HALINA RUDZKA

Warsaw, 4 November 1949. Adam Tokarz, acting as a member of the Main Commission for the Investigation of German Crimes in Poland, heard the person named below as a witness. The witness testified as follows:

My name is Halina Jadwiga Wanda Rudzka, born on 28 December 1927 in Warsaw, daughter of Stanisław and Natalia née Greczyńska, father’s occupation: shoemaker;

nationality: Polish; religious affiliation: Roman Catholic; education: higher; domiciled in Warsaw, Marii Kazimiery Street 20, flat 1; no criminal record.

I have lived in Marymont since pre-war times. During the Warsaw Uprising, I was almost exclusively in Marymont, in houses no. 40, 32 and 20 (successively) on Marii Kazimiery Street, from where on 14 September I moved to Żoliborz. Based on the accounts of my friends, exhumations which I witnessed in Marymont, and my own observations, I can testify as follows in connection with the events in Marymont: when taking over the area of Marymont on 14 September, the German troops, including units of Vlasovtsy, perpetrated, the following acts, among others:

They forced civilians from the houses at Marii Kazimiery Street 20 and 22 and marched them to the Bielański Forest. There they separated the women and children from the men, and the women and children were marched to the Central Institute of Physical Education, whereas the fate of the men remains unknown, none of them has returned to this day.

Skorzypińska (domiciled on Sobocka Street, I don’t know the house number) and my sister Lucyna Rutkowska (domiciled at Uniwersytecka Street 6, flat 2) should be able to provide more details.

Moreover, on 14 September 1944, a woman named Romaniukowa was in the house at Marii Kazimiery Street 20, and her body was found in 1945, with her head split open. Her daughter, Felicja Szatkowska, domiciled in the same house and flat, can testify about this event. In the shelter at Marii Kazimiery Street 32, my grandmother and a maid were killed, allegedly due to the fact that grenades had been thrown into the shelter. Purportedly a little girl called Pater witnessed this, I will try to submit her address to the Main Commission.

On Dembińskiego Street, I cannot give the exact number, in a shelter or rather upon leaving it, several people were killed, I don’t know how, and the exhumation revealed serious damage to their bodies (e.g. arms ripped off). The property where it happened was owned by the Grabowskis. Furmanik, a man who lives there, could probably give more details about thisevent. An exhumation at Marii Kazimiery Street 48 revealed a mass grave containing several people (the Stankiewicz family and others); the names can be found on the list of victims in the exhumation report of the Polish Red Cross no. 1439, which was read out to me.

Mystkowski (domiciled at Dembińskiego Street [no number]) should have more details about the circumstances of these people’s death. On the same day, a dozen people were killed in the square in front of the barracks on the premises of the former Gas School; allegedly they were shot from a German tank which came from the direction of Potocka Street. Wróblewski (domiciled at Dembińskiego Street 2/4), who survived the execution, and Wysocka (domiciled at Rymkiewicza Street 3, third floor) will be able to say more about this event.

After the events of 14 September 1944, Stanisława Sroczyńska stayed for a few days at Marii Kazimiery Street 22, and she still lives there.

At that the report was concluded and read out.