Warsaw, 10 May 1946. I, Antoni Knoll, municipal judge delegated to the Main Commission for the Investigation of German Crimes in Poland, interviewed Kamilla Aszkołajtis as a witness, and she testified as follows:
Kamilla Aszkołajtis, daughter of Kalasanty and Emilia Wilkoniec, born on 29 September 1888 in Ejwuńce, Lida county, housewife, residing at Chochołowska Street 12.
Already a few days before the outbreak of the Warsaw Uprising and during the first seven days of it, the Germans who were guarding the Czerniaków Fort began to remove all papers and some parcels from there. A few days after the outbreak of the uprising they were no longer removing the papers but burning them on the spot. Approximately seven days after the outbreak of the uprising, the Germans left the fort altogether and for three to five days there were no military troops whatsoever in the garden city of Czerniaków, neither Germans nor insurgents. After that period, at night, insurgent troops arrived and installed themselves on the top floors of the residential buildings on Podhalańska, Chochołowska, Ojcowska, Okrężna and other streets; moreover they seized the Czerniaków Fort itself.
For almost three weeks there was complete calm, disturbed only by single, relatively rare machine gunfire shots; sometimes German or Russian airplanes would also come flying by, and at night reportedly even English ones, but the German airplanes did not drop any bombs.
On 30 August 1944, German airplanes came flying again and started strafing the entire district with machine gunfire. This started at 9 or maybe 9.30 a.m. and continued for thirty minutes up to an hour. The insurgent troops did not respond. On the following day, at the same time, German airplanes returned and again opened fire at the houses and dropped small bombs, as a result of which a few houses were demolished. The insurgents started firing back from that day on, but to a relatively small extent. On 1 September 1944 a similar air raid took place, and at the same time German patrols started entering the area of Czerniaków garden city. One of these patrols, numbering three soldiers, came down Ojcowska Street from the direction of Służew and stopped in front of the house where I lived with my family, and where I live now.
The insurgents were not shooting at these patrols. Finally, the patrol that I have mentioned opened fire at our house with a machine gun. Then the insurgents tried to surround them and take them captive, but the Germans realized what was happening and ran away.
I should note that the insurgents entered our house and the neighbouring houses and ordered the residents to move to the basements. There must have been fighting during the night from 1 to 2 September 1944, since in the basement I was constantly hearing shooting, which ceased only early in the morning. At around 9 a.m. German airplanes came flying over again and started dropping bombs in considerable numbers. At around 10 a.m. tanks appeared, launching an attack against the insurgent troops, which continued until approximately 12 p.m. After that time the shooting in the vicinity of our house ceased. German soldiers came into our courtyard; as I later realized, they were airmen (I recognized their markings), young boys between 18 and 25 years old, and without entering the house they started yelling “ Raus!” In response to this call everyone left the basements. Only two people remained: Maria Zawadzka, who was so paralysed that she could neither walk nor speak, and a man named Mieczysław Szumowicz, a converted żydek [kike], who had been hiding in our house.
Zawadzka was killed on 3 September 1944, and Szumowicz survived, and he lives, I believe, in Łódź. His address can be provided by his brother-in-law, Laskowiecki, employed at Robotnik.
After [we] left the basement, the Germans took us to the garden of citizen Biskupska at Podhalańska Street 24 and lined all of us, that is nine people, namely myself, Kamilla Aszkołajtis, Doctor […] Żakowicz, his wife Anna, a colonel’s wife Wanda Surówka, her mother Gruszecka, Larysa Szumowicz (wife of Mieczysław, mentioned above), her sister Anna Laskowiecka, a cousin of citizen Kalacińska, whose surname I don’t know, and a man named Wacław, whose surname I don’t recall, up against a hedge. Then the Germans searched us superficially, taking away a wristwatch from Mrs. Surówka and beating “Wacław” up. Having completed the search, the Germans started to step back, reloading their weapons.
Laskowiecka, who spoke German well, started pleading with them to take us [prisoner] andnot to shoot us. In response we were told that the military had been ordered to execute everyone with machine guns and then to throw grenades at them. Laskowiecka translated this reply into Polish. Having heard this reply, Doctor Żakowicz got down on his knees and started pleading with them to take us to a camp or to forced labor, but to spare our lives. Tothat, I believe, the Germans gave no reply and opened fire on us. We all fell to the ground. Having fired, they threw grenades. One of the fragments wounded my left palm. I have a bullet wound (my right forearm was shot through) and a wound over my eye. When I came round I heard children crying in the next house and then a volley. After that it got quiet again. Then the Germans moved on to a third house, again there was crying, including children’s, and then a volley of shots. After this last volley, you could still hear shots, but from afar.
The following persons died in the neighboring houses: Mazalewski with his wife and two children, his mother-in-law and two sisters-in-law; at number 25 Podhalańska Street thefollowing people died: Gołębiowska with her sister and two children, Kowalski with his wife and a small son, Weronika Czarnecka, Maria Orłowska, Grudziński and a number of other persons, thirty-three in total, whose names I don’t know or don’t remember. I learned from notary Żynowicz, residing at Podhalańska Street 25, that he had found the corpses of eight naked women whose arms were tied with barbed wire buried behind the house he lives in. In front of house number 23 on Podhalańska Street the following persons, among others, died in the same manner: Mrs. Sołtysiak and the two Kamińskis [he and she]. In Klarysewska Street, thirty-three people were executed, among them a professor of the Academy of Fine Arts, Połykalski (?), with his wife and children, Baran with his family, Kamaszewski with his wife, daughter, and three-year-old granddaughter.
When the shooting subsided, I crawled under the hedge, where I hid for fear that the Germans would come back and kill me. After thirty minutes or so, I noticed that people with bundles were walking down Podhalańska Street in the direction of Służewiec, so I joined them. When we got to Służewiec, we were rounded up behind a brick wall, where there were already around a thousand people. We were kept there until nightfall. The wounded were put on carts (but only those who were not able to walk on their own) and herded into the horse racetrack grounds. It was already dark by then. I didn’t get any food. In the morning we were marched towards the camp in Pruszków. Having walked a kilometer and a half, I felt weak in my knees and sat down by the road. A soldier from the escort saw me and ordered me to keep walking.
I told him that I did not have the strength anymore and that he should kill me. The soldier just shrugged, said something in German which I didn’t understand, and pointed in the direction of some lupine growing nearby. From his gesture I figured that he wanted me to hide in the lupine, so I did this right away, and the soldier moved on. After a short while a group of four people with a white flag came by. I asked them to take me with them. Together we got to thevillage of Wyczółki, where local women dressed my arms and head. The German headquarters were in the manor house and there was a doctor there. I was sent to him. He dressed my wounds properly and asked me where I had gotten hurt. I told him that I had been working at thetrenches and had gotten injured there. The doctor ordered me to go back to the village, to the village head, and instruct the head, on his behalf, that is on the doctor’s, to have me transported to Pruszków. I did not go to the village head, however, but into the house of citizen Rutkowska, who advised me against going to Pruszków and took care of me herself. Since thefollowing day my condition got worse, I went to the doctor in Pyry, who in turn sent me to the hospital in Piaseczno, where I stayed until 22 September 1944. After I recovered, I took up residence in Służew, whence, after the Polish army entered Warsaw, I returned to thehouse on Chochołowska Street. I stress that the eight people who left the house with me and whose names I have indicated above, were killed. I don’t know anything else about this case.
At that the report was concluded, read out and signed.
I additionally testify that while being executed, we faced the execution squad, standing five or six meters away from us, and were not blindfolded.