ALFREDA OSMÓLSKA

3 April 1950, Warsaw. Judge [no surname], 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 Alfreda Osmólska, née Pilitowska
Date and place of birth 31 March 1910, in Warsaw
Parents’ names Wincenty and Maria, née Adamska
Father’s profession cobbler
State affiliation and nationality Polish
Religious affiliation Catholic
Education secondary
Occupation clerk
Place of residence Warsaw, Obozowa Street 81, flat 5
Criminal record none

At the moment when the Warsaw Uprising began, I was in the house at Obozowa Street 74. At that time I worked, as I still do, in the administration of our housing estate. For this reason I took an interest in what was happening to its residents during the Uprising. The second floor of the house at no. 85 became home to a hospital run by a doctor who, in performing this duty, relied on the assistance of the administrator’s wife, Władysława Marynowska, now living in Łódź, and the head of the kindergarten, Zofia Bojakowska, who now lives in Sopot. There were more than twenty wounded people in the hospital, both civilians and insurgents.

On the first day of the Uprising, the Germans fired on our area from the building known as “Naftówka”, situated between the railway track linking the Western Railway Station with the Gdański Railway Station, and the Powązki cemetery. The housing estate was also fired upon from the school occupied by the Germans at Ożarowska Street (if I remember rightly). The insurgents had to withdraw from the area as early as the evening of 1 August 1944. That day two men, Stanisław Łokietek and Staniszewski, were killed while returning home. My friend Danuta Czubała, who now lives in WSM (the Warsaw Housing Cooperative) at Szustra Street and works in its administration, told me that in the evening of 1 August she had seen the Germans from the school, assisted by some Germans from Boernerowo, probably airmen, “liquidate” the insurgents who had launched an attack on the school from the Folk House. After setting the house on fire (I saw the fire), the Germans picked a dozen or so men from some houses on Zawisza Street, near the clay pits. From her house window, Danuta Czubała saw the Germans leading the men to the clay pits. She didn’t see the execution itself. After the Uprising, the exhumation of the victims of this execution was carried out by their families, and the list of identified bodies was sent to the PCK (Polish Red Cross).

On 7 August the Germans ordered everyone to leave the housing estate. Some of the residents went to nearby villages and some remained. After a few days, some of those who had left returned. Around 10 August we had to close down the hospital, as the Germans had learned about it and we were afraid that they might want to liquidate it themselves. The wounded were taken care of by the residents of the housing estate.

On 15 August, the Germans drove around our area in a car equipped with loudspeakers and called for the residents to go to St. Adalbert’s Church in Wola. This place served as a rallying point for the whole city. Those who obeyed the order were – if they didn’t manage to escape – taken to the transit camp in Pruszków, from where they were deported to Germany. The rest of the people from our housing estate went to nearby villages.

No other crimes were committed in our area during the Uprising.

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