WALENTY MIGDAŁ

Warsaw, 13 January 1947. Investigating Judge Halina Wereńko, delegated to the District Commission for the Investigation of German Crimes, interviewed the person named below as a witness, who, having been advised of the criminal liability for making false declarations, testified as follows:


Name and surname Walenty Migdał
Date of birth 7 February 1895
Religious affiliation Roman Catholic
Marital status married
Place of residence Słoneczna Street 50, flat 3
Education elementary school
Occupation caretaker

During the Warsaw Uprising, I was a concierge at Słoneczna Street 50. On 2 August, a group of insurgents left our house and retreated to Belwederska Street. It was calm in our house for a couple of days, only residents from other streets kept pouring in, from Belwederska and Chocimska streets, escaping the burning of houses. By 5 August, around 40 strangers, including over 20 men, had arrived in our house, the original number of residents being 68. The original residents included around 20 men.

On 5 August, at around 11:00 a.m., our house was surrounded by a group of soldiers in German uniforms; judging by their speech they were Ukrainians. After a banging on the door, I came out to open and was ordered to announce in the house that all the men were to come out in front of the gate, otherwise the women and children would immediately be shot “like dogs.” I made known the order, as a result of which around 30 men came out in front of the gate. Of the permanent residents of our house only six men: eng. Sarnecki (flat 43), Władysław Urbaniec, Antoni Kloch, Mieczysław Wąsowski and two other Wąsowskis, whose first names I don’t remember. Around 20 of those lodged in our house temporarily came out as well. The Ukrainians hurried the group of men up Słoneczna Street in the direction of Unii Lubelskiej Square.

I didn’t see what subsequently happened to that group. After half an hour, two boys taken from citizen Szaray’s flat, a former Polish consul in Russia and America, came back to us, released by the Germans on Unii Lubelskiej Square because of their young age. Those pupils, whose surnames I don’t know, told us that at the moment of their release, the remaining residents of our house had been directed to aleja Szucha. Soon after, one young man returned as well, a student, around 25 years old, from Rakowiecka Street, who lived in our house with citizen Szaray. He came back with a German soldier, having bought himself out with gold gathered by the women from our house. He told us that he had reached aleja Szucha in the group of men from our house and had seen men being executed next to the wall of the house at the corner of Litewska Street and aleja Szucha. The student didn’t see the moment the men from our house were executed because he managed to strike a deal with the German, who released him on condition of paying out the gold.