ADOLF FALKOWSKI

Warsaw, 7 November 1947. A member of the District Commission for the Investigation of German Crimes in Poland, Judge Halina Wereńko, heard as a witness the person specified below; the witness did not swear an oath. Having been advised of the criminal liability for making false declarations, the witness testified as follows:


Name and surname Adolf Falkowski
Parents’ names Stanisław and Leontyna née Kraszewska
Date of birth 20 October 1886 in Twer
Religious affiliation Roman Catholic
Nationality Polish
Place of residence Warsaw, Kielecka Street 48, flat 13
Education higher
Occupation psychiatrist

Before the Warsaw Uprising, I lived in the St John of God Hospital at Bonifraterska Street 12 in Warsaw. I had been a director of that hospital until 14 August 1944.

I cannot give the number of the injured who were attended to in the St John of God Hospital, as admission and discharge of patients were not my responsibility, and the number was constantly changing. There might have been 1,200–1,500 injured patients.

On about 12 August, the uprising authorities demanded the evacuation of the injured, explaining that the hospital was on the front line. On about 13 August (I don’t remember the exact date), the injured were transferred with beds to Długa Street 7, taking up the entire building of the former Ministry of Justice, and to the restaurant “Pod Krzywą Latarnią” [the Crooked Lantern]. As for the proper patients of the St John of God Hospital – people with mental illness – some were evacuated to a hospital at Freta Street 10, and some remained in the St John of God Hospital. As for the distribution of the insurgents’ hospitals in Stare Miasto, as far as I know there was a hospital at Długa Street 4 or 6, then at Podwale Street 14, 16 and 18, several hospitals on Miodowa Street, especially on the corner with Długa Street (several houses), at Freta Street 10 there was a large hospital in the St Hyacinth church. A chief hospital was to be set up on Barokowa Street, but this plan never came to fruition.

Colonel “Tarło” (i.e. Dr Tarnowski, now probably in Rabka) was the sanitary chief of Stare Miasto [Old Town], and I was a hospital inspector and as such I was visiting in total 16 places where the injured were being attended to. From among the doctors in Starówka [Old Town], I remember professor Wincenty Tomaszewicz (now in Łódź), Dr Bronisław Stroński (now probably in Radom) – both of them stayed at Długa Street 7 to the end – Dr Kołakowski (who died, I believe), Dr Krauze (a surgeon), Dr Sroczyński (now in Łódź, in a paediatric clinic), Dr Lidia Wiśniewska, a former assistant in the St John of God Hospital (now in Łódź), Dr Franciszek Szumigaj (now in Gdańsk-Wrzeszcz), Dr Kalinowski (he works now in a social insurance company), Dr Leon Uszkiewicz (now a director of the Social Department in the Ministry of Health, residing in Tworki), Dr Mockałło (now a chief of the Supplies Department in the Ministry of Health), and Dr Kazimierz Zawadzki (now in Łódź).

Dr Szumigaj, Dr Wiśniewska, Dr Uszkiewicz, professor Domaszewicz with his wife, also a doctor, and Dr K. Zawadzki stayed with the injured at Długa Street 7 up to the end.

As for the sanitary personnel, from among the Sisters of Charity from the St John of God Hospital, sister Jadwiga Paszkowska stayed with the sick to the end (she is now employed in the pharmacy of the Child Jesus Hospital in Warsaw), and also Feliksa Rozumska, a feldsher (currently lives in Warsaw). As for the patients from the hospital at Długa Street 7 who had stayed until the Germans came, Pągowski managed to avoid execution (now he is a dean in Kutno).

I left Starówka on 2 September 1944 (I am not sure of the date) and went to Śródmieście through the sewers with Dr “Tarło”, Dr Stroński, and others. In the last days of August (on about 30, 31 August and 1 September) a large number of the injured were also evacuated through these sewers.

As far as military action is concerned, I remember a German assault from Barokowa Street on the Krasiński palace, on the Security Printing Works, on the St John of God Hospital. I also heard about a German assault from the direction of Brzozowa Street (I don’t remember the dates).

I didn’t see the executions carried out by the Germans in Starówka, but I heard that they had taken place in the hospitals at Długa Street 7 and at “Pod Krzywą Latarnią”. I know from accounts of other people that there were no executions in the St John of God Hospital.

I learned from citizen Rudzińska, with whom I talked after the uprising in a Polish Red Cross shelter in Grodzisk, that Dr Jankowska, who had stayed in the St John of God Hospital, had been killed there with an air bomb just before the Germans entered the hospital. According to what my wife has said, and she was in Starówka south of Miodowa Street, it seems that the German troops that were occupying the territory where my wife was were treating Polish people better (that is, the injured were being evacuated from the hospitals on Długa Street to the south of Miodowa Street) than those German troops which were coming from the Żoliborz direction, and which, among other things, carried out the execution at Długa Street 7.

When I got through the sewers to Śródmieście, I worked with Dr Stroński in a hospital in the Japanese embassy at Pierackiego Street and in the St Roch Hospital, which had already been seized by the Germans. From there I went to the Wolski Hospital.

At this the report was closed and read out.