their epaulettes who were shooting in the direction of the race track.

Shortly afterwards both of them got seriously wounded, and some Germans in identical uniforms took them in a car in the direction of the monastery.

Even before I saw the Germans on the roof, a female liaison had brought two wounded insurgents to flat number 3, and I dressed their wounds with the help of the flat’s owner (I don’t remember the surname of that woman), and then the liaison had walked them to a sanitary post situated on the other side of aleja Wilanowska, a few houses away from the house of the minister.

At about 3.00 p.m. the insurgents, coming from Wernyhory Street, crossed the premises of our property and the factory and went to Bukowińska Street. There were many of them, running one close after another, so they could not have gone unnoticed by the Germans. It must have been an hour after their departure when our house was shelled by the Germans from the Dominican monastery. The first floor of our house on the side of the monastery got demolished this way. During this bombardment two people were wounded and another two were killed. One of the wounded – a 12 year old girl – died on the following day at a sanitary post.

During the bombardment, all the residents of the house at aleja Wilanowska 6 and all those who had found themselves in it by chance sought shelter in the basement.

Shortly afterwards, maybe half an hour later, the Germans surrounded our house and the factory. One of them entered our courtyard and yelled, “Get out!” The people gathered in the basement were agitated by the bombardment: both men and women were screaming loudly and lamenting. Hearing the screams issuing from the basement, a German shot at its window. The bullet wounded Mrs. Zielińska in the leg.

All of us left the basement. The Germans ordered the men to walk to the gate, and we were told to return to the basement. There were 13 men, including my husband Józef Węzio. Along with Mrs. Dymińczuk (I don’t know her current address), I did not go back to the basement, so I saw the entire execution. The Germans told the men to cross the gate in the direction of Puławska Street. While the men were walking, the Germans fired three machine gun volleys at them, and then finished off those who had survived. Just before the execution, one of the men leaving, conductor Bolesław Lubowicz, asked the Germans to spare him, saying that he was not an insurgent but was coming home from work. Instead of an answer, he received a blow to the head, in such a way that his ear fell off (I saw it with my own eyes). The German hit him with something he held in his hand, but I could not determine what it was. When Mr. Lubowicz fell, the German hit him on the leg, and the leg fell off, too. After the execution, the Germans ordered the women to go out and see how their “bandits” looked.

On the following day I moved from our house to Wernyhory Street 3, where I stayed until 5 August. During that time we made several attempts at burying our men, but the Germans did not allow us to do it. For this reason the bodies of the executed lay in the street for 19 days, and were afterwards buried by the Germans themselves.

I would like to emphasize that caretaker Marian Badalski managed to survive the execution of 2 August at aleja Wilanowska 6, as at the time he was not in the basement but in a cowshed. When he saw that the Germans were executing those 13 men, he fled through the factory premises to Bukowińska Street. However, he was executed there in an oat field by the Germans who were in the factory.

Towards the evening of 5 August 1944, the Germans threw us out from the whole of Wernyhory Street and other streets in the direction of Puławska Street to Imielin, and three days later to Wolica, where I stayed until the end of the uprising.

I would like to emphasize that on 8 August the Germans arrested Mrs. Krupkowa, who had a sanitary post at her place. She was, however, released at a later date.

The following women witnessed with me the execution of 2 August 1944 at aleja Wilanowska 6: Wanda Badalska (currently residing at aleja Wilanowska 6, flat 6), Barbara Wardecka (currently residing at aleja Wilanowska 6, flat 2), Waleria Gołęberska (I don’t know her current address, but I know that she is the sister of the caretaker of our house, Mrs. Badalska). Apart from these, Józef Arczyński, the caretaker of the house at aleja Wilanowska 11, might be able to provide some information concerning the development of the uprising in that part of Mokotów.

At this the report was concluded and read out.