JANINA BARCHLINIAK

Warsaw, 7 May 1947. Acting Judge Halina Wereńko, a member of the District Commission for the Investigation of German Crimes in Warsaw, interviewed the person named below as a witness, without taking an oath. Having been advised of the criminal liability for making false declarations and of the obligation to speak the truth, the witness testified as follows:


Name and surname Janina Barchliniak, née Olejnik
Parents’ names Grzegorz and Maria, née Kosmelska
Date of birth 27 December 1899, Zduńska Wola
Religion Roman Catholic
Place of residence Wawer, Sportowa Street 81
Education secondary
Occupation housewife

Following the arrest of my son in July 1942, I made attempts to get him freed from Pawiak and subsequently from the camp in Majdanek. At the time I lived in Wawer. One Jadwiga Cieplińska, presently the wife of a Polish Army officer in Rembertów, also lived there, at Cedrowa Street 20. Cieplińska was on familiar terms with a Gestapo officer, Wilhelm Erle, who worked at aleja Szucha 25 and lived with his wife in Warsaw at Śniegockiej Street 10, flat 6. I went to Wilhelm Erle to present my son’s case, asking that he arrange his release; I saw Erle twice. From our conversations I learned that he was from Pabianice, where he had lived in his youth at Świętojańska Street, and also that his family was still living there at the time. He was a German. He had been in Warsaw since 1940.

I do not know whether he was present in Warsaw during the Uprising.

Erle gave me no assistance in my son’s case. I do not know whether he took part in rounding up Polish civilians, or in interrogating arrested Poles in the Gestapo building at aleja Szucha 25.

At this point the report was brought to a close and read out.