ANNA OTTO

Warsaw, 19 May 1947. A member of the District Commission for the Investigation of German Crimes in Warsaw, 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 Anna Otto, née Block, a widow
Parents’ names Feliks and Teofilia, née Laskowska
Date of birth 26 July 1901, Łuków Lubelski
Religious affiliation Roman Catholic
Place of residence Warsaw, Czerniakowska Street 126a, flat 38
Education Faculty of Roman Philology
Occupation assistant at the State Zoological Museum

Before the war, I was employed as a secretary at the National Zoological Museum in Warsaw at Wilcza Street 64. In October 1939, I was at the museum. At the end of October or at the beginning of November, some Germans came to the museum and talked to the museum director, Jaczewski. I was not present during that conversation. The next day, a truck with German police arrived, and they took away collections from the museum. The truck came back several times.

While they were taking the collections away, I went out to the hall and saw Associate Professor Jaczewski talking to a German officer and a German dressed in civilian clothes. That German asked me if Dr. Dunajewski, a famous ornithologist (who later died in the Warsaw Uprising), was present. He also said that he had exchanged scientific letters with Dunajewski.

I don’t speak German very well, so I don’t know the details of the conversations between the Germans and Mr. Jaczewski.

I don’t know what exactly was taken away from the museum. I heard about microscopes and a bison.

I don’t remember what the Germans looked like and who took the collections, and I don’t know their names.

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