JANINA KAŹMIERCZAK

Warsaw, 6 February 1948. Judge Halina Wereńko, a member of the District Commission for the Investigation of German Crimes, interviewed the person named below as a witness, without taking an oath. Having been advised of the criminal liability for making false declarations, the witness testified as follows:


Name and surname Janina Maria Kaźmierczak, née Lamparska
Parents’ names Stanisław and Anna, née Pzyk
Date of birth 16 March 1894, Gostynin
Place of residence Warsaw, Czerwonego Krzyża Street 14, flat 6
Religion Roman Catholic
Citizenship and nationality Polish
Education secondary school and music school
Profession teacher

When the Warsaw Uprising broke out in 1944, I was in my apartment at Senatorska Street 19 in Warsaw. Until the night of 7 August our house was occupied by the insurrectionists, who used it as a base for their operations.

On 7 August at 4.30 a German detachment entered out area, and the soldiers ordered all of the residents to leave their apartments and gather at the gate. We stood by the gate until 9.30, while the Germans fired at Daniłowiczowska Street from behind our backs. Further groups of residents from Senatorska Street were gathered up – among others, I recognised the residents of houses at Senatorska Street 17 and 10. The German soldiers found a helmet with a white and red band in the apartment of the caretaker of the house at Senatorska Street 17, and took his 17-year old son (I don’t know his surname) and shot him in the courtyard of the building. I heard the sound of a shot and then saw the boy’s body.

The women were separated from the men in the courtyard and led away to the premises of the opera. I didn’t see the group of men who had been left in courtyard again. I only met Rudolf Herman (currently residing at Szaserów Street 71, flat 5), who told me that the men had been shot dead in the courtyard of the opera. The women were kept in the basement area under the main building, where previously the municipal board had bred pigs. Some 30 women (myself included) were selected from this group and ordered to carry the bodies of a few German soldiers, on stretchers, to the Brühl Palace. A healthy German soldier placed himself on the stretcher that I was carrying and, together with the wounded, we proceeded through Theatre Square under fire from the insurrectionists in the town hall and Bielańska Street, to Wierzbowa Street, where there were German posts. Having carried away the Germans, I managed to return to the opera building where my old mother had remained. When passing through the courtyard I saw three or four bodies of men in civilian clothes, who had been shot.

Apart from our women, there were also women and children from houses in Focha, Trębacka and Senatorska Streets in the bunker. At around 17.30 I found myself in a group of some 150 women and children who were led out of the opera to Saski Square. While we were being taken out, a German soldier hit my mother over the head with his rifle butt, drawing blood. We were lined up at the point where Wierzbowa Street enters Saski Square, making us a human barricade from behind which the Germans fired across Ossolińskich Street towards Krakowskie Przedmieście Street. Saski Square was empty at the time, and I didn’t see anyone in Krakowskie Przedmieście Street. Suddenly two women, one in her underwear, ran from Fredry Street into the Square. Both were shot dead by German soldiers. After an hour, we were led away to the Saski Garden. When passing through one of the Garden’s avenues from the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier to Żelaznej Bramy Square, I saw a dozen or so male bodies in civilian clothes strewn around the grass. At the exit from the park into Żelaznej Bramy Street we were again lined up as a human barricade, in a kneeling position, and from behind us the Germans kept up a volley aimed at Królewska and Marszałkowska Streets for some half an hour. Both in Saski Square and the Saski Garden, the German detachment firing from behind our backs was not being shot upon. We were led from the Saski Garden to the Western Railway Station, from where we were transported to Pruszków.

At this point the report was brought to a close and read out.