FELIKS ZAWADZKI

On 23 March 1949 in Warsaw, a member of the Main Commission for the Investigation of German Crimes in Poland, Norbert Szuman (MA), heard the person named below as an unsworn witness. Having been advised of the criminal liability for making false declarations, the witness testified as follows:


Name and surname Feliks Zawadzki
Date and place of birth 30 August 1912, Warsaw
Names of parents Konstanty and Stanisława, née Sowińska
Occupation of the father tram driver
State affiliation and nationality Polish
Religious affiliation Roman Catholic
Education secondary commercial education
Occupation office worker
Place of residence Warsaw, Sandomierska Street 23, flat 16
Criminal record none

When the Warsaw Uprising broke out, I was in the house at Sandomierska Street 23. There were no insurgent positions in our immediate neighborhood. I saw two insurgents in our house, but – without conducting any action – on 2 August they retreated in the direction of Rejtana Street.

Until 4 August it was relatively peaceful, only the Germans from the barracks at Rakowiecka Street were shooting at the windows of our house. On 4 August at about 10.00 a.m. a column of German soldiers arrived from the direction of Puławska Street, and they scattered around Rakowiecka and Sandomierska streets. They charged into our house through the corner shop owned by Feliks Lipko. At the time I managed to hide in a stove, so I did not witness the events which I have reconstructed from accounts and inspection of the scene after the arrival of the Germans on 4 August. In the shop of Feliks Lipko the Germans threw a grenade, wounding two daughters of the owner and setting the shop on fire. On the stairs adjacent to the shop they shot Feliks Lipko, who had attempted escape. One group of Germans stormed into the staircase by the gate, murdering individual residents in their flats and on the stairs. Seven people were killed in that staircase (among others, Aleksander Wandel, Henryk Tschirschnitz, the married daughter of citizen Falęciak, and four other people whose surnames I don’t know). On the fourth floor the Germans set fire to the flats. In other staircases they did not commit any further murders, or maybe they did not enter them at all, ordering all residents to leave the house with their hands up. The men from our house were marched by the Germans to the barracks at Rakowiecka Street, and the women were allowed to go to the nearby houses which were not yet burnt out.

As far as I know, the displacement of people from the neighboring houses was carried out in a similar manner. I heard about the executions of men at Rakowiecka Street 9, Sandomierska Street 19 (more details could be provided by the Falba family, residing probably in Grabów near Pyry in the vicinity of Warsaw), and at Rakowiecka Street 15.

As for the house at Sandomierska Street 23, not all residents left it on 4 August, as some remained in hiding until the middle of August 1944. I was hiding out until 15 October. I would like to add that on 4 August I heard the desperate screams of the daughters of Feliks Lipko coming from the burning shop, which means that they were burnt alive. We buried their remains, as well as the bodies of others and other burnt remains, in the first half of August 1944 in the courtyard by the bakery.

Some time before 15 September (I cannot give an exact date), the Germans found three women, a child and a man who were hiding in the adjacent house (Sandomierska Street 21). The Germans shot the man on the spot, in the courtyard, and told the women and the child to leave their shelter.

For the entire time while I was hiding out, every day I saw smaller or bigger groups of Germans who were looting flats and, first of all, basements. I cannot tell whether these robberies were organized.

I would like to add that the Germans set our house on fire three times: once on 4 August, then in the middle of that month, and finally at the beginning of September 1944.

I saw from my lookout point on the fifth floor that some houses in the neighborhood were also set on fire several times.

On 15 October, together with Maria Zyczkowska and her daughter (who escaped from Rakowiecka Street 21 and joined me in September), I left Warsaw, getting to Pyry in the night.

At this the report was concluded and read out.