Łódź, 19 January 1948
Helena Falska, 48 years old, daughter of Jan and Wiktoria, domiciled in Łódź, Kopcińskiego Street 39a, physical worker in the printing works, Roman Catholic, criminal record: none, relationship to the parties: none.
During the Warsaw Uprising I was on the premises of the Polish Security Printing Works by the Vistula. The buildings of the Printing Works were under heavy bombardment from land and air.
The shelter in which I had been hiding at first was partially damaged with a bomb that had pierced the three-storey house above. Some people were killed then. We moved to the president’s shelter. I think that some 300 civilians were on the premises of the Printing Works then, but I cannot give the number of the insurgents.
When the military situation on the premises had changed, the insurgent troops departed from that place with seven injured people, leaving two injured fellows in the president’s shelter. Apart from those, in the president’s shelter there was a group of the injured brought from town. At first this makeshift emergency room was in a shelter at the depth of six metres. When that shelter had been bombed, the injured were transferred to the corridors. Many of them were buried on the Printing Works premises, near the tower. When the situation became fierce and it was dangerous to move around the premises of the Printing Works, we kept to the president’s deep shelter, so I cannot tell how many injured people were in the corridors. Dr Petrynowska, the Printing Works physician, was taking care of them.
When the troops left the Printing Works, the civilians also decreased in number, as they wanted to find a safer place. I have the impression that when the Germans entered the premises, there were some 35 civilians there, two injured insurgents, and an unknown number of injured civilians.
The premises were seized by the Germans, I didn’t hear any language other than German. We were brutally searched for money, gold, weapons; some of the younger people were forced to collect corpses, while old people were grouped together and – I don’t remember whether it was right away or at the school near the bridge in Żoliborz – they were taken away in a car. I heard that none of those elderly and infirm people have returned. I was told to collect corpses, we had to put them in a bomb crater and then cover the crater with rubble.
Then, still brutally pushed and robbed, we were taken to a school in Żoliborz. There were many people who had been brought earlier from other places in Stare Miasto [Old Town] there. A small group was formed and taken away as there was some work to be done. When they returned, I learned from Jerzy Rybak that they had been taken back to the Printing Works and that he had seen that all the injured from the shelter and the corridor had been killed. Among the executed there was, allegedly, the Niesiołowski family, Dr Petrynowska; I don’t know any more names. I remember that Aleksander Idzikowski was taken along with Rybak. I remember the following names of civilians who survived: Stanisława Niewiarowska, who works in Łódź (she had left the premises before the arrival of the Germans), Idzikowski and his mother, Garowie, the family of a janitor employed in the Printing Works. The rest are missing, such as the Milewski family and their four children, the Bobiński family, the Zieliński family – they were taken away in cars from the school. Their fate remains unknown to this day. All of them were employed at the Printing Works and if they were alive, they would notify their employer. The people who were taken away in cars either had small children or were infirm due to old age.
After several hours in the school in Żoliborz, we were driven to Okopowa Street, where we spent a day in Pfeiffer’s tannery. After a month in the shelter I was so disorientated that I cannot even tell you the names of the streets on our route. At Okopowa Street they again separated the weaker people from the rest and took them in an unknown direction. Among them there was Mrs Różańska. She has not returned to this day.
During the entire time I did not come into any contact with the “Ukrainians”, we were always being escorted by Germans. At Okopowa Street I did not hear about any execution. We were sitting there on some grass, not in a building.
When we were still in the president’s shelter, after the departure of the insurgents, those people who were carrying those seven injured insurgents away were coming back several times. I heard that the injured were taken to Ułanowska Street and Świętojerska Street. We learned from one of those people (they were Jews) that an emergency point at Ułanowska Street had been bombed and that one of the couriers, who got burnt with petrol in our shelter during a plane raid, was burnt at Ułanowska Street during bombardment.
The report was read out.
Signatures:
Investigating Judge S. Krzyżanowska, witness H. Falska