MARIA GOETZE

On 15 February 1946 in Warsaw Associate Judge Antoni Krzętowski, delegated to the Warszawa-Miasto Branch of the Main Commission for the Investigation of German Crimes, interviewed the person specified below as a witness, without taking an oath. The witness was advised of the obligation to speak the truth and of the criminal liability for making false declarations, and testified as follows:


Name and surname Maria Goetz
Parents’ names Stanisław and Maria
Date of birth 9 July 1898
Place of residence Warsaw, Nowy Świat Street 46, flat 23
Occupation unemployed, a returnee from the concentration camp in Ravensbrück
Education three classes of secondary school
Religion Roman Catholic
Criminal record none

On 8 August 1942 my husband, Aleksander Goetz, a mechanic employed at the Okęcie aircraft workshop, was arrested by the Gestapo together with a group of other employees of the aircraft workshop, on the charge of setting fire to a hangar.

Neither I myself, nor any of my acquaintances, know anything about a hangar being set alight, but the poster in which the Germans announced that my husband and five other people had been sentenced to death contained a mention that these five had admitted to setting fire to a hangar.

The execution, by hanging, was carried out on 18 August 1942. I myself was not present at the execution, however on the afternoon of the same day I saw the bodies of the five victims hanging from the gallows. The gallows were placed between the hangars. The Germans called all of the workshop employees to be present at the execution. The execution took place at 6.00. My sister-in-law, Józefa Goetz (residing in Okęcie at Bandurskiego Street 6, flat 10), told me that a certain Oleszko, who had worked at the workshop in the same period as my husband, informed her that he had played a part in the hanging of these five men.

I would like to clarify that Oleszko did not tell this to my sister-in-law directly, but rather to Franciszka Mlekicka, residing at Bandurskiego Street 6, flat 4. I don’t know what part he played in the hanging of my husband and the four other men. My sister-in-law told me that Oleszko had registered as a Volksdeutscher during the occupation.

Oleszko currently works at the Okęcie aircraft workshop. He lives at Bandurskiego Street 6, flat 11.

One Nowak was hanged along with my husband. I don’t know the surnames of the other victims.

The report was read out.