ANTONINA MAGDZIŃSKA

Warsaw, 11 March 1946. Investigating Judge Halina Wereńko, delegated to the Commission for the Investigation of German Crimes, interviewed the person named below as a witness. The witness was advised of the criminal liability for making false declarations and of the significance of the oath. The judge took an oath from the witness, who then testified as follows:


Name and surname Antonina Magdzińska, née Waldal
Parents’ names Michał and Marianna
Date of birth 15 May 1897, Marianka, Piotrków District
Occupation receives a pension as a widow of a laborer
Education illiterate
Place of residence Warsaw, Brodzińskiego Street 10, flat 1
Marital status widow
Religious affiliation Roman Catholic
Criminal record none

During the German occupation, I lived, just as I do now, in Żoliborz, at Brodzińskiego Street 10, flat 1, together with my husband, Ksawery Magdziński (born on 23 November 1897 in Warsaw). Before the war, my husband worked as a laborer in the Labor Fund. During the occupation, he worked for some time in Fort Bema, and from May 1942 he was unemployed.

At the end of July 1942 – I don’t remember the exact date – there was a street roundup in Żoliborz, carried out – according to what I heard – to provide laborers to work at building trenches in Russia. During the roundup, the streets were surrounded by the gendarmerie, whose patrols also entered apartments. The gendarmes took my husband from our apartment.

On 18 September 1942, having been released from the hospital, my husband returned home, seriously ill. His whole body was swollen, he had no energy, and he was not able to climb stairs by himself. The next day, on 19 September, he died.

He told me that the Germans had made him dig trenches on the Russian front. He was not able to say anything else because of his poor health. He told me that he would lie down, have some rest, and then tell me everything, but he died the next day. A friend of my husband, Wilanowski, who died in the Warsaw Uprising, told me that he worked with my husband on the Russian front. He told me that the Germans treated Polish laborers very badly – they would beat them, starve them, pressure them to work, and if someone had no energy, he was beaten to death. Many of the Polish laborers died on the spot, many returned in poor health.