ANDRZEJ KAKIET

Warsaw, 6 February 1946. Judge Antoni Krzętowski, delegated to the Commission for the Investigation of German Crimes, has interviewed the person mentioned below as a witness. Having advised the witness of the criminal liability for making false declarations and of the importance of the oath, the judge swore the witness in accordance with Art. 109 of the Code of Criminal Procedure. The witness testified as follows:


Name and surname Andrzej Kakiet
Date of birth 14 November 1882
Names of parents Michał and Florentyna
Occupation porter in the hospital
Education graduate of Sunday craft school
Place of residence Warsaw, Karol and Maria Hospital
Religious affiliation Roman Catholic

I had worked in Karol and Maria hospital long before the war; I continued to work there during the German occupation and I still do so. Our hospital was in the area of the fighting during the uprising. It was a target of shelling by the Germans, although no fire was directed from the hospital towards them. There were, however, some insurgents, both wounded and healthy, grouped in small units that cooked their meals in our hospital with their own provisions. Aside from this, those insurgents, when able to fight, headed to their posts outside the hospital area, where they were fighting with the Germans.

In the first days of August 1944, the Germans were shelling the hospital with a machine gun, but they overshot, the bullets going above. They were also shelling us with artillery. On 6 August, several artillery shells fell on the taller building (the rest of the hospital buildings are single-storey ones), which housed a service ward and the nurses’ residences. The Germans entered the hospital area for the first time on the same day, before noon.

First, there were three German soldiers who came in and, having spoken to Doctor Rogulski, left again. We had the illusion that our hospital would be respected by the Germans, but on the same day, several of the so-called “Mongols”, that is Russians in German service, invaded the area. They ordered the entire hospital staff to gather in front of the hospital buildings. Not everyone turned up at the gathering place, but most of the staff present at the premises obeyed, and the “Mongols” (dressed in German army uniforms) hustled this group, consisting of a little more than ten people, towards Górczewska Street; I was in this group as well.

Before, right after having invaded the hospital, the “Mongols” inspected the wards where the patients lay. They had pointed at some of them, saying: “ Ot, partyzant” [“There, an insurgent”], but I don’t know whether these patients were later removed from the hospital or, in general, what their fate was. From what I could see, the “Mongols” had not committed any rapes or robberies of the hospital staff or patients.

On the corner of Górczewska and Młynarska Streets I got separated from the rest of the hospital staff and I was told to go with Feliks Soczewka, the night janitor of our hospital, to move the wounded, lying on stretchers, near the shrine on the corner of Górczewska and Młynarska Streets, to the ground where a timber house had burnt down at Górczewska Street 1. There were fourteen wounded, according to calculations made by Soczewka and by Jan Rosiński (a shoemaker living in the area, currently residing at Górczewska Street 6). They were shot by the Germans right afterwards, with a machine gun. I don’t know where those people had come from. The same night, I was led, in a crowd of several thousands of people, to Pruszków, then to Germany, later on to the Czech Republic.

The report was read out.