WANDA BADALSKA

On […] July 1949 in Warsaw, a member of the Main Commission for the Investigation of German Crimes, 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 Wanda Badalska, née Wróblewska
Date and place of birth 6 January 1916, Warsaw
Names of parents Stanisław and Helena, née Kowalska
Occupation of the father laborer
State affiliation and nationality Polish
Religious affiliation Roman Catholic
Education elementary school
Occupation registration clerk
Place of residence Warsaw, aleja Wilanowska 6, flat 6
Criminal record none

When the Warsaw Uprising broke out, I was in the house at aleja Wilanowska 6. On the first day of the uprising, the insurgents crossed our street in the direction of the racetrack in Służewiec. On the next day, 2 August 1944, the insurgents retreated through our area, as they had been repelled by the Germans in Służewiec. There was one wounded person among them, and he received first aid in our house. From 9.00 a.m. to 3.00 p.m. that day it was relatively peaceful. At about 3.00 p.m., the insurgents reappeared in our street. As a result of the shooting that ensued, two German soldiers got wounded on the other side of aleja Wilanowska, opposite building number 6. I saw those wounded soldiers from the window of my flat, which looks out onto the street. As at that time the Germans began to shell our house, probably from the post by the Dominican monastery in Służew, I had to leave my flat. Therefore, I did not see what happened to the wounded Germans. The residents of our house rushed downstairs to the basement. In the flat adjacent to mine, two people were killed by a missile, and one gravely wounded person, having first calmed down, was taken to the insurgent sanitary post in the house at aleja Wilanowska 7. Together with my husband, child, sister, and her children, I went downstairs to a cubbyhole in our courtyard, from where we proceeded to the house on the adjacent plot at aleja Wilanowska 4. From there, I could observe the events that took place on the premises of our house.

As soon as the shelling ceased, two Germans entered the courtyard of our house.

I have no idea whatsoever what kind of unit these were from. Probably they were the Germans stationed in the monastery. They stopped in the doorway leading to the staircase and ordered everyone to leave the basement. Only my father, a sick old man, stayed behind. The Germans did not descend to the basement and thus my father survived. In front of the house they divided the people into two groups. The women were ordered to return to the basement. The men, including two young boys (11 and 16 years old), were taken to the street with their hands up. When the last man crossed the gate leading to aleja Wilanowska, the Germans opened machine gun fire on them. 12 men were killed in this way. Among them were: Edward Mioduszewski, his brother-in-law whose surname I don’t know, Aleksander Idzikowski, Józef Węzio, Lachomski, Henryk Zieliński, and others.

Then the Germans returned to take the women. Having led them out to the street, they showed them the bodies and said, “Look at the Polish bandits.” Then they ordered the women to go back home, but forbade them to bury the executed. The victims of the execution were lying in front of our house for 14 days. When that time had passed, the Germans used a few civilian men to bury the victims of the execution of 2 August 1944 in a pit dug by the paling of our house.

Exhumation in this area was carried out by the Polish Red Cross in the spring of 1945.

When the Germans came back to our courtyard to take the women and show them the crime, my husband – fearing that the Germans would proceed to the house at aleja Wilanowska 4 – escaped through the courtyard to Bukowińska Street. He was killed there by the Germans on the same day, that is, 2 August 1944, a few minutes after the execution on the premises of our house. When everything went quiet in our street, I left my hiding place, took my father from the basement and went with my sister and the children along the same route which my husband had taken before, to his parents at Bukowińska Street. I stayed there for about two days, waiting for my husband. On about 5 August I learned that during the execution on the premises of our house, my husband was killed in a wheat field. Together with my sister and my husband’s father, I went there to find his body. However, I did not manage to bury him, as the insurgents warned me that a shooting was about to start.

On that day I left with my family for Służew, and from there to Wolica. Despite my efforts to come back and bury my husband, I did not manage to obtain permission to do so, as aleja Wilanowska was a boundary line between areas occupied on one side by the Germans and the the other by the insurgents. Only on 2 October did I manage to bury my husband, after the Germans had repelled the insurgents from that area.

Moreover, I know that on 5 August 1944 the civilians from aleja Wilanowska and the neighboring houses were displaced in the direction of Służew and Służewiec.

At this the report was concluded and read out.