FRANCISZKA PIŁKA

Warsaw, 6 April 1950. Judge [no surname of the interviewer], acting as a member of the Main Commission for the Investigation of German Crimes in Poland, interviewed the person named below, who testified as follows:


Forename and surname Franciszka Piłka née Olszewska
Date and place of birth 4 February 1895, Bukowina
Names of parents Mikołaj and Maria née Gruber
Fathers occupation shoemaker
State affiliation Polish
Religious affiliation Roman Catholic
Education elementary school
Occupation old age pensioner, former employee of PKP (Polish State Railways)
Place of residence Wincentego Street 18, flat 14
Criminal record none

When the Warsaw Uprising broke out, I was in a tramcar in Odrowąża Street. Near the school at Odrowąża Street, the Germans tore down the tramcar cables. A few tramcars were already standing there empty. An old woman who was walking from the direction of the Jewish cemetery told us that the Germans were executing people taken from the tramcars there. Germans were standing on the walls of the Catholic cemetery and nearby, shooting both into the cemetery and from it. The people from our tramcar started to run deeper into the cemetery through a hole in the wall. We reached św. Wincentego Gate. Here we were stopped by SS-men (I am fluent in German and know a bit about military clothing). The men were separated from the women. First, the men were taken to the courtyard of the presbytery, and then the women. We stood there until nightfall. In the evening, a German burst into the courtyard, an officer of some sort, [and] started shouting, Alles kaput!; he hit the men, calling them Polish bandits. The men were taken to the garage and locked up, while the women were led to the stable, where there were cows and horses. We stood there all through the night in terrible conditions. On the next day in the evening, the Germans released the men from the garage. The women still stood in the stable. First, the men dug a pit for themselves in the beet field. At around 8.30 p.m. we heard single shots.

On that day, that is to say 2 August 1944, the Germans executed some 280 men at the cemetery (this number is based on the fact that while leading men to the garage, the Germans counted them).

On 12 August one of the women, Jarosińska, obtained a permission from the Germans to collect the body of her son. When the grave was dug up, many people collected their loved ones. After the Uprising, when a monument was being erected at the crime scene, people were reporting the victims of the execution conducted on 2 August. However, not everyone reported. Only 66 men, plus six unknown, were mentioned on the monument, giving a total of 72.

The women were released from the cemetery stable on the third day.

When I returned to my house at Wincentego Street 18, I learned that on 1 August three other men had been taken from our basement; the Germans called them “bandits” and executed them at the corner of Wincentego and Oszmiańska streets.

On the same day the Germans also executed a dozen or so people from the house at Wincentego Street 50.

I did not hear about any other crimes committed by the Germans in our area during the Uprising.

At this point the report was concluded and read out.