Warsaw, 18 April 1947. Member of the District Commission for the Investigation of German Crimes, [Judge] Halina Wereńko, interviewed the person specified below as an unsworn witness. Having been instructed of the criminal liability for making false declarations and of the wording of Art. 107 and 115 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, the witness testified as follows:
| Name and surname | Janina Rozińska née Skrobisz |
| Names of parents | Franciszek and Ewa |
| Date of birth | 27 January 1906 in Warsaw |
| Religious affiliation | Roman Catholic |
| Place of residence | Warszawa-Boernerowo […] |
| Education | seven grades of elementary school |
| Occupation | stays with her husband |
When the Warsaw Uprising broke out, I lived with my husband, my son Janusz, aged 11, and daughter Danuta, aged 13, at Krochmalna Street. I was a worker in Franaszek’s factory. Since iron-and-concrete safety shelters had been constructed in the factory before the uprising, under the main factory building, on 3 August 1944 I hid, together with my children, in the safety shelter under the office, near the entrance.
On 5 August 1944 I heard shots, and then a group of German soldiers, SS men and soldiers in German uniforms – from the Wehrmacht, I believe – burst into the safety shelter yelling raus.
I later found out that upon entry to the factory the Germans had executed the porter and had set almost all the buildings on fire.
People in the safety shelter were panicking after the Germans entered. Smelling smoke from flammable materials thrown on the floor and from the burning buildings, the civilians who had gathered in the safety shelter (comprising both factory workers and residents from nearby houses) started running out to the yard. Groups of SS men and soldiers in green uniforms stood in the main yard and shot the men on the spot. Panicked civilians were running blindly, and the SS men were driving the running people down Wolska Street in the direction of the tram depot on Młynarska Street.
Wolska Street, on the side of the factory, was occupied by the Germans, the insurgents were still holding the other side of the Street.
Together with my children I got to the depot with a group of around two hundred people, mostly women with children and pregnant women driven from Franaszek’s factory shelter, as well as from Wolska Street. The group was crowded in Młynarska Street, near the depot’s lavatory. Around forty SS soldiers and soldiers without SS markings stood around us.
Somewhere close by there was a machine gun standing, I am however unable to specify its location, due to the intense emotions I was experiencing.
The Germans opened fire from the machine gun in the direction of our crowded group. After the first volley, wounded people started to get up from among the crowd, and then the Germans threw hand grenades at us.
I saw a baby spilling out from the belly of a wounded pregnant woman, I saw a German coming up to it, taking the baby, which was alive, into his hands, putting it on some scrap metal and stabbing it with wires.
Together with my children I found myself near the wall of the lavatory. My son was seriously wounded after the first volley in the back of his head. I got hit from a grenade in both of my legs and in my belly. My daughter got hit from a grenade in her legs, skull, belly and breasts.
After everyone in the group fell to the ground, the Germans, standing outside of our group, were shooting at the wounded who made an attempt to get up or who moved. Until nightfall they kept approaching the people who lay on the ground, aiming at whoever moved, and at the same time they were making jokes and laughing, in particular if some wounded person got hit.
After nightfall I managed to crawl into the lavatory together with my son, my daughter and the 16-years-old Jadwiga Perkowska, who was wounded in her leg. My little boy was still showing faint signs of life. I stayed in the lavatory for two more days with my daughter and Perkowska, with no help at all.
At dawn, on 7 August 1944, crawling along the back of the tram depot, I made it to St Stanislaus Hospital. A German soldier I met on the way wanted to shoot me, seeing me all covered in blood, in thorn clothes, almost naked, but he was stopped by a Daughter of Charity [szarytka], who pleaded with the soldier to let me say where I had come to the hospital from. I drank some water and fainted. I woke up later in the dressing room. Dr Kubica, Dr Wesołowski and German doctors with Red Cross bands were in that room.
I begged them to send someone to save my children. Having talked to the Germans, Dr Kubica assured me that my children would be brought to the hospital. Indeed my daughter and Jadwiga Perkowska were brought on stretchers by the hospital staff under the escort of two German soldiers.
At the execution site, when the sanitary team with the stretchers arrived, there was no-one alive any more, apart from my daughter and Perkowska.
I could not walk for six weeks. My daughter started to walk on crutches only in January 1945. Jadwiga Perkowska died in mid-September 1944 in St Stanislaus Hospital.
On 28 September 1944, my daughter and I were taken away from the hospital by my sister, Rogowska, and brought to Ursus.
At the time of the German incursion, my sister was in a different safety shelter of the Franaszek company. She managed to escape to Syreny Street and then managed to get out of Warsaw.
I don’t know whether all the people that were in the safety shelter on 5 August 1944 went out as ordered by the Germans, or whether all of them had been shot.
Neither am I able to specify how many people died in the factory.
On 6 August 1944, when I was in the lavatory near the tram depot, I heard screams in Młynarska Street. Looking out of the window from time to time I saw that on the pavement in Młynarska Street and in the adjacent Hoser’s garden, SS men were raping young women and girls about 12 years of age, killing them off afterwards. I heard desperate cries and pleas for mercy through the entire day, with some breaks.
Where these women had been from and what their names were, I do not know.
At that the report was concluded and read out.
REPORT
Warsaw, 17 May 1947. Member of the District Commission for the Investigation of German Crimes, Judge Halina Wereńko, with a court expert, professor of the University of Warsaw Dr Wiktor Grzywo-Dąbrowski, carried out a court-medical examination of victim Janina Rozińska, aged 41. Her identity was confirmed on the basis of a photograph confirmed by the Boerenowo Commune [Gromada Boernerowo].
Medical interview: The patient indicates that on 5 August 1944, during an execution of Warsaw civilians carried out by Germans, she received multiple injuries as a result of a grenade explosion. She stayed in St Stanislaus Hospital until 28 August 1944, and thereafter she lived in Ursus. Her wounds healed only at the beginning of 1945. Presently, she usually feels well, but she sometimes feels a weakness in her legs.
Present condition: The patient is of a height below average, of average build, sufficiently nourished. On the skin of the forehead on the right side, here and there on the arms, legs, buttocks, in some places on her shins and thighs there are numerous (several) little scars of various shapes, usually irregular, some of them star-shaped, of brownish, sometimes whitish and yellowish colouring, with a diameter from a few up to several millimetres. (The patient indicated that in those places she had had grenade shrapnel wounds). On the left shin, in the middle part, from the front-external side there is a greyish and bluish scar, about twelve centimetres long and one centimetre wide, slightly caved in, poorly movable. The patient indicated that this was the place where her leg had been cut in the hospital as a result of suppuration. No objective changes ascertained with respect to the neural system, internal organs and limbs.
OPINION
1. The described scars on the outer layers could have resulted from the healing of wounds caused by grenade shards, at the time and in the conditions described by the patient.
2. Lack of medical data as to the health condition of the patient during the weeks following the time when the patient had received the abovementioned wounds makes it impossible to determine precisely for how long the patient’s health disorder resulting from the abovementioned injuries continued. It is however highly probable that this disorder, together with a dysfunction of the lower limbs, continued for longer than twenty days. Presently, no objective disorders have been ascertained.
REPORT
Warsaw, 17 May 1947. Member of the District Commission for the Investigation of German Crimes, Judge Halina Wereńko, with a court expert, professor of the University of Warsaw Dr Wiktor Grzywo-Dąbrowski, carried out a court-medical examination of victim Danuta Rozińska, age 16. Identity of the patient was ascertained based on the testimony of her mother, present at the examination.
Medical interview: The patient indicates that on 5 August 1944, during an execution of civilians in Wolska Street, she suffered multiple injuries, in particular to the lower limbs and head, as a result of a grenade explosion. She stayed in St Stanislaus Hospital until 28 August 1944, and thereafter she lived in Ursus. Up to January 1945 the patient was unable to walk, and from that time she does not see with her left eye.
Present condition: The patient is of a height below average, of good build, well nourished. Over the nose there is a bone cavity of the size of the tip of the thumb, covered by a star- shaped, dark pink scar. The left pupil is narrower than the right, the patient cannot see with her left eye looking from a distance of several centimetres, she can only distinguish hand movement. The left pupil responds (reacts) quite strongly to light, white floaters are visible inside the pupil. The patient has normal vision in her right eye. On both shins and on the […] thigh there are numerous brownish-whitish oval scars, several centimetres in diameter, some of them caved in and joined with thicker layers. (The patient indicated that she had large wounds in this spot). No objective changes ascertained with respect to the neural system, internal organs, and limbs.
OPINION
1. Examination of the patient demonstrated: scars on the lower limbs, on the forehead, loss of vision in the left eye.
2. Taking into account the circumstances of the case, the content of the medical interview and the results of the examination, I have come to the conclusion that the described scars resulted from the action of grenade shards, also the loss of vision in the left eye could have been caused by such shrapnel (if the court wishes to have the reason for the loss of vision determined precisely, an ophthalmological examination should be carried out).
3. As a result of the abovementioned injuries, the patient suffered a health disorder, connected with a distortion of the eye and lower limb function, which continued for longer than twenty days.