STEFAN NOWAKOWSKI

Warsaw, 6 August 1946. Judge Antoni Knoll, as a member of the Main Commission for the Investigation of German Crimes in Poland, heard as a witness the person specified below. The witness testified as follows:

My name is Stefan Nowakowski, son of Jan and Krystyna, born on 1 September 1888 in Warsaw, domiciled in Płudy, private house, PKP [Polish National Railways] clerk, criminal record: none, relationship to the parties: none.

On 25 or 26 May 1943, my son, Mieczysław Nowakowski, born on 31 December 1917 in Moscow, was arrested and taken from a no. 26 tram near Wileńska Railway Station. On 25 May 1943, my son had left the house and gone in the direction of Piaseczno. He was arrested on his way back.

I learned about his detention from the father of my son’s fiancée, who in turn learned about it from some woman named Olga whom we did not know. She said that my son was at aleja Szucha. I learned the details of how my son was arrested from the father of my son’s fiancée, Szymański, domiciled in Warsaw at Wileńska 21. Szymański told me that my son had been arrested alone, in a tram.

As far as I know, my son had only his Kennkarte about him, and it was written there that he had been born in Moscow. This Kennkarte was issued by the Jabłonna Commune Office. On 27 May, I went to aleja Szucha to learn something about my son. The clerk at the counter window on the ground floor said to me that he “won’t look after my son” and shut the window. In June, my wife went to the Gestapo with the same aim. They told her that our son’s clothes had been taken by the Treasury, and that if the fate of her son was unknown to her, a time would come when she would find out. On 27 August 1943, I received notification from the Gendarmerie station in Jabłonna that my son had died on 29 May 1943, so three to four days after he had been arrested.

My son went to Piaseczno in order to organise a football match, as he was a captain of the Junak sports club in Białołęka Dworska, district of Warsaw.

Before the war, my son had been working in Państwowe Zakłady Lotnicze [State Aviation Works] as a clerk. He was an officer cadet of the infantry reserve.

My son was active in the military organisation of the Underground State. He was receiving volunteers in the basement of our unfinished house and training them later by the Vistula river. I don’t know whether he had any compromising papers on him when the Germans arrested him.

The report was read out.