LUDWIK RAJEWSKI

Warsaw, 22 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 Ludwik Rajewski
Date of birth 16 October 1900
Names of parents Jan and Kunegunda
Place of residence Warsaw, Radzymińska Street 23, flat 7
Place of birth Łódź
Religious affiliation Roman Catholic
Occupation school director
Relationship to the parties none
Criminal record none
Education University of Warsaw

Before the war, I was the director of a general education school, the lower-level secondary school [gimnazjum] and upper-level school [liceum], with Lorentz as their patron, in Warsaw, at Bracka Street 18.

Upon the capture of the Polish territories, the Germans assumed a negative attitude towards Polish education. In November 1939, we still ran schools providing general education. In that month, I received a regulation by the German administrative authorities liquidating both the secondary schools, and permitting me to run only an elementary school. We however kept the gimnazjum students in the elementary school as the eighth grade, and we organized clandestine courses for liceum students.

I was arrested on 10 May 1940 in the following circumstances:

Before 11 November [Polish national holiday –Independence Day] 1939, the German administrative authorities issued an instruction in the education office’s bulletin that classes were to take place on that date. The authorities did not issue any such order before 3 May [Polish national holiday – the anniversary of enactment of the first Polish Constitution] 1940, so we decided to celebrate this date by not organizing classes in the schools.

On 4 May 1940 I was summoned together with my colleagues to Rozbrat Street by sub- inspector Ubycz, who told us that he knew that we had celebrated that date and he asked us to sign a declaration that we used this day to redecorate the school. We signed these declarations. After a few days, we received a notification containing an order to report to the German inspectorate located in Daniłowiczowska Street for a supposed conference concerning the date of 3 May. We reported to the appointed location on 10 May 1940. A German inspector named Szwarc came and, instead of a conference, he established our personal details, released a part of us, and detained a group of twelve people, which included myself. He left the room without any explanation. A few minutes later, the Gestapo men appeared, they drove us to Pawiak prison, where we were detained until 21 September 1940 without an interrogation. On 22 September 1940, in the so-called second Warsaw transport, nine of us were sent to Auschwitz. Only in Auschwitz did I learn what they had charged me with. I was charged with participating in the resistance. As the reason for my arrest, the files contained a note: Aktion gegen die polnische Widerstandbewegung.

Before I became employed in an office in Auschwitz, where I worked as a translator, I was interrogated by the head of the so-called Polnische Abteilung, Grabuer. He stated among other things that after a few months of German occupation I should have known that there were no Polish national holidays.

Out of the nine arrested directors and headmasters, only I and one other person survived, the rest died in the camp.

Fischer is responsible for our arrest, since Inspector Szwarc was reporting directly to him.