JAN IGIELSKI

Warsaw, 13 December 1945. Judge Halina Wereńko has interviewed the person mentioned below as a witness, without oath. Being advised of the criminal liability for making false declarations, of the contents of art. 107 and art. 115 of the code of criminal procedure, the witness testified as follows:


Name Jan Igielski
Parents’ names Wojciech and Ludwika
Age 30
Place of residence Karolkowa Street 49, monastery of the Redemptorists
Occupation priest

Before the Uprising I was living in the monastery of the Redemptorists at Karolkowa Street 49 in Warsaw. I came back to Warsaw at the end of February 1945 – that is when I found out that the priests and the Redemptorist brothers had been shot during the Uprising. I decided to establish the circumstances of their murder by interviewing a number of eyewitnesses: Olszewski (living at Syreny Street in Warsaw), who had been hired to burn the corpses of those from this group killed by shooting; Jan Jaworski (a worker of the Wolski hospital), who was in the group marked to be shot; and many others.

I managed to establish that the insurgents had taken over the St Klemens [Clement] church next to the monastery of the Redemptorists (Karolkowa Street 49), but withdrew a few days later.

On 5 August and during the night from the fifth to the sixth [August], the German soldiers led some hundreds of locals to the square in front of the church. They were residents of the following streets: Krochmalna, Towarowa and Wolska. The Germans set fire to the houses on Karolkowa and Wolska streets. They seized the priests and the monks, then arranged the priests, men, women and children in groups. On 6 August, they drove the groups to near St Wojciech church; women and children were led into it. Then they divided the priests and men into groups of a little more than ten people and started to lead them, at about 10 a.m., to Kirchmajer and Marczewski’s warehouse of agricultural machines, at Wolska Street 81. They shot them between two sheds at the back of the courtyard. After shooting four groups, the firing squad was ordered to stop. The corpses from this execution and from the area have been burned in four pyres – they were piled on timber, drenched with petrol and set alight. In the place where there were sheds (currently burned out), I saw several front door keys, a few large medals, like those the priests wore, and other small metal objects burned.

As an attachment to this report I submit the photograph of the warehouse of agricultural tools made in 1945.

At that the report was concluded and read out.