STEFAN JAKUBOWSKI

Warsaw, 23 April 1948. Judge Halina Wereńko, a member of the Warsaw District Commission for the Investigation of German Crimes in Poland, interviewed the person specified below as an unsworn witness. Having been advised of the criminal liability for making false declarations, the witness testified as follows:

My name is Stefan Jakubowski, son of Tomasz and Ewa n ée Grodek, born on 16 August 1902

in the village of Ułęż, Puławy district, of Roman Catholic faith, a graduate of three grades of Russian school, the caretaker of the house at aleja Na Skarpie 1 in Warsaw, residing at the above address, flat 12.

On 1 December 1942, the residents of the houses at aleja Na Skarpie 1 and Dworkowa Street 3 in Warsaw were evicted. Soon afterwards, the residents of the houses at Dworkowa Street 5 and 1 were displaced. At that time, I was the boiler man of the house at aleja Na Skarpie 1 and I was retained for that reason. The houses were taken over by a Kreis Polizei gendarmerie unit who wore light green uniforms with light brown collar facings. The same gendarmerie unit remained in Warsaw for five weeks of the 1944 Uprising. Between 1 and 9 September 1944, the command of the unit transferred to Sochaczew. During the Uprising and six months prior to it, the commandant of the Warsaw district gendarmerie was Major Göde (around 2 meters tall, medium fair-haired, stout, with a wide, florid face, a dimple in the chin and a wide nose). In the middle of August (I do not remember the exact date), Göde went to Sochaczew. He had his quarters in the house at Dworkowa Street 1. Bischer, a Schafft Captain, deputized for him. Initially, he lived at Willowa Street 13, and then, from the beginning of the Uprising, at Dworkowa Street 3. He was a slim, brown haired man with an aquiline nose and keen eyes, around 30 years of age. He was with the unit for the duration of its stay in the house at Dworkowa Street 3. A few months before the Uprising, Lieutenant Lipscher (a plump, carroty man of average height, with freckles, around 50 years of age) took up residence in the house at aleja Na Skarpie 1. In the house at Dworkowa Street 3 lived Lieutenant Bryle, a tall, pale, handsome brown-haired man, around 35 years of age; he was in Warsaw with the unit for the duration of its stay.

As regards the gendarmes, I remember Malicki, a Volksdeutscher from Warsaw. I heard that before he joined the gendarmerie, Malicki worked at the City Gardens (he was a brown- haired man of average height, with a round face, around twenty-something years of age). Malicki is known to the villagers of Powsinek because a group of local farmers was once detained by that gendarmerie unit in connection with some administrative issues. I do not know the names of those detained.

During the first days of the Uprising (I do not remember the exact date), I climbed the embankment and I saw the corpses of seven women and three or four men lying at the foot of the steps leading from Dworkowa Street to Belwederska Street. People told me that on the previous day, the gendarmes from the local unit had executed a group of civilians. Out of the survivors, I personally know Wacław Przybysz, who is currently employed at the Ministry of Supplies.

Before the Uprising, the Schutz Polizei unit in our neighborhood was stationed in Willowa Street, while during the Uprising, they were in the vocational school at Grottgera Street.

On 27 September 1944 in the morning (on the day of the capitulation of Mokotów), in Dworkowa Street, opposite number 5, near the hoarding surrounding the yard where a bazaar is located, I saw a group of around 20 men and 14 women kneeling, their hands in the air. I saw a man in grey clothes, with stars on his sleeve and a white and red sign on his forage cap, being marched by SS-men, his hands in the air. They took him to the courtyard at Dworkowa Street 3. I saw a lot of Germans standing there and I heard their laughs. I saw how they beat up the man. Later, I learnt that groups of insurgents which came out of the sewer at Dworkowa Street 3, by the stairs, and at Puławska Street 24/28, were taken to the hoardings. They were executed by SS-men from the unit stationed at Puławska Street 24/28.

In the evening, as I was being escorted from work, I saw over one hundred corpses of men and four corpses of women lying by the fence at Dworkowa Street 5. An SS non- commissioned officer and an SS-man (I could tell that they were with the unit stationed in Puławska Street) walked among the bodies and finished off the wounded with revolvers. On the orders of the Germans, a group of men from our street buried the bodies on the hill, in the yard where the bazaar is now. One of those who buried the bodies was Górecki, a tailor (currently residing at Puławska 4), who told me that 150 men and 4 women had been buried. Apart from Górecki, those who buried the corpses included Fidzikowski (resident of Promenada Street 2, flat 23), Kisielewski (he has emigrated to the West) and the caretaker of the house at Willowa Street 13, whose name I do not know.

At this point the report was concluded and read out.