ZUZANNA MISIURSKA

Warsaw, 13 May 1946. Investigating Judge Halina Wereńko, delegated to the Commission for the Investigation of German Crimes in Poland, interviewed the person specified 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 swore the witness, who testified as follows:


Name and surname Zuzanna Misiurska n ée Cegłowska, widow
Names of parents Aleksander and Wiktoria n ée Mazurek
Date of birth 11 August 1903, Żelechów, Garwolin county
Occupation owner of a shop at Puławska Street 51
Education elementary school
Place of residence Puławska Street 51, flat 6, Warsaw
Religious affiliation Roman Catholic
Criminal record none

During the Warsaw Uprising, I was running a bar at Puławska Street 51. On 4 August 1944, together with my husband Alfred Misiurski (56 years of age) and Zbigniew (14), our son, I was staying in the basement of our house. The basements of the house were connected with the basements of neighboring houses, at Puławska Street 49 and Dworkowa Street 5 and 7. The house at Puławska Street 49 is located at the junction with Dworkowa Street. Around 11.00 a.m., the houses at Dworkowa Street 5 and 7 were surrounded by German gendarmes, who shouted out the instructions for everybody hiding in the basements to come out to have their documents checked. Around 170 people complied.

I did not make any calculations myself, but after the execution, those who had survived said that around 170 people came out of the basements. The German gendarmes, shouting at the people to “hurry up”, rushed the whole group towards the stairs which lead down to Belwederska Street from Dworkowa Street. The day before, in my bar, a Volksdeutsch by the name of Maliszewski and the gendarmes were drinking vodka on the house.

Let me say that the houses at Dworkowa Street 5 and 7 were occupied by the German Gendarmerie.

When our group was being driven towards the stairs, Maliszewski, the Volksdeutsch, and other gendarmes, whose names I do not know, rushed the Poles forward, hitting them with the stacks of their guns. Maliszewski hit an acquaintance of ours, Żmijewski, with whom he had been drinking vodka on the previous day. When we reached the stairs, I saw that there were a few machine guns installed there. Our group came downstairs and then from upstairs, from Dworkowa Street, shots were fired at us. I fell to the ground immediately, not having been wounded; my son went down nearby, as did Karolina Gęsicka (60), my husband’s sister. When the shooting stopped, I lay still, as did other people who had not been hit. This had lasted maybe an hour. The residents of Belwederska Street had witnessed the execution through their windows, and consequently, a group of paramedics from the Institution for Paralytics came to help us. The Germans let them through, allowing them to attend to the wounded. The medical team had only one stretcher. One of the paramedics made an announcement, telling those less severely wounded to get up themselves, as a result of which 30 wounded and uninjured persons got up. I had not heard the request, but I heard that an injured woman lying next to me asked the paramedics to take her away. One of them replied that he only had one stretcher, but the team would soon return to the execution site and she would be picked up then. I decided then to wait until the team came back and I remained still. The paramedics left, taking one severely wounded person and 30 uninjured and less severely wounded people. When they left, the Germans once again fired at the people from the machine guns in Dworkowa Street, and then started to throw grenades at them. After a while, the Germans came downstairs to finish off those still alive. I saw how Maliszewski was walking among the bodies, checking if anybody was still alive, and I also saw how he fired at them. I was lying still, even though a gendarme kicked me twice, checking to see if I was alive. Some two and a half hours after the execution commenced, the Polish paramedics came for the second time, to pick up the wounded who remained. Then it turned out that everyone except myself was murdered. I asked a paramedic to check on my son: it turned out that he had been shot in the heart and died. I have kept his wallet.

(The witness shows a black wallet with a bullet hole).

Although I was not wounded, the paramedics, to ensure my safety, laid me on the stretcher and transported me to the Institution for Paralytics.

As regards those who survived the execution, I can name Żmijewski, a baker, who has not yet returned from Germany, Genia, a shop assistant at Żmijewski’s, who is somewhere in the country and whose name and address I do not know. I do not know the other survivors. The following people were murdered: my husband, my son, Gęsicka, my husband’s niece; Żmijewski’s mother-in-law (I do not know her name); Gajewski, the owner of the jewellery shop at Puławska Street 51; Mrs. Urbaniak, the owner of the hat shop at Puławska Street 49; Jan (I do not know his surname), the caretaker of our house. I do not remember any other names. I later heard that after our group was taken out of the basement the gendarmes were searching the flats in the houses at Puławska Street 51 and 49, checking if some of the residents were not hiding on the floors. A woman was caught and then executed on the stairs. After the execution, I heard a scream coming from the stairs: “Don’t kill me!”, groans and the crunch of a body falling; the body brushed my legs and I suspect that it was then that the Germans executed that woman. The caretaker and his family, who have survived, have remained in the house at Puławska Street 49. Later, Piotrowski, my brother-in-law, currently in Germany, told me that the Kurier Warszawski newspaper or the leaflets scattered by the Germans read that the residents of the house at Puławska Street 49 had been qualified as hostages, whose lives were to ensure that the insurgents grouped at Olesińska Street 4 would not come to Puławska Street.

I do not know when the press reported this.

I saw myself how on 1 August 1944, two insurgents died on the premises of our house: one already in front of the gate and the other on the stairs. My husband and Żmijewski took the bodies to the courtyard.

Before the execution, the gendarmes never mentioned that it was going to be a reprisal against the hostages.

I do not see Maliszewski in Warsaw these days.

The report was read out.