MARIA BRYŁA

Warsaw, 13 June 1946. Deputy Prosecutor Zofia Rudziewicz interviewed the person named below as a witness. The witness, having been advised of the criminal liability for giving false testimony, testified as follows:


Name and surname Maria Bryła née Tustanowska
Date of birth 8 July 1892
Names of parents Wiktor and Julia
Place of residence Bródek, near Warsaw
Place of birth Vienna
Religious affiliation Roman Catholic
Occupation farmer
Education secondary school and a conservatory in Krakow
Criminal record none

I am the widow of a professor of the Warsaw Polytechnic, Stefan Bryła. My husband was murdered by the Germans during the war.

He was arrested for the first time in November 1942, in a flat at Noakowskiego Street 10. Gestapo men came and took him to Pawiak prison, from which he was released after a month. My husband told me that he had been asked whether he was familiar with any underground organizations.

The second arrest took place in November 1943. The Gestapo men burst into our flat at midnight, they ordered me, my husband, my daughter Maria (aged 21), my mother, our maid and our tenant, Miss Bogdanowicz, to sit on chairs and not to move or they would shoot us.

The Gestapo men carried out a search, and then an officer announced that he was arresting us. To my question whether they had found anything incriminating, he told me that they had not, but that was the order he had. Apart from my mother (an old lady of eighty) and the maid, we were all taken to aleja Szucha. Once there, we were joined with a group of Poles arrested that night. Over thirty people were loaded onto a truck and transported to Pawiak prison. I was separated from my husband there. My daughter and I were interviewed after a few days. We were asked whether my husband belonged to any organization, and whether any meetings had been organized at our place. We were not beaten during the interrogation, but other female prisoners were tortured. One of our fellow inmates came back from an interrogation all battered, she had been beaten with truncheons on her naked body. My daughter, the tenant, and I were released after a month. My husband never came back. I found his name on a poster with the names of hostages executed in retaliation for a few Germans who had been killed. The poster had been signed by the head of the SS-Polizei.

I don’t remember whether the name of that man was stated there.