IRENA SZCZEPANIK

Warsaw, 29 April 1949. A member of the Main Commission for the Investigation of German Crimes in Poland, Norbert Szuman (MA), heard the person named below as an unsworn witness. Having been advised of the criminal liability for making false declarations, the witness testified as follows:


Name and surname Irena Szczepanik
Date and place of birth 18 March 1918 in Warsaw
Names of parents Zygmunt and Helena, née Kiryleziuk
Occupation of the father laborer
State affiliation and nationality Polish
Religious affiliation Roman Catholic
Education secondary
Occupation furrier
Place of residence Warsaw, Bukowińska Street 25, flat 2
Criminal record none

When the Warsaw Uprising broke out, I was in my flat at Bukowińska Street 25. During the first days of the uprising I saw neither insurgents nor Germans, but the area of Bukowińska Street was under fire. I know that the closest fixed positions of the Germans were at the race tracks and in the Dominican monastery in Służew.

In the evening of 5 August, when the area of Bukowińska Street was no longer under fire, I looked out onto the street. I noticed that our area was surrounded by the Germans. One tank was standing on the side of Puławska Street, and another on the side of Bukowińska Street, that is, of Służew. I saw that the part of Puławska Street from Bukowińska Street to the Southern Railway Station, the Szopy Polskie colony, and the Zagościniec colony were ablaze. Three houses on Bukowińska Street – 21, 23 and 25 – were surrounded by several dozen German soldiers in air force uniforms. Houses no. 21 and 23 were burning, as they had been set on fire by the Germans, who had thrown some incendiary materials at them, which I witnessed myself. A dozen or so soldiers entered the yard of my house, still surrounded by the Germans, and tried to set the house on fire, but to avail. The women began to leave the house. The men, 12 in total (including two elderly men) were led out at the end. When everybody had been led out to the courtyard, two Germans took the men one by one by the arms and led them to the cubbyhole in the courtyard, where they were executed with a machine gun by a third German. Having executed all twelve men before our very eyes, the German officer walked among the people lying there, finishing them off with a handgun. Apart from me, Stanisława Sitkowska and Janina Siwakowska (currently residing at Bukowińska Street 25) were among the women who witnessed the execution.

After the execution – it was about 10.00 p.m. – we were taken to Puławska Street. Passing by the houses at Bukowińska Street 23 and 21, I noticed three corpses lying by the house at no. 21. As I learned later, these people had been shot by the Germans a dozen or so minutes before the execution in our house. There were no other victims in either of these houses.

The same Germans who had carried out the execution in our house led us to the area of Wyścigi, where – as I found out – they were quartered, and from where on the morning of 6 August we were released towards Piaseczno.

In Wyścigi I talked to some Polish woman who worked for the Germans (I didn’t know her), and she told me that on the day of the execution in our house, that is, 5 August, the Germans quartered in Wyścigi had “evacuated” the civilians from the area of Szopy, Puławska Street (starting from the Southern Railway Station) and aleja Lotników. I heard later from my father (he was the only one to survive the execution at Bukowińska Street 25 described above, and afterwards was taken to the hospital run by the Sisters of Saint Elizabeth, so that, in total, eleven men were killed in the execution at Bukowińska Street 25) that on 5 August there was an execution of fourteen railway men at the Southern Railway Station, and another fourteen men were executed at aleja Wilanowska, close to Puławska Street.

At this the report was concluded and read out.