SERGIUSZ NOŻKIN

Warsaw, 26 July 1949. A member of the Main Commission for the Investigation of German Crimes in Poland, Norbert Szuman (MA), interviewed the person named below as a witness, who, having been advised of the criminal liability for making false declarations, testified as follows:


Name and surname Sergiusz Nożkin
Date and place of birth 7 October 1917, Petrozavodsk, Russia
Parents’ names Aleksander and Wiera, née Lesiuk
Religion Orthodox
Education elementary school
Citizenship and nationality Polish
Father’s occupation blacksmith, railwayman
Occupation clerk
Place of residence Warsaw, Puławska Street 38, flat 36
Criminal record none

When the Warsaw Uprising broke out, I was in my house at Puławska Street 38. Right up until 4 August 1944 our area was fired upon by the Germans, whose nearest forces were located in the turret on the odd-numbered side of Puławska Street, opposite Grażyny Street. Grażyny and Olesińska streets were occupied by the insurgents. On the morning of 4 August the insurgents withdrew to Różana Street. Around noon that day, a German tank with SS-men and German police, stationed in the post office building on Dworkowa Street, drove up to our house at the corner of Puławska and Grażyny streets. (I recognized them by their uniforms and insignia). The tank fired twice at our house, more or less at the height of the third floor. This caused the residents to run down to the basement.

I would like to stress that apart from the regular residents, our house also functioned as a shelter for people whom the outbreak of the Uprising had taken by surprise in the street, and for the tenants of other houses in Puławska Street, located between Grażyny Street and Olesińska Street. These houses had been burned down already on the second day of the Uprising.

SS-men entered our courtyard and ordered all the men to come out of the basement. They led them to the corner of Olesińska and Puławska streets. They instructed the men to take out their identity cards and proceed with their arms raised, holding the cards in their hands. We stood against the wall. A machine gun had been set up on the opposite side of Olesińska Street, and a crew was lying alongside. After some time the Germans brought the women from our house, and also some of the residents from other houses on Olesińska Street, to our group. It looked as if the Germans wanted to shoot all of us. After a while, however, a German officer walked out into Olesińska Street and ordered all the civilians to be led to the courtyards of the houses at nos. 5 and 7. I was taken to number 7. Next, the Germans forced all of the people into the basement. I stood behind the kitchen door in the flat located in the basement. The Germans started throwing grenades into the flat. I was crushed by the door. I was not wounded: only my hair was singed and, due to the force of the explosion, blood was flowing from my ear. I and a few other men jumped out of the basement. The Germans had left the courtyard. While exiting the basement, I was wading knee-deep in blood and human bodies. We then ran up to the attic. We smashed a hole in the wall joining the house at Grażyny Street. In this way we managed to escape from the building, which had been set on fire by the Germans. We informed the people in the basement about the hole that we had made. In this way a great many people managed to save themselves from death. Even the severely wounded were carried out through that hole; they were placed in the house at Grażyny Street 6 or 8 – I don’t know which number exactly.

I am unable to state how many people perished in the basement of the house at no. 7 Olesińska Street. I do know, however, that a great many must have died – more than 50, I would guess. I know that an exhumation was performed in this area in the spring of 1945.

The female caretaker of our house, whose current surname I do not know, was one of the few people known personally to myself who survived this execution. She bore the surname Lewandowska after her first husband, and continues to work as the caretaker of the house at Puławska Street 38.

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