WŁODZIMIERZ WOLIŃSKI

9 March 1949, Warsaw. Member of the District Commission for the Investigation of German Crimes in Poland, Norbert Szuman, interviewed the person named below as an unsworn witness. Having been advised of the criminal liability for making false statements, the witness testified as follows:


Name and surname Włodzimierz Filip Woliński
Date and place of birth 26 May, 1925, Kawęcin, Warsaw county
Parents’ names Michał and Józefa, née Rzepecka
Father’s occupation Coachman
State affiliation and nationality Polish
Religious affiliation Catholic
Education Elementary school
Occupation Laborer
Place of residence Warsaw, Chocimska Street 33, flat 14
Criminal record None

As the Uprising started I was in the house at Madalińskiego Street 27. On 1 August 1944 there were insurgents in our house. The fighting lasted throughout the day. The nearest German units were stationed in the school at Kazimierzowska Street and in the Wedel house on Puławska Street.

On the night of 1 to 2 August the insurgents withdrew from the area to Szustra Street. On 2 August 1944, at 11 a.m. or maybe earlier, the Germans dragged the people out of the houses at Madalińskiego 18, 20 and 22, and shot them in the street. I saw it from our house window. Then, after an hour, they entered our courtyard. All the house residents were gathered in the shelter made in the field behind our premises, beneath the foundations of a building that was under construction. Only 7 people were in the basement, in the front part of our house – the one that had already been burned.

The Germans surrounded the shelter and told us to come out. The women were told to go to the neighboring property, in the direction of Puławska Street, while we were lined up against the wall of one wing of the building, on the left side of the gate, opposite the carpenter’s workshop. They set fire to the carpenter’s workshop and told us to get inside. I went first. I jumped over the stairs and fell on the ground. A bullet flew by my ear. I got to a hole leading from the workshop to the basement of the front building. Two other men did the same: Witold Hasenritter (he lives at Bałuckiego Street 25) and Murawski, I don’t remember his first name (he lives on Aleja Niepodległości). As I have already mentioned, there were seven people in the basement, including two children and two women. We stayed there until the evening and then went out into Szustra Street, where I stayed till the end of the Uprising, that is, until the surrender of the Mokotów district.

In the execution carried out in the carpenter’s workshop at Madalińskiego Street 27 on 2 August 1944 about ten men were burned, including a sick man lying in the workshop. Among those who died there were: Klimczewski, Bilko, Czesław, and Aleksander Chmielewski, Wolski and others.

At this the report was concluded and read out.