Testimony given by citizen Regina Goździewska, née Lebiedowska, daughter of Jan
and Wiktoria, née Górecka, born on 18 December 1904 in Zakroczym, residing in Warsaw, Grochowska Street 91, flat 18.
Regarding: the arrest, detention and murder of her husband, Mieczysław Goździewski,
by the Gestapo at aleja Szucha on 17 April 1943.
Since 1937 my husband was the proprietor of a shopping centre and timber yard that conducted business under the name 'Mieczysław Goździewski', located at Kredytowa Street 16, where we also lived. My husband, Mieczysław Goździewski (born 16 July 1901, son of Władysław and Marianna, née Godlewska), carried on the timber business throughout the German occupation. We lived at Kredytowa Street 16, flat 27.
On 11 March 1943, at noon, he left to take care of some company business and was detained in a street round-up conducted at the corner of Aleje Jerozolimskie and Bracka Street. Friends of ours happened to be passing by on the other side of the street (Żelisławska – I don’t remember her first name; at the time she resided at Krakowskie Przedmieście Street 5, her current whereabouts are unknown, and a second friend, Mirosław, whose surname I don’t know), and they saw how at approximately 14.00 the Gestapo put my husband, handcuffed, into a motorcar together with colonel Okulicz-Kozaryn, the former commander of the Modlin fortress, and informed me right away.
On 13 March at 10.00 the Gestapo searched our apartment, but they found nothing and I was not arrested. On 20 March I was summoned to Szucha Avenue, room 240, and interrogated by a clerk, Sturmscharführer A.S. Frisch, who ordered that I give the surnames of three men who were brought into the room. I did not know these people, and made a declaration to this effect. He hit me in the face twice, knocking out three teeth. I was led to the cellar, to the so-called tram, where I sat on a chair without moving for three days and two nights. Then I was released.
A few days after my release, I was visited by the interpreter from room 240, a civilian by the name of Zdzisław Osada (reportedly a Pole), a thin man with a pockmarked, oval, ruddy face, who stated that he could undertake to get my husband released if I had a sizeable sum at my disposal. He got me in touch with Frisch, to whom I handed over 150 thousand zlotys to secure my husband's release, which he promised. For his aid, I gave Osada 10 thousand zlotys.
On 18 April I was approached by Osada, who told me that Frisch had transported my husband's body from Pawiak to Oczki Street, and that I should immediately make funeral arrangements.
Osada stated that on 17 April, during an interrogation in room 240, my husband had refused to sign some report given him by a Gestapo officer, captain Lechner, and that Lechner had hit him in the right temple with the butt of his revolver, crushing his skull, and then, when my husband had fallen to the floor, he shot him, killing him instantly.
I took my husband's body from the mortuary, took photographs, obtained an expert medical opinion (the death was caused by the blow to the temple), and buried him in Powązki (I remember the spot). Frisch and Osada did not return the money, declaring that they had issued the body, which they never do.
Frisch and Lechner were shot in 1943 and 1944, respectively, in the streets of Warsaw; I don’t know what happened to Osada. The photographs of my husband's body and his document are hidden in the rubble of a caved-in cellar in the house at Kredytowa Street 16, near the gable wall of number 18.
My husband left behind myself and our two daughters, Zofia Mieczysława (born on 22 May 1932) and Róża Maria (born on 31 March 1936).
At the moment I live temporarily in Warsaw, and work in Katowice, at the Provincial Industrial Department, Hotel Savoy.
I have testified truthfully and I have read the report before signing it.
On the basis of a copy of the death certificate issued by the parish of St. Augustine No. 57, registered in 1943, issued on 7 May 1943.
It was determined that Mieczysław Goździewski, aged 43, son of Władysław and Marianna, née Godlewska, died in Warsaw at Dzielna Street 24 on 18 April 1943.
Warsaw, 5 June [1943?].