WŁADYSŁAW DUKOWSKI

Warsaw, 15 February 1946. Associate-judge Antoni Krzytowski delegated to the Warsaw City Division of the Main Commission for the Investigation of German Crimes, interviewed the person specified below as an unsworn witness. The witness, having been advised of the obligation to tell the truth and of the liability for making false declarations, testified as follows:


Name and surname Władysław Dukowski
Names of parents Jakub and Marianna
Date of birth 16 December 1896
Place of residence Ulrychów, Góralska Street 14
Occupation bricklayer
Religion Roman Catholic
Criminal record none

I was in the house in Elekcyjna Street 8 when the Warsaw Uprising broke out. Until 5 August 1944, it was relatively calm there. At that time the Wehrmacht troops were quartered in Sowińskiego Park, and the soldiers from these units told us that as long as they were there, no harm would come to us. There was no fighting with the insurgents in our area at that time. The Wehrmacht troops withdrew in the morning of 5 August 1944, and shortly after SS companies arrived, and from that moment the mass murder of Polish people began. I had already escaped from my house two days previously – since it was said everywhere that the Germans were executing Polish men in the neighbouring streets – and I was hiding in the garden or in the reeds of the dried-out pond located on Wolska Street, more or less opposite the houses at numbers 120 and 126.

(At this point, in accordance with the witness’ explanations and instructions, the judge drew a plan of the site’s layout, which has been attached to this report).

The witness continues his testimony: When the SS troops came I was in the fruit garden on the drawing. Those troops came down Wolska Street from the side of the railway track and right away I heard screams, cries and lamentations from our people. Almost exactly at the same time an SS company of about three hundred men came from the side of Górczewska Street down Moczydło Street, and they set up a camp in the very garden in which I was and on the neighbouring potato field. The SS-men were asking me who I was. I had to show them my identification card and I told them moreover that I was the lessee of this garden. The Germans plucked some gooseberries from the garden I was allegedly leasing and even gave me a box of tinned food in return. I then noticed that a truck arrived in front of the house in Wolska Street 120 from the side of the Orthodox cemetery. At that time I was in the back of the plot of land marked with number 118, where I moved to observe what the SS troops who came down Wolska Street were doing to our people and where they were taking them. There were two heavy machine guns on the car that stopped in front of number 120.

I did not see the car parking in front of the house at number 120, since it was obscured by a building. But just a moment later, from the yard of the house at number 120, I heard a loud cry “Oh, Christ!” repeated two times, louder the second time, and then voices of numerous children crying “Mom!”, “Mommy!”, and right after that I could hear the rattling of the two machine guns. At that time I was no further than ten meters from the yard where the victims were.

I fought as an infantry corporal in the 1920 war and I am perfectly capable of distinguishing various kinds of machine guns. I therefore know that in the situation I am describing the Germans used heavy machine guns. I had seen them with my own eyes, after all, and apart from that, when the Germans opened fire, an uninterrupted long series ensued, which continued for about a minute. All cries had already died away by then, and after the machine gun fire ceased I could hear single shots, which I thought were fired from a handgun. They were undoubtedly connected with killing off the wounded.

I am unable to say exactly how many people were gathered at that time in the yard of the house at number 120. However, having approached the house at number 118, I could see through a hole in the wall a crowd in which there might have been around one thousand people.

I saw women and children there as well. I saw women holding children in their arms or with children in prams.

At the same time an execution also took place in the yard of the house at Wolska Street 124. I was not a witness to that execution; however, on the basis of the size of the pit in the yard of that house where the corpses were, and on the basis of what people were saying, I believe that execution undoubtedly claimed as many victims as the execution in the yard of the house at number 120. There was also a large grave in the yard of the house at number 120, in which the bodies of those murdered during the execution there were laid. The houses at numbers 120 and 124 were the site of an execution of civilians driven from the nearby houses. On the same day there was a third execution in Wolska Street, it took place at the location marked on the drawing with an X, near Sowińskiego Park. Also, the Germans executed civilians brought from houses in Elekcyjna Street 4, 6, 8 and 10, and the residents of the town house indicated on the drawing. A considerable number of residents of these houses were executed earlier, singly, on the streets.

It is difficult to say how many people were executed by the SS. I think that it was probably a couple of thousand. Graves with the bodies of these victims are located in Sowińskiego Park. By order of the SS-men, some of the bodies were carried by our people to the basements of the town house, and afterwards the building was burnt. Edward Kucharski, residing in the Jelonki parcel in the house of the local governor, knows more details concerning the execution. Kucharski himself was among the people whom the Germans were executing.

The report was read.