SABINA NALBORSKA

Warsaw, 18 August 1948. Judge Halina Wereńko, member of the District Commission for the Investigation of German Crimes in Poland, heard 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 Sabina Nalborska née Naftańska
Date and place of birth 11 February 1921, Dziekanówek, Warsaw county
Parents’ names Michał and Jadwiga née Abramczyk
Religious affiliation Roman Catholic
State affiliation and nationality Polish
Place of residence Warsaw, Gdańska Street 5
Occupation shop owner

At the outbreak of the Warsaw Uprising I was in Warsaw at Gdańska Street 4a. At first, there were no insurgents in our grounds. The closest German troops were stationed in the barracks on Gdańska Street. I don’t remember the exact date, but it was at the end of August or at the beginning of September 1944 that the Germans left the barracks on Gdańska Street and moved to the Central Institute of Physical Education. They burnt the barracks before they left.

At the beginning of September, I heard people talking in our house that the Germans had called on the civilian population to leave Warsaw. Allegedly some leaflets had been dropped from planes. I myself saw no such leaflets. As for our house, nobody left. When [the Germans] left the barracks on Gdańska Street, our house and the surroundings were taken over by the insurgents.

On 14 September 1944, German troops attacked the insurgents on Gdańska Street, advancing from the direction of the Central Institute of Physical Education. The following day, at around 3.00–4.00 p.m., the insurgents retreated from our house to the “Pekin,” at number 4 Gdańska Street, and then to the next house, number 2. When the insurgents left, the German soldiers stormed into our house. I heard them speaking German and Ukrainian. I didn’t recognize what kind of unit it was. When the soldiers entered our house, I was in the semi-basement and saw them execute an old man sitting on the stairs. Then I hid and went out only when I saw through the window that the people from the basement were coming out into the yard.

Apart from the old man, whose name I don’t know, the Germans didn’t execute anyone else in our house at that point.

When I went into the yard, I saw that the Germans had already entered the adjacent house number 4, the “Pekin,” and I could hear heavy shooting and grenade explosions. People were saying – and later I also heard – that the German soldiers murdered many civilians in the “Pekin.” I don’t have any details concerning those murders.

Our group was led onto Gdańska Street in marched the direction of Bielany. We were stopped on Kaskadowa Street. As we were walking down Gdańska Street, I saw a number of corpses of civilians in the vicinity of house number 10. On Kaskadowa Street, a number of people who were able to work were separated from the rest; we thought they had been chosen to bury the corpses. I was also chosen, but managed to break off and join the group consisting of weaker people, including my sick husband. This group was led to Bielany, then on foot to St. Adalbert’s Church in Wola, and then dispatched in a transport to the Pruszków transit camp.

At that the report was concluded and read out.