ANNA STASZKIEWICZ

16 March 1946, Warsaw. Investigative Judge Alicja Germasz, appointed to serve on the Commission for the Investigation of German Crimes, interviewed the person named below as a witness. Having been advised of the criminal liability for making false statements and of the significance of the oath, the witness was sworn and testified as follows:


Name and surname Anna Staszkiewicz, née Drewicz
Parents’ names Edward, Paulina
Date of birth 30 May 1899
Occupation janitor
Education -
Place of residence Wolska Street 14, Warsaw
Religious affiliation Evangelical
Criminal record none

I lived with my child and my husband, Michał Staszkiewicz, in the shelter of the Main Welfare Council (the RGO) located on the property of the Staszic Foundation, in the building situated at the corner of Wolska and Okopowa Streets. No insurgent posts were established and no military operations were carried out in this area during the first days of the Uprising. Insurgents would only come by to the RGO’s kitchen to get something to eat. The noise of fighting could be heard from afar.

On 5 August 1944 the shooting grew decidedly closer. I, my family and other inhabitants from the same room went down into the basement. There were also other people there, including a doctor and nurses from the City Health Center, located in the same building – about 80 people altogether. The basements became the shelter for the rest of the RGO’s inhabitants and for a number of outsiders who ended up there by chance. I think that in all the basements may have contained about 500 people (300 from the RGO). Throughout the night the noise of shooting could be heard from a short distance away. At night the Germans banged on the door a couple of times, but they didn’t get inside.

On 6 August 1944 at 11 a.m., two German soldiers armed with sub-machine guns entered the basement and told all the men to come out. The women were to stay. The men, about 20 in number, were led out into the courtyard. Then one of the soldiers returned and told the women to move to the adjacent kitchen. We were locked up in the kitchen. Immediately after, two other Germans came and took three young girls with them (two of them fifteen years old and one sixteen years old). I don’t remember their names. After a while we heard loud shots fired at a short distance from us. After 15 minutes the young girls returned. They told us that they had been taken to the courtyard and ordered to watch what was going on. The men, led out of the basement, were lined up against the wall, and the Germans fired at them from a sub-machine gun. All fell down on the ground. Then the girls were allowed to come back to us. Having heard their story, I rushed to the neighboring basement, from which I could see the courtyard through the grated window. I saw our men lying on the ground in different positions (I saw no blood). I recognized the following men: Kazimierz Jaworek, Konstnaty Krzystopolski, Antoni Murawski, Antoni Brzewski and his brother (I don’t know his name), Henryk Własik and his father (I don’t know his name), Jan Świderski, Jan Markuszewski, Pawlikowski, Czekański (I don’t know their names), and my husband Michał – all the inhabitants of the RGO shelter and a doctor from the City Health Center (I don’t know his name).

At 7 p.m. three German soldiers appeared in the basement and told us (20 women) to come out into the courtyard. They led us through the gate into Wolska Street. As I walked I saw the corpses of men and young boys lying in disorder near the gate, about 50 in number. We were escorted to St. Adalbert’s Church and from there to Pruszków.

From Pruszków I was sent to Lower Silesia, where I worked as a forced laborer in the weapons factory in Wülstewaltersdorf, near Wrocław, until the arrival of the Soviet army.

At this the report was concluded and read out.