Warsaw, 20 May 1948. Member of the District Commission for the Investigation of German Crimes, Judge Halina Wereńko, interviewed the person specified below as an unsworn witness. Having been advised of the criminal liability for making false testimonies and of the wording of Art. 107 and 115 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, the witness testified as follows:
| Name and surname | Henryk Mierzejewski |
| Date of birth | 15 March 1914 |
| Names of parents | Aleksander and Balbina née Chojnowska |
| Occupation | plumber, employee of the Municipal Gasworks, |
Dworska Street
| Education | three classes of elementary school |
| Religion | Roman Catholic |
| Place of residence | Municipal Gasworks, Dworska Street 25 |
I was in my flat at Skierniewicka Street 4 when the Warsaw Uprising broke out. My wife Zofia, aged 30, and my daughter Ewa Krystyna, aged 3, were at home with me. Our house had 52 flats. Our house was located in the area controlled by the insurgents, the fighting took place in the vicinity, near Młynarska Street.
On 4 August 1944 the insurgents retreated from our area. The German troops arrived on 5 August 1944 in the morning.
At 6 pm, four “Ukrainians” (German soldiers speaking Russian or Ukrainian) burst into our house in full gear, shouting that everyone was to leave the house or would be executed. They did not let us take our things.
I went out with my wife and daughter, joining a group of around one hundred residents of our house. The men were separated from the women and children. We were herded through Skierniewicka Street to Wolska Street. In Wolska Street, the “Ukrainians” were standing in lines on both sides of the street, and were asking who among the people marching had a watch or other valuables [a section crossed out, an illegible handwritten note] they would shove him to continue.
In Skierniewicka Street, in the vicinity of number 34, I saw the corpse of a woman, on the corner of Wolska and Skierniewicka Street I saw male corpses. All of them had gunshot wounds.
And so we were brought to the “Ursus” factory, and we entered the factory grounds through the main gate from the side of Wolska Street. Right after I had entered the yard, I saw the corpses of men, women and children, lying in layers, usually three of them, to the right of the entrance, between the brick wall and the factory building. The bodies filled this part of the yard tightly, there were no open spots. Corpses were lying also on the left side of the yard, but they were lying in a thinner layer, usually double: you could get through there, leaping over corpses. Deep into the yard a group of around fourteen SS-men were standing (they had black epaulets and marks on their collars, as well as skulls). When our group went several steps deeper into the yard and passed them, they started shooting at us from the back with light machine guns.
I got shot in my left arm and I collapsed, losing consciousness. I came round at about 8 p.m. It was quiet. The German soldiers had already gone. I found the body of my wife. I could not find the body of my little girl, she must have been covered with other corpses.
One other man was still alive among the corpses. He was a young tenant of our house named Eugeniusz Brycki. After a while we were joined by two men who also had survived the execution: Wituski (later gone missing) and an unknown man. Together we reached the machine hall of the factory and from there through the windows [we got out] to Płocka Street and to the gasworks in Dworska Street, where we reported for work.
The Germans transported us to Pruszków only on 15 January 1945, and right after the liberation I found myself back in Warsaw.
At that time I met Franciszek Rybak, who survived the same execution in the “Ursus” factory, who is presently employed in the Spirits Factory in Praga. He had been shot in his chin and side, he spent three days lying among the corpses, then he got out somehow.
I remember the following persons who had been herded to the execution site: Kujat with his wife and small daughters; Melen – a mother with a daughter, Zożej – a sister and a brother, Mr and Mrs Wituski with four of their children, Mr and Mrs Woźniak – daughter and son-in-law, Mr and Mrs Zieliński, Mrs Zajler. The abovementioned residents of the house I used to live in died in the execution.
I estimate by sight the number of corpses that I saw after the execution to be over three thousand. Working in the gasworks, up to 11 August 1944, I could hear screams and cries from the direction of the “Ursus” factory. People were saying that residents of houses from Elekcyjna to Skierniewicka Street had been executed there, and that our house was the last building whose residents were taken to be executed there. Residents of further houses were herded to the transit point at Saint Adalbert Church, and from there they were transported to the transit camp in Pruszków.
After I returned to Warsaw in January 1945, I went back to the “Ursus” factory and in three locations I saw the remains of pyres, containing ash and charred logs. There were no human bones. The corpses must have been removed.
Working in the gasworks, I could see from afar that piles of corpses were burning in many locations in Wolska Street.
I am unable to indicate the exact locations.
At that the report was concluded and read out.