HUGO KWAS

On 3 June 1948 in Dziedzice, Jan Markowski, a prosecutor of the Supreme Court and head of the Katowice District Commission for the Investigation of German Crimes in Poland, interviewed the person specified below as an unsworn witness. Having been advised of the criminal liability for making false declarations, the witness testified as follows:


Name and surname Hugo Hubertus Kwas
Date of birth 3 February 1911
Names of parents Antoni and Marta Kuchniewicz
Place of residence Dziedzice, Jesuit monastery
Occupation priest
Criminal record none

On 2 August [1944], I was in the monastery at Rakowiecka Street 61, where apart from myself, there were 12 other priests and ten brothers of the order, plus a few men from the monastery’s service staff and one woman, the cleaner of the chapel, as well as men and women from the street, who took refuge in the monastery and whose number was unknown to me. Among them, there was a ten-year-old boy by the name of Mikołajczyk, who assisted at mass. When the Germans entered the premises, Father Mońko and I were on the second floor, in his cell. When we heard an incredible noise from downstairs, boots tramping on the stairs and the sound of the pump organ in the chapel, we immediately realized some sort of violent group had entered. I looked down the stairwell and spotted a German soldier in Father Pawelski’s cell – this soldier was searching Father Pawelski’s locker, which confirmed to me that the assailants were bandits. Together with Father Mońko, we decided to stay in the cell, but the German soldiers were checking all rooms, so eventually, they reached ours and told us to join the rest and move downstairs, to the boiler room. Father Pawelski wanted to remain on the covered porch, fearing stuffiness, but we convinced him that the Germans should not be provoked. The Germans claimed that everything was in order and they were putting us in the shelter just for the sake of our own safety. In the boiler room, they called us individually to a nearby room, taking away our watches in the process. When we were all in the room, which might have been some three meters by six, the door opened abruptly and the Germans threw two grenades inside which exploded immediately, killing and wounding a few people. This was repeated twice, but grenades were then thrown inside from the direction of the courtyard, through a window, which had been smashed specifically for this purpose. Next, a German positioned himself on the threshold and fired at the spots from where cries were coming or where there was some movement. This was repeated a few times and there was an underage German boy, who had been watching the death cell for an hour or more, calling a soldier whenever he noticed that someone was alive. What he would say was derisive, along the lines of: ”Noch ein schoner Kopf, Des scheint mir zu Frisch”, after which the soldier shot at a victim. I came out of this miraculously unscathed, having been covered by the bodies of others.

At one point, one of the soldiers thought that there was something valuable in the cupboard above the table by which I was lying, so he stood on my shoulder, but due to the fact that I remained completely still, he did not notice that I was alive. But I saw that he checked the pulse of Father Jędrusiak, whose thumb had been pierced by a bullet, and then he grabbed reverend Rosiak by the ear and turned his head; Rosiak was kneeling, splattered with blood, his head as if falling inertly. However, the German concluded that ”Der ist schon kaput”. When things settled down, Father Mońko, Father Jędrusiak, Father Rosiak, Sawicki, one of the women and I got out of the room and hid in the wood store, covering ourselves with pieces of split timber. In the evening, we tried to cross the garden to Wrzosowa Street, but the Germans were watching. In spite of these adversities and the fact that the Germans were shooting at us, we made it to Mokotów Field [Pole Mokotowskie] and hid in rye haystacks. Then, after a few days of wandering, we managed to get to Szczęśliwice and Okęcie.

I do not know the name of the German unit which committed this crime. Because of my anxiety, I did not even clearly see what uniforms these people wore.

Let me say that according to what I know, the following priests died then: Libiński, Wiącek, Wróblewski, Madaliński, Grabowski, Wilczyński and the elderly Father Pawelski, who was lying on the bed in that room, and when a German soldier was about to shoot at him, he managed to whisper: "Ich will arbeiten", which of course did not save him. The following brothers died: Głandan, Fus, Orzechowski, Święcicki, Bobrytzki, Biegański, Bajak, Tomaszewski, as well as the following people from the monastery service: Gurba, Dynak, Jarez, Szuba, Kręcik and the woman responsible for cleaning up the chapel, whose name I do not know.

I solemnly swear that no shots could have been fired at the Germans from the monastery. As regards the murder of Prior Kosibowicz, I have no direct information; I only heard that he was executed by the Germans right at the beginning. I then attended the exhumation of his body.

Finally, let me add that when we were in the wood store, we heard noises in the house: the sounds of walking or of putting down buckets. Then we saw smoke billowing from the death cell: the Germans were burning the bodies of the murdered that way, having poured petrol onto them.