Warsaw, 6 March l946. Judge Halina Wereńko, delegated to the Commission for the Investigation of German Crimes, interviewed the person specified below as a witness. Having advised the witness of criminal liability for making false declarations and of the gravity of the oath, the judge swore the witness in accordance with Art. 109 of the Code of Criminal Procedure. The witness testified as follows:
| Name and surname | Edward Marian Kucharski |
| Date of birth | 18 June 1904 in Warsaw |
| Names of parents | Józef and Katarzyna née Dybińska |
| Occupation | worker employed in the Warsaw Reconstruction Bureau |
| Education | five grades of elementary school |
| Place of residence | […] |
| Religion | Roman Catholic |
| Criminal record | none |
During the Warsaw Uprising I lived at Wolska Street 132 (on the corner of Elekcyjna Street), in a magistrate house, together with my wife Franciszka (born 1901) and my children, Bogusław, aged 13, and Wanda, aged 3.
German troops stationed in Sowińskiego Park were restless, I heard shots fired there, men were not allowed to leave their houses. Soldiers set up a machine gun in Sowińskiego Park, in Wolska Street they set up two machine guns, at intervals on both sides of the street, and on the corner of Ordona Street.
On 5 August 1944 at 9.30 am, a division of the “Ukrainians” with a German sergeant burst into our house and we were ordered to get out. We were around forty tenants with families; we got out carrying bundles. Our group was taken to Wolska Street, where I noticed that corpses of men, women and children lay under the fence of Sowińskiego Park.
I later found out that before we were brought out, the residents from Hankiewicz’s house (Wolska Street 129) had been executed there. Since I was inside the house at that time, I did not hear the sounds of this execution.
Our group was crowded at the netted fence of the park, near the statue of the Mother of God, and right after that soldiers started to fire machine guns. I collapsed without being hit, and was covered by corpses. After a while the bursts of shooting subsided and I could hear footsteps and single shots, and then I saw next to me that soldiers were killing those still alive with pistols. I know the names of the following tenants of our house murdered during this execution:
1. Władysław Fronczak with his wife and daughter
2. Marian Węzłowski with his wife and daughter
3. Antoni Węzłowski with his wife and daughter
4. Jezierska and her subtenants, a mother with a daughter and a grandson (I don’t know their names or surnames)
5. The Stygienko family, husband, wife, daughter and mother
6. Janina Perkowska and her two daughters
7. Zworska with her son
8. Stanisław Wójcik with his wife and sons
9. Rutkowska with her son
10. Mr and Mrs Jabłoński (wife Janina)
l1. Mr and Mrs Tomaszewicz with their child
12. Pasterska [sic] husband, wife and two children
13. Mr and Mrs Matysiak with their daughter
14. Mr and Mrs Jabłoński
15. Mrs Enow with two children
16. Mr and Mrs Żukowski and their three children
17. Bekier and two children
18. Mr and Mrs Jatczak with seven children and an elderly mother
19. Mr and Mrs Piątkowski with their son
20. Mrs Filer and her two children.
Lying among the corpses, I heard screams, bursts fired and then single shots throughout the day, with breaks. I figured that new groups of civilians were being brought to be executed.
Later I found out that the residents from the houses at Elekcyjna Street 4, 6 and 8 had been executed then, and that my brothers, Czesław and Konstanty with his wife, who used to live at Elekcyjna Street 8, had died.
At around 7 p.m. I heard footsteps and conversations in Polish. I saw that civilian men were taking away the corpses under the command of German soldiers. My friend Roman Kamiński, presently residing in Warsaw, in Aleje Jerozolimskie (I don’t remember the number), a professional shoemaker, approached. Together with the others, Kamiński carried me to Sowińskiego Park, where corpses were being put in a pile.
Making use of the fact that the German soldiers could not see me, I joined the group of workers and I started carrying corpses as well. On that day we did not manage to bring all the corpses from the Wolska Street area around the park and from Elekcyjna Street. We were herded to Saint Lawrence Church, and on the following day we were brought back to Sowińskiego Park. We formed the corpses into two piles, which were more than two meters high and ten or eleven meters long. The soldiers ordered us to throw around thirty corpses into the basement of our house (Elekcyjna Street 1/3), which was on fire, and several others into the latrine in Sowińskiego Park.
I am unable to specify the number of corpses left after the execution in Sowińskiego Park. There might have been over fifteen hundred of them. Together with other workers, we realized that we were carrying corpses of the residents of Hankiewicz’s house (Wolska Street 129), Koch’s house (Wolska Street 128), Wójt’s house which stood opposite Koch’s house, of the house where I lived, and of houses at Elekcyjna Street 4, 6 and 8. It is possible that other groups were executed in this location, about whom I have no information.
Apart from me, a few other persons survived the execution. From our house: myself, Apolonia Żabicka (presently residing in Warsaw), Mrs Wallas (residing in Błonie), Mrs Bekier (residing in Warsaw), as well as Zawarska, Kasprzykowa and Narowska, who came out with severe wounds and were executed by German soldiers near Saint Lawrence Church. From the house in Elekcyjna Street 8: Mrs Matysiak with her son, Pogorzelski with his son and two daughters (residing in Warsaw).
On 6 August 1944, during lunch break, I was detached from Park Sowińskiego to Saint Lawrence Church and was ordered to take the bodies of an acquaintance of mine, Gaczkowski, and of two women from the vicarage. The corpses had gunshot wounds. I carried the corpse of a young girl who had died from gunshot wounds out of the church.
In the evening of the same day I was transported to the transit camp in Pruszków on foot, and then to a labour camp in Wrocław.
I was finally sent to work in coal mines in Kiepry [?]. Workers were quartered in a camp, with permission to go into town. We received starvation food rations. The work in the mines was exhausting, German foremen were mistreating Poles.
At that the protocol was concluded and read.