STANISŁAW ŁĘTOWSKI

Warsaw, 19 April 1947. Member of the Commission for the Investigation of German Crimes, Judge Halina Wereńko, interviewed the person named below as an unsworn witness. Having been advised of the criminal liability for making false declarations, the witness testified as follows:


Name and surname Stanisław Łętowski
Names of parents Franciszek and Zofia née Gryffin
Date of birth 27 November 1908, in Mińsk Litewski
Religious affiliation Roman Catholic
Place of residence Warsaw, Parkowa Street 19, flat 12
Education high-school
Occupation Head of Cabinet of the Minister of National Defence

During the German occupation I belonged to the Union of Armed Struggle and then to the Home Army under the pseudonym Mechanik. During the Warsaw Uprising, I found myself in Śródmieście. On 7 August 1944, I took command of the Śródmieście-South area until the end of August, when I transferred command to lieutenant colonel Sławbor and became his deputy. Śródmieście, divided by Aleje Jerozolimskie into a northern and southern part, constituted two closed sub-districts, North and South. Śródmieście-South consisted of several sections, named after commanders’ codenames, so Topór (west of Marszałkowska Street), Sarna (Aleje Jerozolimskie to Hoża Street and part of Książęca Street), Litwin (from Hoża Street, along Marszałkowska Street to aleja Szucha and aleja Stalina), and Kryska (Czerniaków). In the Śródmieście sub-district, there were around 9000 registered soldiers of the Home Army, around 3000 of them armed. As for other groups, there were around 600 people from the Security Corps [Korpus Bezpieczeństwa] and the Polish People’s Army [Polska Armia Ludowa], and around 400 people from the People’s Army, under Home Army command. The enemy had seized the artery from Warsaw West Station along Aleje Jerozolimskie all the way up to and including the bridge. In addition, Ukrainian [?] units were grouped near the Polytechnic and Pole Mokotowskie, where the Germans used tanks, and near Unii Lubelskiej Square, aleja Szucha, the Belweder and the Botanical Garden, from where the strongest attacks came. The enemy attack was also meant to cut us off from Czerniaków, where major Kryska was defending his positions.

Around 6 August, I personally saw a group of civilians, consisting mainly of women and young people, driven by the Germans in front of four tanks making an assault on the Polish Telephone Company [PASTA] on Piusa XI Street, with the purpose of rescuing Germans we had captured there. We managed to rescue the civilians.

The commander of the Topór section reported to me that two of our workers (I don’t remember the names) who had undertaken the job of repairing water pipes destroyed by the Germans in the interfiled, were taken captive in an unexpected attack by the Germans, who then poured petrol on them and burned them alive before the eyes of our section.

In the first days of September, the Germans started systematic burning of the houses in which insurgents had their positions, especially in the area of Nowogrodzka Street. Since the very outbreak of the uprising, the Germans strove to destroy all public utility facilities as a way of suppressing the fighting, which action was mainly directed against the non- combatant civilian population. This included cutting off water and electricity. It is illustrated by the aforementioned fact of burning alive two workers fixing the water pipes.

At that the report was concluded and read out.