JÓZEF MIŁOSZ

26 January 1950, Warsaw. Trainee Judge Irena Skonieczna, acting as a member of the Main Commission for the Investigation of German Crimes in Poland, interviewed the person named below, who testified as follows:


Name and surname Józef Miłosz
Date and place of birth 19 March 1910 in Warsaw
Parents’ names Stanisław and Józefa, née Zawiślak
State affiliation and nationality Polish
Religious affiliation Catholic
Education Secondary
Occupation Clerk
Place of residence Warsaw,
Father’s occupation Clerk
Criminal record None

At the moment when the Warsaw Uprising began, I was in the house at Hrubieszowska Street 7. This area remained in the hands of the insurgents only briefly. Generally, things were calm here. On 6 August 1944, the Germans, stationed in the Phillips factory at Karolkowa Street, ordered all the residents of Hrubieszowska Street and the surrounding streets to dismantle the barricades that had been erected in this area. As the people were carrying out the order, German bombers flew over and began to bomb the barricades. The greatest harm was done to those who were working at the corner of Przyokopowa and Karolkowa Streets. Six people are said to have been killed on the barricades that day. Many were wounded. The latter were put in the administrative office of our house at Hrubieszowska Street 7. They were taken care of by a doctor who had found himself in our house by chance.

Once, I don’t remember the date, the Germans stormed into our street. I heard that they had killed three men, including a sixteen year-old boy, the son of the proprietor of the shop at Hrubieszowska Street 3. The dead boy’s grandmother could provide more detailed information. She runs the vegetable shop on Przyokopowa Street, opposite Kolejowa Street.

On 13 August 1944, “Ukrainians” entered our street and told all the people to leave their houses. After the people had left, the houses were set on fire. Several dozen or so people from our house, perhaps over 40, failed to obey the order and didn’t come out. All the wounded from the office were taken away by their families who left their homes on that day. There were three sick old ladies left in the basements. I stayed there until 30 August. The number of those with whom I stayed had already been significantly reduced as the Germans were gradually evacuating people from the rubble. Throughout the time I hid with my mother, wife, daughter and several other persons in the grounds of the Klawe company. Every night, I visited the house at Hrubieszowska Street 7 in order to get something to eat and to supply food to the old ladies who had remained in the basements. One of them died of natural causes. One night, the old ladies told us that they had been pelted with grenades. Traces of the crime were still visible. The door was broken loose and the quilts were tattered. However, the women weren’t hurt. On 29 August 1944, the basement in which they were staying was set alight. One night, when we were passing by the burning basement, we heard the old ladies’ groans. Józef Kalinko (residing at Hrubieszowska Street 7, flat 52) was with me.

On 30 August 1944, we were taken by SS men from the grounds of the Klawe factory to St. Adalbert’s Church in Wola. The following day, the women and some men were transported to Pruszków, while I and the rest of the men stayed in the church until 16 October 1944. During my stay there, I was taken for different and dangerous types of work along the front line. On 16 October, I was released to join my family in the village of Patoki, Łowicz county.

In the presbytery of St. Adalbert’s Church in Wola I saw the end-product of an SS interrogation. One of the SS men told us to take a stretcher and follow him to the presbytery floor. There was a man covered in blood lying on a stretcher. In the room, in addition to a few Gestapo men, there was also another man, sitting. He was all wet. Next to him, on the ground, there was a pool of water. The man was dead. One of the Germans, speaking in perfect Polish, told us to stretcher the dead man off. We went to the courtyard of the house at Chłodna Street 33 where there was a pile of bodies that had already been set alight. The German told us to put the dead man on the pile and shot at him one more time.

At night I also saw the Germans lead Jews and insurgents out of the house that stood opposite the presbytery at Sokołowska Street. The men never returned.

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