ALEKSANDRA KLEWEK

Warsaw, 28 January 1946. Acting examining judge Halina Wereńko, 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 took an oath therefrom, following which the witness testified as follows:


Name and surname Aleksandra Klewek
Date of birth 45 years
Parents’ names Antoni and Julia
Occupation hospital worker
Religion Roman Catholic
Place of residence Warsaw, Wolska Street 18
Criminal record none

During the first few days of the Warsaw Uprising I was on the premises of the St Lazarus Hospital, where I was involved in caring for newly arrived patients. I worked at admissions in the building facing Leszno Street, to which the wounded were transported.

On 5 August the volume of gunfire in Leszno Street intensified greatly. At the same time we were informed by people who had reached us from the building at Wolska Street that the Germans were already there and they were ‚tidying up’. I heard no details as to what exactly was going on there. In the evening of the same day, a dozen or so Germans entered out building through the windows. They ordered all of us to proceed to the courtyard. Several dozen people, all hospital personnel, went outside the building. Some of the sick remained in their beds, while others – on stretchers – were taken down to the bunker.

I was ordered by the Germans to bring the clothes of wounded German soldiers who were in the hospital. Two German soldiers accompanied me to the storehouse located in the building at Wolska Street. Along the way I saw a great number of human bodies strewn around the hospital premises. The soldiers who accompanied me finished off those who were still moving using their rifles. Next I returned to the courtyard facing Leszno Street, from where I and the entire hospital staff were led under the escort of German soldiers to St Stanisław Hospital, where we remained for one week. A few days after our arrival there a few of us convinced the Germans to allow us to go back to the hospital for our belongings. We returned under escort. When I went down to the bunker located in the building at Leszno Street, I saw a dozen or so bodies lying on stretchers. These were the patients whom we had carried down there previously ourselves. Walking to the building at Wolska Street, I saw a great many human bodies, partially charred, throughout the entire hospital, and human remains arranged separately. In front of the building at Wolska Street I met two men, Poles, who were carrying corpses from the hospital courtyard and throwing them onto a fire that was burning there. When I asked, they told me that they had been taken by the Germans from the street and ordered to burn bodies.

I returned to the St Stanisław Hospital; a few days later, all of the Poles gathered there were taken by the Germans for segregation to a church in the Wola district.

I would like to mention the following as witnesses of the crimes perpetrated by the Germans on the premises of St Lazarus Hospital:

1. Tadeusz Spyrka, medical orderly, Warsaw, Wolska Street 18 (the grocery store) 2. Piotr Skrajny, Warsaw, Wolska Street 18

The report was read out.