KAZIMIERZ GODERSKI

Warsaw, ….. 1948. A member of the District Commission for the Investigation of German Crimes in Poland, Judge Halina Wereńko, heard as a witness the person specified below; the witness did not swear an oath. Having been advised of the criminal liability for making false declarations, the witness testified as follows:


Name and surname Kazimierz Jerzy Michał Goderski
Parents’ names Franciszek and Michalina née Bołądz
Date of birth 24 April 1901 in Kozienice
Religious affiliation Roman Catholic
Education student at the Warsaw University of Technology
Place of residence Warsaw, Szczawnicka Street 19, flat 7
Occupation technician with the municipal board

During the Warsaw Uprising, on 13 August 1944, I was injured in both legs and in the chest with shrapnel and I was transferred to a hospital at Długa Street 7.

On 17 August, along with a larger group of injured patients, I was transferred to a hospital at Freta Street 10. I was placed in a long corridor of the Warsaw Benevolent Society by the door leading to the nursery.

The last insurgents left the hospital premises on the night of 1/2 September. Paramedics,– sister “Tola” (Teodozja Kamińska), sister “Wanda”, and a young woman whose name I don’t remember – and Dr Szumigaj stayed with us. I saw also some priest. What happened to the sick who were in the basements, I do not know.

On 2 September (I don’t remember the exact date) at about 9.00 a.m., a troop of German soldiers stormed into the building and demanded that all the doctors, the sisters of charity and the children from the orphanage leave the premises. I saw that the sisters of charity left with the children, Dr Szumigaj also left. From then on sister “Tola” was in charge of the hospital. Then the Germans left our premises. About an hour after the first patrol had left, but before noon, a troop of “Ukrainians” in German uniforms stormed into the corridor, that is into our hospital. They scattered around the hospital. I saw that one of them took a watch from one of the injured men. They were hitting on the paramedics; the youngest one managed to hide, but they took another sister to their lodging and, as far as I know, raped her. During the day, various German patrols were ransacking the premises. One of them, with flamethrowers, set fire to the basements under the corridor, that is, to our hospital. At the same time the fire was spreading from the direction of the burning St Hyacinth’s church. I didn’t see whether the soldiers had set the building on fire.

Before evening fell, the paramedics and a man from among the civilians, a hairdresser by trade (I don’t know his name), began to transfer the injured on mattresses from the corridor to Stara Street. I was keeping a record of the injured then, and I recall that some one hundred people were taken out.

All my notes concerning the hospital went missing.

A few corpses of people who had died of natural causes remained in the corridor. One of the injured people died when he arrived at Stara Street, and the paramedics put him back in the corridor. I heard them say that the corpse should be placed near the flames and burn for sanitary reasons.

Before noon on about 3 September, after a night spent in the street, a German patrol came. A priest who had been with us left with them, and also one other man, who wanted to get help from the Germans for the hospital. The priest did not come back to Stara Street. On the same day, another German patrol told us to stay put and promised to take the injured. On the following day, before evening fell, a patrol of soldiers came – as I learned from conversation, Cossacks who were stationed in Żoliborz – and advised that all those who could walk should go to the assembly point in Żoliborz, as all of those [left] at Stara Street who could walk would be treated as insurgents and would be executed. Then I left Stara Street with paramedics “Tola” and “Wanda,” five injured people, a 16-year-old [named] Józef Marczak, Henryk Stępiński, and others (whose names I don’t know), and a 14-year-old girl. The Cossack patrol led us to a school near Traugutt park, from where we were taken to the Pruszków transit camp. Among the injured who had stayed there under some old lady’s care was engineer Gędzikiewicz.

On 20 February 1945, when I returned to Warsaw, I went to Freta Street 10. I saw that there had been a bonfire in the yard by the statue of Mary, and I found fragments of the so-called tractions and pieces of plaster there.

During my entire stay at the hospital I could not move around the premises, so I didn’t see what was going on in the yard.

At this the report was closed and read out.