ZOFIA WILCZEWSKA

Warsaw, 20 March 1946. Judge Stanisław Rybiński, delegated to the Commission for the Investigation of German Crimes, interviewed the person named below as a witness, without an oath. The witness was advised of the obligation to speak the truth and of the criminal liability for making false declarations, and testified as follows:


Name and surname Zofia Wilczewska, née Młotowska
Parents’ names Jan and Stanisława, née Maruszewska
Date of birth 10 September 1898
Place of residence Warsaw, Mokotowska Street 52, flat 8
Occupation housewife
Education secondary school
Religious affiliation Roman Catholic
Criminal record none

I believe it is advisable to add to the testimony of my husband, Władysław Wilczewski, the following information concerning the arrest of our son, Olgierd Jerzy Walerian Wilczewski, by the Germans during a roundup, and our search for him in various concentration camps.

As I learned later on after my son had been detained, the roundup on 13 October 1943 was carried out not only by Gestapo agents, but also by Wehrmacht soldiers. Therefore, I have some hope that our son wasn’t secretly executed, but avoided being killed and was sent to work somewhere by the Germans. My hope comes from the fact that after my son was arrested by the Germans, I sent petitions to various concentration camps asking for information whether my son was there. Some camps replied to my petition and informed me that my son was not there.

I received no answer from other camps. Finally, in July 1944, I was summoned to the Gestapo office at Szucha Avenue. When I got there, a Gestapo officer (an elderly man who spoke Polish very well) told me, “I was told to give you a reprimand because you’ve been harassing us. Your son does not appear in our files.” I told him that there were secret executions, but he answered, “That’s true, sometimes people are executed in secret, but even in such cases the Gestapo knows their names.” Therefore, it could be assumed that my son was not detained by the Gestapo in Warsaw, but he could have been captured by the Wehrmacht or the Gestapo from Lublin or Radom who also carried out roundups on the streets of Warsaw.

We also tried to rescue our son in a different way. A school friend of my husband, Jan Hindemit, informed us that a German or a Volksdeutsche from Lwów named Stefan Plihal – a sculptor and architect – could arrange our son’s release thanks to his contacts. We also learned that Stefan Plihal was a secret Gestapo agent. He himself did not hide it when talking to my husband. He was an elderly man, aged 58-60, tall, slim, with grayish hair. That’s how my husband, who had met him, described his looks, because I haven’t seen him. My husband was at his apartment in the building at number 3 Wiejska Street, where he saw a lot of stylish furniture and old school paintings. Plihal told him then that he had brought those artworks from Vienna. He also claimed he was the brother of a factory owner from Łódź. My husband asked him to try to get permission for our son to come back home. Plihal promised he would do so, and still in 1943 he informed us that our son was in Majdanek. Then he promised us that our son would be released. Plihal and my husband went to Lublin, and he told my husband to pay for the expenses, and then 800 zlotys more, which he allegedly had spent for dinner with some influential person.

However, he didn’t keep his promise because our son was never returned to us. Plihal tricked my husband into paying him a total of over two thousand zlotys, allegedly not for himself, but for the expenses necessary to win over influential people. He introduced to my husband a German called Braun [?], the head of the Todt organization in Lublin, who, thanks to his contacts, was allegedly able to get our son out of Majdanek. Borman [?] promised this to my husband, received 500 zlotys, and was to receive another 10 thousand if our son returned. But all the promises came to nothing. We haven’t received any information about our son. The families of other young men who were detained with our son − Brzuziński, Karwata and Raspopin − also have had no information about them. We keep in touch with Karwat’s mother. She currently lives in Łódź, at Piotrkowska Street 28, flat 7.

The report was read out.