Commission for the Investigation
of German Crimes in Warsaw
To the editors of
Polska Zbrojna in Warsaw
In response to the article in Polska Zbrojna from 5 March of this year, titled “Send materials to the Commission for the Investigation of German Crimes,” I feel obliged to send you the following report concerning the misdeeds of the Gestapo on aleja Szucha in Warsaw.
On 3, 4 and 5 August 1944, that is during the first days of the Warsaw Uprising, the so- called German district of Warsaw was the first in which houses started to be burned one after another and all the residents were evacuated. On 3 and 4 August, houses were emptied on aleja Róż and Koszykowa, 6 Sierpnia, Natolińska and Służewska streets, and on 5 and 6 August on Bagatela, Flory, Chocimska, part of Puławska and Rakowiecka streets, as well as on the entire odd-numbered side of Marszałkowska Street from Unii Lubelskiej to Zbawiciela squares and Oleandrów Street. In addition to this, the Germans got into the Wawelberg School and a couple of houses on Mokotowska Street from where they abducted all the men. All the priests and civilians were expelled from the presbytery of the Church of Our Savior and from the parish, including the church cellars, which housed a public shelter.
Women and children, even those in prams, were taken to aleja Szucha, from where they were rushed to the fire station on Unii Lubelskiej Square for the night, and then on 5 August, in the morning, brought back to aleja Szucha.
From among the thousands of women, the younger ones were put on tanks, which set off through the streets of the fighting city. Other groups of women were rushed in front of shooting tanks, supposedly to quell the uprising. In addition, on the morning on 5 August, around 30 hostages were taken from the fire station to the Gestapo HQ, where they were to be executed unless their daughters picked up German corpses from the streets and carried them to aleja Szucha.
Since none of the women sent into the city returned, it is suspected that their mothers were executed, as threatened.
The remaining crowd of women, still standing at aleja Szucha, were placed in the Gestapo courtyard the for the night from 5 to 6 August (their second day without food) and were led out into the city on Sunday, 6 August, at midday.
The men met a worse fate. Around 10,000 were taken, aged between 14 and 70, sometimes older. On 3, 4, and 5 August they were taken in groups to the Gestapo building on aleja Szucha, where they were placed in the basement, and to the so-called Stauferkaserne and the Aircraft Barracks at Rakowiecka and Puławska streets. There is no information about this mass of people so far, apart from a rumor that nearly all of them were executed, only a small number was apparently deported to penitentiary camps in Germany.
The executions reportedly took place in the “sport fields” of the former Main Inspectorate of the Armed Forces [GISZ], in the park on Bagatela Street, and in the grounds of the Stauferkaserne, where it was difficult to walk through the yard because of the mass of blood, as survivors have claimed. In order to unmask these crimes, it would be necessary to examine in detail the Gestapo basements, the so-called “trams,” where masses of convicts were kept in the dark, without air and in confined spaces, to find the supposed sites of execution and burial of the victims, by conducting careful field inspections. It is possible that the bodies of the murdered were burned to cover the crime.
On 6 September, 1000 or 2000 men were reportedly led out of the Gestapo HQ, and deported to penitentiary camps in Germany. On 15 September, a group of around 1000 men detained at the Stauferkaserne since 5 August was taken. They are said to have worked in the Stauferkaserne grounds prior to deportation.
If the information above is correct, it would mean that around 8000 men were executed. This would have to be considered mass murder of people who had absolutely nothing to do with the Warsaw Uprising. Before their arrest, they were sitting in shelters, as their houses were being set on fire and demolished by the Germans. Those people were driven out into the courtyard the moment their shelters were set on fire, and from there out onto the street where they lay for several hours under a hail of bullets, only to be taken with their hands up to aleja Szucha where all trace of them was loStreet Maybe now, as the population slowly returns to the destroyed district, it would be possible to interview those who were there in the first days of AuguStreet A detailed investigation must shed light upon the gloomy mystery of the fate of thousands of Poles. In support of my report, I am attaching a fraction of search announcements for men from the aforementioned streets of Warsaw and a number of names of academics, professors, engineers, doctors etc. whose families still have not had any news of them, although those deported to Germany in other periods of the Uprising and have given signs of life. I would like to note that I am listing the names of people known to me personally, while I do not know thousands of other names. The names of those men are as follows:
| 1. | Professor Gustaw Hentzel, famous across Europe, electrical expert |
| 2. | Professor Stanisław Przyłęcki, famous across Europe, chemical physiologist, and his son Wojciech, Marszałkowska Street 35 |
| 3. | Eng. Stefan Ossowiecki, Marszałkowska Street 17 |
| 4. | Professor Michał Prawdzic and his son Stanisław, Wawelberg School |
| 5. | Professor Adam Bendyński, headmaster of the Wawelberg School |
| 6. | Chudzicki, warden at the Wawelberg School |
| 7. | Professor Władysław Kosieradzki, Służewska Street 4 |
| 8. | Zygmunt Przedżymirski, banker, Służewska Street 4 |
| 9. | Eng. Władysław Srzednicki, former director of Żyrardów, Natolińska Street 7 |
10. Eng. Orłowski Tadeusz, owner of an office and factory, 6 Sierpnia Street 18
11. Doctor of philosophy Karol Szlenkier, 6 Sierpnia Street 16
12. Przemysław Kleniewski, farmer, 6 Sierpnia Street 16
13. Wacław Dziekoński and his son, 6 Sierpnia Street 4
14. Andrzej Sokołowski, 80 years old, 6 Sierpnia Street 2
15. Eng. Eugeniusz Karpiński, head of the Emigration Syndicate, 6 Sierpnia Street 14
16. Fulde, aleja Róż 6
17. Cybulski, musician, aleja Róż 6
18. Adam Uklański, owner of the battery factory Saturn, Flory Street 9 19. Andrzej Daszewski, Flory Street 9
20. Andrzej Sztompka, 15 years old, a pianist’s nephew, Bagatela Street 15
21. Eng. Klemens Ziembiński, Bagatela Street 15
22. Tadeusz Biliński, secondary school teacher, Bagatela Street 15
23. Iwanicki, farmer, Oleandrów Street
24. Sylwiusz Herniczek, Oleandrów Street 7
25. Stanisław Herniczek, Marszałkowska Street 25
26. Snopczyński Antoni, head of the Crafts Chamber, Marszałkowska Street 25
27. Dzieduszycki, Marszałkowska Street 17
28. Eng. Cegielski and his son, Marszałkowska Street 35
29. Tadeusz Brzeski, head of a bank, Marszałkowska Street 35
30. Aleksander Szepelski, Marszałkowska Street 35
31. Józef Jabłoński, gasworks worker, Marszałkowska Street 35
32. Feliks Nowacki, concierge, Marszałkowska Street 35
33. Andrzej Przyłuski, shop owner, Marszałkowska Street 35
34. Kazimierz Sawicki, Marszałkowska Street 35
35. Eng. Janota, Marszałkowska Street 35
36. Eng. Iwanowski, Marszałkowska Street 35
37. Prof. Rzepko-Łaski, Marszałkowska Street 35
38. Odolski, Marszałkowska Street 35
39. Światłowski, factory owner, Marszałkowska Street 35
40. Eng. Kazimierz Zaniwski, Marszałkowska Street 33
41. Tadeusz Skrzypiciel, hairdresser, Marszałkowska Street 33
42. Eng. farmer Stanisław Gayny, Marszałkowska Street 31
43. Antoni Czeczot, Mokotowska Street 5
One should ask the former governor, Fischer, during the investigation what happened to
those thousands of men. Maybe he would like to explain!
Letter addressed to the Commission for the Investigation of German Crimes in Warsaw, signed by the director of Polska Zbrojna publishing house, lieutenant Kitlas.