Warsaw, 9 November 1945. The investigating judge Mikołaj Halfter heard as a witness the person specified below. Having been advised of the criminal liability for making false declarations and of the importance of the oath the witness was sworn and testified as follows:
| Name and surname | Stanisław Krupka |
| Date of birth | 22 April 1900 |
| Parents’ names | Stanisław and Teofila |
| Place of residence | Wawer, Bohaterów Street 37 |
| Occupation | teacher in an elementary school |
| Religious affiliation | Roman Catholic |
| Criminal record | none |
I was a Wawer commune administrator from 28 August 1939 to July 1944, with a period of military service in the Polish Army.
In December 1939, I lived in the same place as I do now. A German Baubatalion, commanded by Oberleutnant Stephan, was stationed in Wawer then. Their headquarters was at ul. II Poprzeczna 3 in Anin.
On 26 December 1939, about 11.00 p.m., an interpreter came to me from the headquarters of the Baubatalion’s 1st company, soldier Noczyński from Hamburg, along with three gendarmes. They told me to dress immediately and go with them to the battalion headquarters. On our way there, Noczyński told me that the situation was bad, as two feldfebels [company sergeant majors] had been killed and that they were arresting people in the immediate vicinity of the place of that accident to execute them.
Noczyński was speaking Polish.
I was brought to the Wawer train station, where other people had already been standing with their hands up, and then we were all taken to II Poprzeczna in Anin, where other people had also been standing in rows. We were joined with them and were standing there together under guard.
As I was standing there, I could see people being taken one by one to the yard of the headquarters and then upstairs to the administrative office. I could also see that the detainees leaving the office were being beaten and kicked in a cruel way. I did not see them beat any of those who were going in, but they were beating all the Poles leaving, and especially Jews, with anything they had close at hand. I saw for myself a few people who had their teeth or eyes knocked out.
I was taken to the administrative office almost immediately, after just half an hour of waiting, and at the table was sitting a tall, thin major with a monocle, unknown to me (as I learned later, he was a commander of the 6th Battalion of the Berlin Police, and the execution was carried out precisely by the soldiers of the 1st and 3rd company of said battalion. This battalion was stationed in Warsaw at the Sejm [Polish parliament] hotel at Wiejska Street). I don’t know his name, but judging from the signature it might have been something like “Wencel.”
In that room I saw several officers of various ranks, and Oberleutnant Stephan standing alone. The major asked me who I was. I told him that I was a commune administrator, I gave him my personal details and my profession (one of the soldiers was taking it all down). Then the major asked me whether I knew what had happened in Wawer. I answered him in the negative, and then the major (he was speaking German, but as I speak a little German I could understand some of what he was saying) said that two soldiers had been killed and that we would pay for this. I said that it might have been an accident, that there were all sorts of people in the commune, and that the arrestees were not guilty. Then the major said that he did not care, and that “Polish people killed them, Polish people will answer for it.” When I said many things in defence of the gathered people, the major ordered me out of the office. As I was led away by the same patrol who had brought me in, I was spared a beating upon leaving the headquarters. I spent about two hours in the headquarters yard (I didn’t look at my watch). Then, when all the gathered people had been registered, the abovementioned major came out to the porch and said in German, which was then repeated by an interpreter in Polish, that all those gathered in the yard were sentenced to death by shooting. Then they began to take the arrested by groups and, near the spot where the cross monument is now standing, to execute them by the dozen.
Our group (I don’t remember how many of us there were) was taken to the execution site as the last. We were placed along the wall, and they told us that we were given a reprieve.
I don’t remember it clearly, maybe they told us this before, at the headquarters yard. They did not execute anyone while I was present at the execution site.
We, the reprieved, were told to bury the executed. We buried only 106 people, as some corpses were taken from the execution site by the families. I heard – but I am not sure whether this information is true to facts – that in total 120 people were executed, and this number comprised also those who, as I heard, were killed on the way from the headquarters to the execution site during attempted escapes. Some of these, as I heard, were taken away by their families and buried separately.
When we began the burial, we found among the corpses Gąsiorowski, from the Zbytki village, still breathing, so he was taken home by sledge (the Germans were not present at the execution site at that moment). He lives to this day in Zbytki. I don’t remember his first name. Another one, Wasilewski (whose first name I don’t remember and whose current address I don’t know), also survived, although he was severely wounded. I didn’t see when Piegat got up and ran away. As I heard, when they brought our group, the last, to the execution site, they were still bringing Polish people arrested in the train, on the road etc. to the headquarters, as at first the Germans had planned to execute 300 people, 150 per one German killed. Eventually they decided that 150 people should be executed per one officer killed, and that 60 people per soldier (they decided that feldfebels were soldiers) was enough. Therefore, all those who were brought after we had left were released.
I know that we had in the commune offices a list of the executed which was made in 1939, but it was burnt in 1944 as a result of military actions, as we had a fire in the Wawer Commune Board.
Of my acquaintances, Sosiński, Trzaskowski and some others whose names I don’t remember were executed then.
The report was read out.
I would like to add that if I am not mistaken, the name of the owner of the café where those two German soldiers had been killed when they tried to apprehend the bandits Prasuła and Dębek (which was the reason for the execution of 120 Polish people) was Bartosik. He was hanged at the entrance to his café.