MIECZYSŁAW MICHAŁOWICZ

On 11 June 1946 in Warsaw, Deputy Prosecutor Zofia Rudziewicz interviewed the person specified below as an unsworn witness. Having been advised of the criminal liability for making false declarations, the witness testified as follows:


Name and surname Mieczysław Michałowicz
Date of birth 29 August 1876
Names of parents Edward and Zofia
Place of residence Warsaw, Litewska Street 16
Occupation director of the university clinic
Religious affiliation Roman Catholic
Criminal record none
Education Lvov University

In October 1939 I was the director of the children’s clinic at Litewska Street 16 in Warsaw, and a professor at the University of Warsaw. The Germans were systematically destroying Polish science, education, and the intelligentsia, which is among others evidenced by the fact that forty-six per cent of University of Warsaw’s professors were killed – executed, tortured in camps, and starved to death.

The Germans permitted neither giving lectures at the university, nor publishing scientific books.

During an inspection in the clinic, the district doctor, Schrempf, stated that any scientific work would be punished. The prohibition to pursue any scientific activity stems from Fischer, the head of the district.

The Germans were also acting to the detriment of the Polish hospital system. In 1942, the district authorities ordered our clinic to move from Litewska Street to Śliska Street, to the Baumans and Bersons Hospital [ Szpital Bersohnów i Baumanów]. It was Schrempf who said that it was a waste to use such a pearl as the block in Litewska Street for Poles. While we were moving, the Germans took away the entire hospital furnishings and the scientific library, from which they burnt Polish-language scientific publications.

The building was given to German children. This happened upon an order of the district, and was an irreparable loss to Polish healthcare.

Throughout the occupation, the Germans did not give enough food to patients. Children in the clinic got around nine hundred calories a day from the German supply. We were also not provided with a sufficient amount of medicines. Had the clinic authorities not purchased the necessary supplies on the black market, the children would have been doomed. Fischer is responsible for this, since supplies were at the district’s discretion.

On the night between 10 and 11 November 1942, I was arrested by the Gestapo and transported to Pawiak prison. I was interrogated within the first week. I was accused of being a member of the Union for Armed Struggle [Związek Walki Zbrojnej]. There was no evidence against me, but I was not released. The following persons were arrested with me: Rector Drewnowski, the rector of the seminary Father Arkutowski, the director of the Agricultural Bank [Bank Rolny] – I don’t remember his name, the writer Grzymała-Siedlecki, the president of the Agricultural Society [Towarzystwo Rolnicze], Prince Lubomirski, Dybowski M.Eng., Grosser M.Eng., and many others.

I got the impression that this was a way to exterminate the Polish intelligentsia. The SS-men called it Aktion.

I spent four months in Pawiak prison and I was a witness to shocking scenes.

Officers, Soviet prisoners of war, were murdered every day with a shot from a handgun, directly behind the wall of my cell. The prison guards told me that this was done personally by the head of the prison, an SS-man.

Jewish prisoners were taken out to a tenement located opposite the prison and executed in the passage between the first and the second courtyard.

Dogs were set on prisoners.

People were beaten horribly during interrogations. After an interrogation, they were carried to cells unconscious, in a condition close to death. Doctor Bujalski’s nephew was brought from an interrogation in such a condition. He was so beaten up that pieces flesh were falling off from his body. Architect Tomaszewski had his jaw damaged.

Right after we had been brought to Pawiak prison, we heard [the sounds of a] beating in the basements. Father Arkutowski was being tortured for being a priest. When he was finally thrown into the cell, fellow inmates immediately started showing their compassion for him. Seeing this, an SS-man took all of us out to the corridor and ordered us to hop like frogs. Father Arkuszewski was stripped of his soutane, which was put on a Jew named Bąbel. Prisoners were ordered to kiss his hands.

All these crimes were committed by the Gestapo men upon the order of the head of the prison, who was subordinated to the district.

In March I was sent to Majdanek, where people were tortured by the Gestapo from Lublin. In April 1944 I was transferred to Gross-Rosen, and then to Leitmeritz, where I was liberated by the Red Army.