FELIKS PRZESMYCKI

Warsaw, 20 October 1947. A member of the District Commission for the Investigation of German Crimes, Acting Judge Halina Wereńko, interviewed the person named below as a witness, without 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 Feliks Przesmycki
Parents’ names Władysław and Aniela, née Knoll
Date of birth 9 January 1899, Miropol, Lubar District
Religious affiliation Roman Catholic
Place of residence Warsaw, Chocimska Street 24
Citizenship and nationality Polish
Education university
Occupation professor at a university medical faculty

During the German occupation, I was an academic employee at the National Institute of Hygiene in Warsaw. After the Germans occupied Warsaw, in October 1940, Professor Kudicke came to Warsaw, in a military Wehrmacht uniform, and was appointed as commissioned director of the National Institute of Hygiene. He held that post until 31 July 1944, when he left the institute on the day before the Warsaw Uprising.

During his stay in Warsaw, Professor Kudicke always wore civilian clothes and I never saw him wearing a party badge. However, the majority of his subordinate German officials belonged to the SA. Professor Kudicke was a German who treated employees in the most polite manner. In the autumn of 1942, the head of personnel (Imgroth) made some of the Polish employees available to the labor office, and it was only thanks to the intervention of Professor Kudicke that the list was withdrawn from the labor office and the employees avoided being sent to do physical work. At the end of 1942, when Dr. Zański, an Institute employee and epidemiologist, was arrested, for what reasons I do not know, Professor Kudicke intervened with the Gestapo and managed to get him released. Dr. Zański currently works at the National Hygiene Institute in Łódź.

I have not read Dr. Kudicke’s articles with anti-Jewish content. I have heard that when Dr. Hirszfeld asked him to intervene over the issue of the ghetto, he refused to help. Professor Hirszfeld can provide more detailed information concerning the matter.

At this point, the report was concluded and read out.