WŁADYSŁAW SIEROSZEWSKI

Warsaw, 25 September 1947. A member of the District Commission for the Investigation of German Crimes in Warsaw, Judge Halina Wereńko, heard the witness mentioned below without an oath. After being warned about the criminal liability for giving false testimony and the obligation to speak the truth, the witness testified as follows:

Władysław Sieroszewski, known in the case.

From the middle of August 1944 until the capitulation of Warsaw, I was the head of the Home Army Justice Service of the Warsaw District, and from the beginning of September until the capitulation I was also the Head of the Home Army Justice Service. Within the scope of my duties, I was sometimes present at some interrogations of German prisoners of war by the Second Division or by the Home Army military gendarmerie. Due to my position, I also had access to most of the reports arriving at the District Headquarters, although this wasn’t within my area of duty.

Although in this period (this was after 15 August) the mass executions of the civilian population had ceased, reports coming from the sections that the insurgent troops had been forced to leave (the Old Town, Powiśle) indicated that the insurgents, both those taken prisoner and those still armed, were still being shot, as well as the wounded lying in hospitals and people merely suspected of having taken part in the fighting, even doctors and nurses. The German prisoners of war generally didn’t deny these facts (such as the murders in the hospitals on Długa, Bonifraterska and Barokowa Street), but they always insisted primo that they hadn’t personally taken part in any of it, but that the executions were carried out by the SS and the Ukrainians; secundo that the executions were carried out on orders from the top.

No order was found on any of the prisoners of war ordering the insurgents to be treated as prisoners of war. Even after the insurgents were recognized by the Allies as combatants (the end of August) and the German statement that they considered the Home Army an enemy army (this, as I remember, took place in the first half of September), the execution of the insurgents continued. Among other things, many insurgents from the Czerniaków area remaining in this district (Czerniakowska, Wilanowska and Zagórna) were murdered in this way during the liquidation period (15–20 September). The last group execution, about which reports were sent to Śródmieście, took place on Dworkowa Street on 28 September. A division of insurgents (I don’t recall in what strength) trying to get from Wiktorska or Belgijska Street to Śródmieście, either got lost or encountered obstacles that could not be overcome and went up through the manhole on Dworkowa Street, near the fortified gendarmerie station (I think it was the Feld-Gerdamerie). When most of the insurgents had come out, some light machine gun rounds were fired accompanied by screams and shouts. Several insurgents who were at the end moved back into the drains and after a few hours of wandering brought these messages to Śródmieście.

When I was in captivity, Captain Sas-Korczynski, who as a translator had taken part in the negotiations for the capitulation of Warsaw, told me that during these conversations our side asked what guarantees we had that the massacre from Dworkowa Street would not happen again. The Germans didn’t deny the event per se, but they only claimed that it was still before the Mokotów capitulation, and in any case, that the message of the surrender had not yet reached the units at Dworkowa Street, and that "the insurgents had put up resistance" when they attempted to disarm them.

The responsibility for this massacre falls on Gen. Geibla, who led this section. The responsibility for killing people in the area of the General Inspectorate of the Armed Forces also falls on him.

During the uprising we didn’t know of the fate of the people who fell on Szucha Avenue; there were only rumors that [these people] had been murdered and incinerated enmasse.

The Ochota area was under the command of Gen. Rohr (or Hohr) who was quartered in the halls of residence. One of his subordinates (at least in the first period of the fighting) was the famous Kamiński. I suppose Rohr is responsible for organizing the Zieleniak, although I doubt that he would have dealt with it personally, because he tended to be concerned with purely military matters. I am quoting here information about German generals from fragments of situational reports from "Division Two", which have stuck in my memory. I think that it should be crosschecked with data from the German side. Aviation activity indicates that it was used extremely purposefully and deliberately to destroy district after district. They had to be in close contact with the command of the German troops fighting in Warsaw, because despite the confusion between Polish positions and German ones, air bombs were only once dropped on a German position (the YMCA on Konopnicka Street).

From the roof of the house at Wawelska Street 60, and then from the roof of the PKO, and finally from the roof of a house at Śniadeckich Street, I saw air attacks diving on Wola (3–8 August), the Old Town (the second half of August), Śródmieście Północ (3–6 September), Śródmieście Południe (6–14 September), and Czerniaków (mid-September). During the period of intense bombardment of the Napoleon Square area (the beginning of September), I saw eighteen planes diving simultaneously. After the capture of Praga by the Polish-Soviet troops, the scheduled air attacks ceased, but from time to time there would appear three or four planes flying very low above the roofs and, after dropping their bombs any old how, they quickly turned back. Regarding the participation of the so-called rail division in the bombardment of Warsaw, their first missiles—if I recall correctly—fell on Śródmieście at the end of August. The sound of the projectile resembled a very fast and low flying plane, it was much quieter and slower than a 22 or 28 cm bullet. I personally didn’t see any misfires from these missiles, but I talked with pyrotechnic officers who inspected them and told me that the projectile was 50 or 60 cm in diameter (I don’t remember exactly) and about two meters in height.

If the air raids and bombings of Wola – and then the Old Town – over a certain period could be justified by military considerations, then the air and artillery attacks (also with the help of the so-called "smoke mortars") on districts such as Śródmieście Północ (between Marszałkowska and Towarowa), Śródmieście Południe, or Powiśle could only have been aimed to murder and terrorize the population. The Germans had excellent intelligence and knew full well that the insurgent troops in these districts were located in regions closest to the front—where the Germans didn’t use air raids, heavy artillery and "smoke mortars" for fear of harming their own units, limiting these sections to heavy machine guns, mortars and tanks.