SZYMON NAZAR

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


Name and surname Szymon Nazar
Date and Place of Birth 17 February 1905, Sarny, Jaworów district
Parents’ names Jan and Katarzyna, née Chryczan
Father’s profession Carpenter
State affiliation Polish
Religious affiliation Catholic
Education Elementary school
Profession Stoker
Place of residence Wilsona Square 4, Flat 46
Criminal record None

When the uprising broke out I was at the “Fenix” Cooperative at Wilsona Square 4. Throughout August there was a first-aid post operating in our house with Dr Bołder placed in charge of it. The wounded who received first-aid treatment were then sent to the Resurrection Sisters at Krasinkiego 29.

On 30 September 1944, at 10 a.m., nurses brought five wounded insurgents to our house. They were laid in the basements of stairwell no. 6. On that day, early in the morning, the Germans launched an assault from the direction of Bielany, the Citadel, and the Bema Fort. At 1 p.m., having first seized control of the fort in Żoliborz Park, where people from around the area had gathered and from where they were now being taken, the Germans captured the “Fenix” and began to remove civilians stairwell by stairwell. After the clearing of our stairwell, no. 6, there were still five wounded insurgents in the basement whom the people could not take with them because they were too severly wounded and because there was nothing they could be carried on. When we were leaving, the insurgents were still alive.

When I returned to Warsaw after the uprising, in May 1945 (after being escorted out of our house, the Germans took me and the rest of the inhabitants to the transit camp in Pruszków and then to Germany), I learned that the wounded insurgents were shot by the Germans on the steps of stairwell no. 7. The bodies of the killed insurgents were buried in the courtyard of our house. When I returned, the graves had already been removed.

I don’t know who buried the bodies of the five victims of the execution carried out by the Germans on 30 September 1944 at the house at Wilsona Square 4. I am also unable to say from whom I learned the details of the crime. I have heard of no other crimes committed by the Germans in Żoliborz during the uprising.

At this the report was concluded and read out.