The sixth day of the trial
Adam Kuryłowicz, born on 31 December 1890, residing in Warsaw, Minister of Labor and Social Welfare, Roman Catholic, married, no relationship to the parties.
Presiding judge: – Mr. Kuryłowicz, you have been summoned as a witness to testify about the liquidation of Polish trade unions during the occupation.
Witness: – In 1939, the then Governor Fischer issued a regulation which dissolved all trade unions, at the same time confiscating their property, so the workers’ community organized in trade unions had no support and was doomed to receive arbitrary and quite, I would say, inappropriate treatment. Delegates of individual work environments – such as the power plant or streetcars – repeatedly asked their superiors to change the working conditions and remuneration, but to no avail. In 1939, there was a threat of a strike action by streetcar workers, so the Gestapo arrested several dozen people from that group. The activists were kept in Warsaw for quite a long time and were taken to the Auschwitz camp with the first transport.
Presiding judge: – Were any specific charges brought against them?
Witness: – I personally met individual streetcar workers in Auschwitz and I asked them if they had been interrogated or if it had been proven that they had committed a crime. They told me that no one had interrogated them and that even completely random people were taken away with the rest. No one had been interrogated and they had not been accused of any crimes, except for being members of trade unions and threatening a strike action, although no strike was organized.
The wages of employees and workers were at that time reduced to fifty percent of the wages from the pre-war period. As a long-time trade union activist and the president of the railroad union, I know – because I communicated with railroad men and train dispatchers, whose wages had been reduced to fifty percent of the standard wages from the Polish period – that when I told them to ask to be paid their wages from before the war, they answered that those who asked for a pay rise were arrested, beaten at work, and forced to work with very high efficiency.
At the same time, food stamps that were distributed as part of the food-rationing program were not honored. I myself, as a supply delegate after the dissolution of the City Council of the Capital City of Warsaw, represented three districts: Żoliborz, Marymont, and Powązki. At the meetings of delegates in the city hall, I argued that the promises made in regulations displayed on posters on the city’s streets were not being kept, and that out of all the food items they were supposed to receive, the workers’ community was given only bread, but not full rations, and some sugar; they did not receive any fat or meat. I made accusations against Mr. Leist, who was the appointed mayor or president of the city, but there was no answer.
The workers’ community was forced to work intensively, but with the food they received, people were not able to do intensive work and some of them fainted while working. There were also cases of arrests when someone spoke up for their rights more vigorously.
All those who were not welcome in Warsaw were registered and deported in large numbers to the West. This was also the fault of employment agencies, the so-called Arbeitsamt that forced all people, men and women, who were not employed in Warsaw to register. Everyone had to go to the West, so if someone did not want to leave voluntarily, they were deported and forced to work there.
Besides this, I should mention the confiscation of the union’s property and the complete destruction of the building located next to the Ateneum that had been built before the war for about six million zlotys. It was a workers’ cultural center, which housed a theater. The building had been confiscated, occupied by the German authorities, and used exclusively by German railroad men. It was where our union had a library with about two hundred thousand volumes, which was completely destroyed by the occupation authorities. When we arrived in Warsaw, we found a dozen or so books scattered in the basement. The rest had been stolen and destroyed. All the movable property of the union was completely looted and destroyed, and then the building was burned down.
Presiding judge: – Did you know where the orders came from?
Witness: – All the orders were issued by the then Governor Fischer.
Prosecutor Siewierski: – Did the occupiers recognize any representation of the workers’ interests? Did they communicate with trade unions?
Witness: – During the time I was arrested, no representation of the workers’ community was ever recognized.
Prosecutor Siewierski: – Did they respect all the standards concerning labor protection?
Witness: – Labor protection did not exist anymore. Leaves were completely canceled; no one took them. Safety of the workers, who had to work intensively in the conditions I have already described, existed only if the workers themselves took such measures. The occupation authorities did not issue any regulations to protect workers.
Prosecutor Siewierski: – Were there any provisions adjusting remuneration standards to the rising prices?
Witness: – After the wages were reduced to fifty percent, up until my arrest in January 1941 there were no wage regulations or bonuses that would increase the wages.
Judge Grudziński: – Were you the president of the railroad union?
Witness: – Yes, I was.
Judge Grudziński: – How was the building confiscated? Was any report drawn up? Was there a warrant?
Witness: – There was no report. Security authorities and German railroad men came and took over the entire building. There was only a general order stating that all the trade unions’ assets had been confiscated. There were no hand-over documents or reports.
| Judge Grudziński: | – Who was present there? |
| Witness: | – Representatives of the security police. |
| Presiding judge: | – What was the reason for your arrest in 1941? What charges were brought? |
| Witness: | – Actually, no charges were made. I had been required to report twice a month, |
on the first and the fifteenth day of the month, at the Gestapo office at Szucha Avenue.
I thought that if they were to arrest me, it would happen when I reporting to the Gestapo office, but they arrived at night, about 11.30 p.m., when I was already asleep. I lived in Bielany. The cars stopped outside the Central Institute of Physical Education, six people opened the gate to the garden, and started surrounding the building. It is a stand-alone, detached building. My wife woke up, opened a window, and started shouting, “Who is there? Bandits?” They answered in Polish, “No bandits, it’s the Gestapo.” I got up and opened the door. They had revolvers, searched the building in the night, and after an hour or forty-five minutes, I was taken to the Pawiak prison. At that time, they did not tell me the reason for the arrest, but later on I was interrogated concerning my membership in the Polish Communist Party.
Prosecutor Sawicki: – The confiscation of the trade unions’ property was undoubtedly a violation of international law. Were you able to point it out to the authorities?
Witness: – Since we already knew how people who protested and opposed the orders of the occupation authorities were treated, we abandoned this idea, having consulted the Central Commission of Trade Unions, where I also was the vice-president. We thought it over and decided that our protesting would not help at all, but only cause severe repressive measures.
Prosecutor Sawicki: – Did you notify the authorities abroad that the trade unions’ property was confiscated?
Witness: – Yes, we sent such a notice abroad.
Prosecutor Sawicki: – Since you are familiar with the situation of workers at that time, could you please tell us if the wages and rations were below the minimum subsistence level?
Witness: – Until 1939, the wages in Poland guaranteed a minimum subsistence for workers. When they were reduced by fifty percent, this was no longer the case. Then, as early as in 1939, due to the ban on the free market, the prices of individual items went significantly up, and the wages received by workers and employees were not enough to cover those minimum subsistence costs.
Prosecutor Sawicki: – And what about the rations?
Witness: – People received bread and a part of the sugar ration, but they never received meat, fat, or eggs, although they were supposed to receive them.
Prosecutor Sawicki: – So, in your opinion, the food a worker was able to buy and the rations they actually received were below the minimum of biological subsistence?
Witness: – Naturally. I can say right now that since the wages were reduced by fifty percent and workers did not receive rationed products for free, but they had to pay for them, the remaining money was only enough to buy some bread for the worker and his family.
Prosecutor Sawicki: – So there was no other way for the Polish worker during the occupation, if he wanted to preserve his biological integrity, to simply survive, than to undertake criminal activities against the regulations issued by the occupier?
Witness: – If he wanted to survive, he had to undertake certain activities – I’m not saying they were criminal, but he had to break the rules imposed by the occupier.
Prosecutor Sawicki: – Do you know about any multi-hour strike in the streetcar workshops resulting from that minimum subsistence problem, and what repressive measures were then applied?
Witness: – I believe the strike did not happen because it was exposed and the occupation authorities found out about it, so in the morning the streetcar depot in Wola was surrounded by the Gestapo and police officers, and the workers were forced – and even beaten – to drive the streetcars. There was a very short mass meeting in the streetcar depot, but it did not bring any results because the security authorities arrived in the room and started dispersing the gathered crowd. Dozens of people were then arrested.
Prosecutor Sawicki: – Was it only a hunger strike?
Witness: – Yes.
Judge Grudziński: – When was the unions’ property confiscated?
Witness: – In 1939.
Judge Grudziński: – Have you heard of any other incidents of confiscating union property in Warsaw or the Warsaw District?
Witness: – All buildings, movable and immovable property of all trade unions were taken away.
Judge Grudziński: – You frequented the meetings of supply delegates. Who was present at those meetings from the district or from the Stadthauptmann office?
Witness: – A representative of Mr. Leist was always present at such meetings. We were appointed delegates by mayor Kulski because the occupation authorities announced that all people who would like to do social work should apply at the municipal government office. Then, Kulski sent a personal summons to each of us and asked if we would accept the post of delegate. We hoped that in the delegate council we would be able to help the society, so we, of course, decided to accept the posts.
Judge Grudziński: – What were your responsibilities?
Witness: – My task was to maintain contacts between the society and the appointed mayor, Kulski. I never met Mr. Leist.
Attorney Chmurski: – As the president of the railroad union and the vice-president of the liaison commission of trade unions, did you ever personally intervene with the German authorities?
Witness: – I never intervened.
Attorney Chmurski: – Only other delegates intervened?
Witness: – Nobody did.
Attorney Chmurski: – So they intervened only with the appointed Polish mayor?
Witness: – Yes.
Attorney Chmurski: – Why do you believe all the orders concerning trade unions and food supplies for workers were issued by Governor Fischer?
Witness: – As for the dissolution of trade unions – there was a notice signed by Governor Fischer, and as far as supplies are concerned, all orders were signed by Leist.
Attorney Chmurski: – And what about the strike? Was it even possible during the occupation?
Witness: – Fischer issued a regulation prohibiting strikes. They were immediately considered and called sabotage, and all people who would have allowed a strike to take place in that period would have certainly met the same fate as the Warsaw streetcar drivers.
Attorney Chmurski: – Were groups bigger than four people allowed to meet?
Witness: – But where? In public spaces?
Attorney Chmurski: – Generally speaking, as a group.
Witness: – There was an attempted meeting in the streetcar depot in Warsaw, but the participants were dispersed and arrested.
Attorney Chmurski: – So was it a general rule?
Witness: – Yes, it was.
Attorney Śliwowski: – Did I understand you correctly? I have written down that the attempted strike was in October 1941, and then the arrests took place.
Witness: – That’s correct.
Attorney Śliwowski: – And when did you have indirect contact with defendant Leist? Because you did not meet him directly?
Witness: – I never met him directly; I had indirect contact with him when I was supply delegate in 1939.
Attorney Śliwowski: – Are you sure it wasn’t later?
Witness: – No, it was in 1939.
Attorney Śliwowski: – Wasn’t Dr. Dengel the Governor of Warsaw at the time? Wasn’t this the case until 1941?
Witness: – Leist succeeded Dengel as governor, so I heard Dengel’s name for a very brief period, and then I only heard Leist’s name.
Attorney Śliwowski: – Who represented Leist at the meetings you have mentioned?
Witness: – The gentlemen who represented Mr. Leist would not introduce themselves to us.
Attorney Śliwowski: – Were they his deputies or heads of departments?
Witness: – They were usually heads of departments who represented supply authorities.
Presiding judge: – Did they wear uniforms?
Witness: – They wore civilian clothes.
Attorney Śliwowski: – Were the orders announced in the Mitteilungsblatt [Journal of Regulations] in oral or written form?
Witness: – In writing.
Attorney Śliwowski: – When exactly was the regulation reducing the wages of streetcar drivers issued?
Witness: – I cannot tell you exactly, but it was in the third or fourth month of the occupation.
Attorney Śliwowski: – Still in 1939?
Witness: – Yes.
Attorney Śliwowski: – Did it coincide with the arrests or did the two events happen one after another?
Witness: – Yes, it happened shortly afterwards, a month or a month and a half.
Attorney Śliwowski: – You have mentioned that even the rations that had been announced were not fully provided. I don’t know if you will be able to answer that, but did the provision of rations depend directly on the German municipal authorities, or was it regulated from above? I mean, could Leist have kept his promise or did he have to observe relevant directives issued by the governor?
Witness: – He could have delivered the supplies, because the Volksdeutsche received all the expected rations in special stores that had been set up for them, so the food supplies were there and he could have delivered them also to the Polish people.
Attorney Śliwowski: – I know that it was possible, but when Leist reduced the food rations and did not observe statutory standards, did he act on his own initiative or could you tell that he followed relevant directives?
Witness: – I don’t know.
Attorney Śliwowski: – Were the same wages, treatment, and supplies policy present in other Polish cities with a similar urban economy model, that is, separate urban enterprises?
Witness: – Right now, I cannot remember if it was also the case in Kraków, because I’m talking about a city where such self-government did exist, that is, Warsaw. The communication between Kraków and Warsaw was hampered. I am unable to answer whether the same practice was also implemented in other cities.
Attorney Śliwowski: – Didn’t you receive any information from railroad unions?
Witness: – No.
Attorney Węgliński: – You have testified that before the arrest you had to report twice a month to the Gestapo office. Who gave you such an order and when?
Witness: – The Gestapo, in May 1940.
Attorney Węgliński: – Was it after the interrogation?
Witness: – Yes.
Attorney Węgliński: – Concerning the circumstances you have mentioned?
Witness: – No, I was arrested in May 1941, after I left Bank Gospodarstwa Krajowego, where I had exchanged old Polish money for the so-called młynarki [banknotes named after the bank’s president]. It was several thousand zlotys belonging to a social institution, the “Związkowiec” Housing Cooperative in Bielany. During the war and occupation, the members made payments at the counter and paid the amounts due to the entrepreneurs who did construction works – the construction of the cooperative was not yet completed. I exchanged those several thousand zlotys in the Bank Gospodarstwa Krajowego. As soon as I exchanged the money, I went downstairs and I was arrested on the street.
Attorney Węgliński: – In a general roundup?
Witness: – No, they had been monitoring what money people exchanged and how much. I was immediately taken to Szucha Avenue, where I was interrogated for four or five days and beaten. They were trying to find out where I got that money from. After eight days, when they confirmed that the money came from accounts and other financial institutions, I was released, but they ordered me to report on the first and fifteenth day of the month at Szucha Avenue.
Attorney Wagner: – Do you remember the number of the building at Szucha Avenue?
Witness: – It was where the Gestapo had their office. I don’t remember. There was no time to look at numbers.
Attorney Wagner: – Was it a light-colored or a red building?
Witness: – I wasn’t brought there from the front, but through the yard – I believe it was next to a casino – and taken straight to the dungeons.
Defendant Fischer: – Your Honor, all court experts have unanimously declared that the dissolution of associations and unions was ordered centrally by the government. As far as the orders issued by myself are concerned, those were only executive orders because I did not have the power to issue decisions of another kind. The confiscation of railroad men’s property was carried out by the security police and German railroad men. The railroad was not subject to civil administration, but it was completely independent, as clearly indicated by Professor Wachholz in his statement. I do not know anything about the strike that took place in October 1939 because I arrived in Warsaw only in November. As for the wages, the relevant regulations were issued centrally by the government. As far as I know, the wages were based on the Polish wages from August 1939. In any case, neither the municipal nor the district administration could regulate the matter of wages.
When it comes to food rations, the witness is right in claiming that food stamps were not always honored, especially in the first months of the occupation. I have already extensively discussed this matter in written statements. At that time, three armies were stationed in the area: German, Polish, and Russian. This all happened in the period of the ripening of grain and harvest. There were no food supplies when the German authorities arrived in Warsaw, so the German side had to start a support operation. A support train called “Bavaria” was sent to distribute food among the people of Warsaw for some time. I did my best to bring food to the city and I succeeded in doing so. From the area from Ciechanów to Poznań, against the will of the Reich authorities, fifty thousand tons of grain were brought to Warsaw. We also encouraged peasants to bring food to Warsaw. Probably everyone who lived in those times saw huge columns of peasant vehicles, coming from places situated over a hundred kilometers from the city, which brought food to Warsaw. All of this took place by order of the German authorities because there were no food supplies at that time and the situation was difficult due to the harsh winter. That is why it was not always possible to keep the promise to deliver the food rations.
Witness: – I would like to remind Mr. Fischer of the circumstances he is talking about. It was in January and February 1940. The German authorities, by order of Mr. Fischer, baked a certain amount of bread and distributed it on the streets. When a crowd of hungry citizens gathered around the wagons, the bread was thrown to the people who caught it, and the Germans made fun of them. This is how the occupation authorities played with hungry Polish people. This is what their good deeds looked like. And at the same time, there were arrests. Some people in the crowd would say, “What are you doing? They are making fun of you, throwing bread at you like at dogs, and you’re tearing into it.” Then, people were arrested and prisons filled up. Such were the Germans’ good deeds: they made fun of people, instead of giving the bread away for stamps.
As for the other issue, namely the claim that the wages were regulated according to the standards from August 1939. This is not true because the wages of railroad workers were reduced. Hundreds and thousands of witnesses could come forward and testify that the wages were immediately decreased and were not regulated at all. The pensions of workers and state employees were set at two hundred zlotys at the most. A standard pension did not exceed two hundred zlotys, and everyone, both railroad and state workers, received a pension of twenty, thirty, or forty zlotys. So it is impossible to say that the standard wages from August 1939 were maintained.
These are the two fragments from defendant Fischer’s statement that I wanted to correct.
Prosecutor Sawicki: – Your Honor, no one is bringing charges against defendant Fischer for what he did not do or what he did in accordance with international law. It is a known fact that at the turn of 1939 and 1940, the Germans imported a certain amount of grain. No charges are being made – if we ignore the accusation that they brought about an aggressive war – due to the fact that at the turn of 1939, the Germans caused hunger. The subject of the witness’s testimony was the fact that throughout the occupation, workers’ wages were maintained at a level that, together with the rationed supplies, did not guarantee the worker a minimum subsistence income. For this reason, the workers were forced to engage in illicit activities in order to survive. This is the subject of the evidence. It is for the Tribunal to assess whether defendant Fischer, having held a post at the given organizational and party level, shares the responsibility for implementing orders or applying the order of the central government, the so-called General Government. Right now, I am not dealing with such a minor problem. At the same time, the matter which I consider a fact to be ascertained is not being discussed. The question whether the defendant is responsible for this will be decided by the Supreme Tribunal, and discussed also by the defense and the defendants. The fact to be ascertained is whether the defendant, serving as the district governor, knew that the wages and rationed supplies did not guarantee the worker a minimum subsistence income.
I am referring to the complexity of this issue in connection with the witness’s testimony. To conclude, I would like to present a piece of evidence proving that the defendant knew that the wages and rationed supplies were less than a basic subsistence income, namely a copy of a report by the head of the Warsaw District of 12 May 1941. It proves that defendant Fischer was fully and well informed – the question of responsibility aside. This is about the awareness that minimum subsistence was not reached: “Due to the lack of food items, the prices on the black market have inevitably increased. Prices in general went significantly up. The food prices index set by the Warsaw authorities in March 1941 was 468 percent of the 1939 basis.” So it was clear, and this is the subject of evidence, that prices increased fivefold. Therefore, even if it was true that wages were maintained at the level from 1939, the cost of living increased five times. “The cost of living has increased so much that factories will not be able to offer Kartoffelsuppe [potato soup] during Mittagspause [lunch break], and the vast working class will literally be at risk of hunger.”
That’s it. And once again I would like to point out that it does not prove that the defendant is responsible, but that he was aware.
Defendant Fischer: – This report was not issued by me, but by the government as a whole, which brought attention to this problem.
Prosecutor Sawicki: – That is what I said.
Defendant Fischer: – Your Honor, Mr. Prosecutor. As for the reports by the General Government, the prosecution uses only their fragments for their own purposes. Those reports include also other fragments which could prove something else, namely that the middle and lower level authorities at the government’s meetings still firmly emphasized the need to change the government’s policy. There were lengthy and never-ending discussions concerning the wages. The middle and lower level authorities clearly stated that government regulations were disadvantageous and that the workers were not able to sustain themselves. But the government was opposed to any changes, pointing out that the Reich demanded us to maintain the reductions, spreading from the West to the East, and wished the reductions to be implemented also in the General Government.
Prosecutor Siewierski: – I would like to determine, as precisely as possible, the date of that attempted streetcar workers’ strike.
Witness: – It was at the end of 1939.
Attorney Śliwowski: – You said it was in October 1939.
Attorney Chmurski: – So was it right after the Germans entered Warsaw?
Witness: – It happened some time after they arrived.
Attorney Chmurski: – How many weeks after that?
Witness: – It was in November or December 1939.
Prosecutor Siewierski: – Did you know about the second attempted strike in 1941?
Witness: – I was arrested in 1941, so I cannot say anything about it.
President: – No more questions? The witness is excused.