Warsaw, 23 February 1946. Judge Stanisław Rybiński, delegated to the Commission for the Investigation of German Crimes, heard the person named below as a witness. Having been advised of the criminal liability for making false declarations and of the significance of the oath, the witness was sworn and testified as follows:
| Name and surname | Anastazja Olszewska, née Kaczmarek |
| Date of birth | March 1890 |
| Parents’ names | Jan and Antonina, née Gujska |
| Occupation | rural housewife |
| Education | I can read and write |
| Place of residence | Mrozy village, Mińsk Mazowiecki county |
| Religious affiliation | Roman Catholic |
| Criminal record | none |
I have appeared at the Commission’s Office after reading an appeal posted in the newspapers. In order to prove my identity, I hereby present my identification card no. 2023 (presented).
In 1943, I lived with my only son, Stanisław Olszewski, who was then 21 years old, in the same place where I live now.
At the beginning of February that year, there was a party at the place of Stanisław Gromulski, a farmer from the neighboring village of Grodzisk. My son Stanisław went there with his friend, Wacław Lech (presently deceased). At about 2.00 a.m., I went to Grodzisk myself to bring my son home. When I arrived in Grodzisk, Lech’s mother told me that my son had been killed. However, when I came to the vicinity of Gromulski’s house, I saw my son lying by the fence. He was alive, but drunk. I got him up and took him home. He had blooded hands. He told me that Lech had kicked up a row and fled, and he got beaten. My son and I returned home.
Not a week later, my son spent the evening (until 7.00 p.m.) playing cards at our neighbors’ the Kubiaks, who currently live [illegible]. My son stayed there until 10.00 p.m. Aleksander Wójcicki from our village kept him company the entire time. When they finished playing cards, my son came back home and didn’t go out that night any more.
We woke up at about 7.30 a.m. and my son went out to the courtyard to take care of natural needs. A moment later, German gendarmes arrived at our courtyard. There were seven of them, and there were also two police officers from the Blue Police. The gendarmes and the policemen surrounded our courtyard and stopped my son as he was stepping out of the toilet. I heard him ask them, “Gentlemen, what is it about?” One of the gendarmes hit him with a club. They ordered him to go to the back of the barn. My son obediently set off in that direction, but before he reached the barn, a gendarme called Fritz shot at him from behind and wounded him in the neck. My son grabbed himself at the neck, ran a few steps and fell to the ground. The same gendarme, Fritz, came up to him and fired a shot at his back. When I came running to my son’s side, he was already dying and didn’t say anything.
I know that it was Fritz who shot at my son because my daughters saw it and told me about it.
My son died shortly afterwards, at the same spot where he had fallen.
On the same morning, the gendarmes went straight off to another village, Gójszcz, and killed Edmund Krawczyk, a 16-year-old boy. He fervently begged his tormentors to spare him, but all he got was more torture at the hands of the gendarmes, who broke his arms, one leg and fingers. Krawczyk’s parents, his father Bolesław and his mother, live in Gójszcz.
Both murders were committed on Friday, 12 February 1943. Next the gendarmes and policemen went to the village of Grodzisk, as the gendarmes wanted to kill one more young man – Stanisław Gromulski – a relative of the farmer who had thrown the party the week before. One of the policemen (Sergeant Józef Krzymowski) dissuaded them from doing it, explaining that Gromulski was a farmer and delivered his quotas in a timely fashion. This saved him. Nevertheless, the gendarmes gave him a sound beating.
The week before, just as my son, Stanisław Gromulski had attended the party thrown by his relative and namesake. Some quarrel broke out between my son and Stanisław Gromulski on the one side and the Gromulskis on the other.
A few days later the wife of Gromulski who had thrown the party, Waleria Gromulska, went with her husband to the gendarmerie station and said that there had been an armed robbery at their house on the night of 11/12 February, and that there were about 12 robbers. Waleria Gromulska and her husband Stanisław Gromulski declared that they had recognized all of the armed attackers and gave the names and surnames of the alleged robbers. Among others, they gave the surnames of my son Stanisław, Edmund Krawczyk, and Stanisław Gromulski. They gendarmes didn’t want to intervene at first, but when on their demand, the Gromulskis signed the report, they decided to take action. They came to the village and murdered first my son, and then Krawczyk.
I don’t know whether there was a robbery at Gromulskis’ house that night. Their immediate neighbor, Józef Gałązka, didn’t hear anything. They must have come up with the robbery to avenge themselves on people against whom they held a grudge.
I don’t know what grudge they could have borne against my son. My son didn’t tell me anything about that. Apart from Fritz, I knew the following German gendarmes who killed my son: Rupik, Pita, Sztejna. I don’t remember any others except for Gosztow, who was the most senior in rank. As for the Blue Police, apart from Sergeant Krzymowski, there was Police Officer Majszowski.
When the Russians and Poles arrived, the gendarmes fled, and so did Krzymowski. Majszowski, in turn, was killed by the organization in the summer of 1943. Stanisław and Waleria Gromulski – the informers – moved out of Grodzisk and now live in the village of Szymony, in Chrościce commune.
Immediately after my son’s death I went to the parish priest in Mrozy and asked him to make Waleria Gromulska and her husband swear that they had recognized my son among the attackers. Gromulskis didn’t agree to swear. Instead, together with 11 other people, I swore in the church that our sons – alleged robbers – were home that night when the robbery had reportedly been committed. Apart from my son, Krawczyk, and Stanisław Gromulski, the Gromulskis also accused Wacław Gójski, Adamczak, and Stanisław Mlecz – all from Gójszcza.
For this reason, Adamczak and Mlecz spent three months in prisons in Mińsk Mazowiecki and Warsaw.
Apart from me, my neighbor Franciszek Jankowski can confirm that on the night of the alleged robbery at Gromulskis’ house in Grodzisk, my son was at home in Mrozy. The same will be stated by witness Władysław Milewski, who currently resides not in Mrozy, but in Olszowice, Chrościce commune, Mińsk Mazowiecki county, and his wife Marta Milewska, and Zofia Burakowska, currently residing in Kałuszyn, just as Feliks Żarnowski, who should also be heard by the Commission.
The report was read out.