JADWIGA GŁOMBIOWSKA

Warsaw, 6 March 1946. Judge Stanisław Rybiński, delegated to the Commission for the Investigation of German Crimes, interviewed the person named below as a witness. Having advised the witness of the criminal liability for making false declarations and of the significance of the oath, the judge swore the witness, who then testified as follows:


Name and surname Jadwiga Głombiowska
Date of birth 24 January 1915
Names of parents Ryszard and Zofia née Wiediger
Occupation nursery teacher
Education four years of middle school, trade school, and seminary for nursery teachers
Place of residence Warsaw, Zwycięzców Street 11, flat 9
Religious affiliation Protestant
Criminal record none

In 1943, I lived in Warsaw at Mazowiecka Street 10, flat 20, together with my parents, Ryszard and Zofia Głombiowski, and with my brother, Ryszard Jan Głombiowski (born on 20 March 1920). My sister, Halina Lisowska, already lived separately at that time.

Before the war, my brother attended a building vocational high school and continued his education during the occupation. He was supposed to graduate in June 1944. At the same time he helped our mother with sales, because from 1913 we had a grocery store. Simultaneously, my brother took part in a secret political organization fighting against the occupier.

On 9 December 1943, my brother returned home at 8:00 p.m. We knew that he belonged to the organization. In the evening, half an hour before midnight, when he still had not managed to get to bed, someone started banging on our front door. My brother immediately went to open the door. Two Gestapo men with skulls on their hats and two soldiers with helmets came in. One of the Gestapo men, speaking Polish, checked on a list who he needed and, making sure that my brother was the one, made a personal inspection and found in my brother’s pocket a typescript with a satirical poem about Berlin (my brother had read it to us previously) and some paper from the organization. After the inspection, they inspected our flat, very superficially, and found some more papers on a shelf in my brother’s closet. My brother gave them everything willingly anyway, because the Gestapo man threatened that if he hid anything, all the residents would be executed. They then ordered him to get dressed. Then the Gestapo man speaking Polish told me – I was in bed by then – and our cousin, Maria Hafke, 20 years old, who by chance was staying at our house for the night, to get ready to leave.

The Gestapo men took my brother away and drove him, as I later learned, straight to the Gestapo HQ on aleja Szucha. The gendarmes stayed to guard me and my cousin. Soon after, they transported us both to Pawiak prison.

The Gestapo man who spoke Polish and arrested my brother – as my parents managed to learn, I do not know from whom – had been an officer of the Polish Army before and was called Sznejder, I do not know his first name or the formation he had served in. He was a well-built man, of medium height, rather bald, around 40 years old. The other Gestapo man spoke only German. He was a tall, slim brunet.

I do not know his or the gendarmes’ names.

Having transported us to Pawiak prison, to the so-called “Serbia,” the Gestapo did not take any interest in us for a number of weeks. It was only on 1 and 2 February 1944 that my cousin and I were transported to aleja Szucha. However, we were not interrogated there because of the disarray caused by the assassination of Kutschera. On 3 February, we were examined in the Pawiak, where they handled us very politely, but warned me that I would be executed if I did not confess to what they had charged me with. Since I did not belong to the organization, I was left in peace for the time being, as was my cousin. During the examination, they told me that my brother Ryszard was dead. This was not true, because they executed him later.

On 8 March 1944, my cousin and I were deported from the Serbia to the camp in Ravensbrück. We had been persecuted when Jadwiga Podhorodecka, a Volksdeutsch, was the Wachmeisterin at the Pawiak. She often stormed into the cell, told us to stand to attention, used disciplinary punishments, made frequent inspections. The organization killed her in early January. From that time, the regime at the Serbia relaxed and it was quite bearable.

My cousin and I were at Ravensbrück for five and a half weeks. We did not experience anything special there. From there, we were transported to Neubrandenburg. There, we were in a concentration labor camp from 17 April 1944 to 27 April 1945. We were evacuated from there to Malhof camp, whence we escaped and, because the Russians had arrived there, we could go back to Warsaw on 5 June 1945.

It was hard for us in Neubrandenburg. We worked 12 hours a day in a factory producing some kind of V2 parts. A certain Kufeld was the chief engineer in the factory; he had supposedly worked in a factory in Okęcie in Warsaw before the war. I do not know his first name. He treated us, the female prisoners, very badly. If he noticed that we had finished work even two minutes early, he would immediately prolong it by two to four hours.

After returning home, I learned from my father and my sister Halina that my brother Ryszard, having spent several weeks in prison, had been tortured during interrogations and had been in the prison hospital. He did not snitch on anyone and was eventually executed on 18 February 1944 in a public execution at Senatorska Street 4.

My mother was buried in a courtyard during the uprising on 8 September 1944.

Concerning my brother, one of our suppliers (whose name I do not know), who had learned it somewhere, informed me of his fate.

Kufeld’s description: tall, brown-haired, age: 45 – 48, well-built, dark eyes.