JANINA MISIEWICZ

Warsaw, 3 June 1946. Deputy Prosecutor Zofia Rudziewicz interviewed the person specified below as a witness. Having been advised of the criminal liability for making false declarations, the witness testified as follows:


Name and surname Janina Misiewicz
Date of birth 12 December 1893
Names of parents Władysław and Zofia
Place of residence Warsaw, Płocka Street 26
Occupation doctor, director of the Wolski Hospital [Szpital Wolski]
Religious affiliation Roman Catholic
Criminal record none
Education Medical Institute for Women in Petersburg

From the outbreak of the war in 1939 up to 12 January 1940 I held the function of the director of the Wolski Hospital, and then I returned to being a head of a ward in this hospital. From 1943 I was at the same time the head of a ward and the deputy director of the hospital. After Director Piasecki was killed on 5 August 1944, I became the director of the Wolski Hospital.

During the 1939 siege of Warsaw, the Germans were dropping incendiary bombs from low-flying planes onto the hospital, despite the fact that they knew perfectly well that they were bombing a hospital. After the German civil administration authorities had been established, supervision over the Polish hospital system was exercised by Doctor Schrempf, Amtsarzt, Leist’s man, indirectly subordinated to the district. One of the first regulations aimed at curbing the doctors’ work in the hospital was a prohibition against carrying out research in the hospital and holding scientific councils. As far as I remember, this regulation was sent to us by the Polish department of hospitals, which was dependent on Schrempf’s regulations.

During the first days after the Germans’ entry, the German civil administration authorities ordered all hospital employees to fill out questionnaires concerning their Aryan descent; Jewish doctors were removed from the hospitals. A head of a ward, Doctor Anastazy Landau, was removed from our hospital.

The Germans prohibited admitting Jews to Polish hospitals under […] and under personal responsibility of the heads of particular departments. Jewish patients were to be immediately transferred to the Jewish hospital.

Patients did not receive enough food throughout the war. As far as I remember, the daily calorie count per patient was estimated during the years 1942–1944 as being equal to between one thousand and one thousand four hundred calories, whereas before the war this count was equal to around three thousand.

When the uprising broke out, I was Director Piasecki’s deputy. We were acting as if we were exterritorial, in accordance with the Geneva Convention. In particular we (both the hospital administration and the patients) were watchful that no armed person should be on the hospital grounds and that no-one would be shooting. The hospital admitted all patients, insurgents as well as Germans.

On 5 August 1944, a troop of Vlasov’s men under the command of German SS officers burst into the hospital. Some of these officers had skull-and-crossbones [badges] on their caps, and others the SS [badge] on the lapels. Everyone, both staff and patients, were gathered in the hall on the ground floor and herded to Moczydło Street. On the way, the Germans were taking away our watches and fountain pens. We sat in a large factory hall until 6 p.m., when all men were ordered to step forward and were taken out of the hall. I learned from one of the survivors, Jan Napiórkowski (an assistant in the Internal Diseases Clinic of the University of Warsaw, in the Transfiguration of the Lord Hospital [szpital Przemienienia Pańskiego] in Praga), that all the men were executed by the Germans. Napiórkowski, who managed to escape, claimed that the execution was carried out by Volksdeutschen in civilian clothing under SS command. From Doctor Zbigniew Woźniewski (the Wolski Hospital) I learned that even before we were taken out of the hospital, Director Piasecki, the chaplain – Father Ciecierski (wearing a surplice and a stole), and Professor Janusz Zeyland had been killed in the director’s office. The murder was committed by German SS officers, who shot the victims in the backs of their heads. Doctor Woźnicki told me that on the day following the murder, some German military doctor had come to the hospital, and having learned that Professor Zeyland was dead, said that the latter was supposed to have been saved by the Germans, which may indicate that these killings had been planned in advance.

All people left in Moczydło were, on the following day, herded to the Wola fort and there released into the Jelonki settlement.

Having expelled the staff, the Vlasovtsy stole a lot of linens and furnishings from the hospital. They were followed by German doctors, who took away an X-ray machine, a microscope, separators, typewriters, counting machines and telephones.

I must emphasize that after the entire personnel and most of the patients had been expelled from the hospital, around ninety patients remained in the hospital, since they were unable to move, and they were left by the Germans without any care or protection.