HIPOLIT FALĘDZIAK

Warsaw, 2 July 1946. District Investigating Judge from the 2nd Division of the District Court in Warsaw, Halina Wereńko, delegated to the Commission for the Investigation of German Crimes in Warsaw, heard the person named below as a witness. Having been advised of the criminal liability for making false declarations and of the wording of Articles 107 and 115 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, the witness testified as follows:


Name and surname Hipolit Falędziak
Parents’ names Roman and Katarzyna, née Korytek
Date of birth 4 August 1907
Occupation baker
Education technical school
Place of residence Warsaw, Sandomierska Street 23
Religion Roman Catholic
Criminal record none

On 4 August 1944 I found myself in the courtyard of the building at Rakowiecka Street 15, which housed the Holy Mary Institution for Children and also some private flats. A Wehrmacht detachment started shooting at the house from Rakowiecka Street, and then forced its way into the courtyard. I shouted for the people to lie down in the corridor. After this, seeing the German unit enter the gate, I hid in the attic. From an opening in the roof I watched as the soldiers started calling on the residents to leave the building. There were 25 flats in the building. A group of men and women, including my wife and 11-year-old son, came out into the courtyard and was directed in part to the street, whereupon the soldiers burst into the house and led out those who had not left immediately to a wall, where they were executed. Six or seven people were killed in this way – the caretaker Czyżewski, Józef Szlenker, Anioł … I do not know any other surnames. The men who had been led out from the house were locked up in the military prison on Puławska Street, in the barracks. After ten days the men were released, and told me about their ordeal.

I do not know the surnames of those men.

The women were locked up in the garages on the premises of the air-force infantry barracks in the building of the al Inspectorate of the Armed Forces, and were released after three days.

No execution was carried out in the courtyard of the neighboring house (Rakowiecka Street 17). However following the ejection of residents, the soldiers shot at those who had remained and who intended to slip away quietly from the premises. I saw that Leleszycki (currently deceased), although fired upon, managed to escape. Apart from myself, the following also remained in the house at Rakowiecka Street 15: Urban (I do not know his current address), Rosołowski (I do not know his address) and Stanisław Anioł (he is presently in Western Europe, in one of the occupation zones). Anioł and I stayed together in the house at Rakowiecka Street 15, hiding from the patrols. In the afternoon I saw how flames from the burning house at Sandomierska Street 21 ignited the house at Sandomierska Street 19 – the residents threw themselves into extinguishing the fire, and I then saw a Luftwaffe patrol (in grey uniforms) approach and start shooting at the fire-fighters. I saw a dozen or so people fall. The soldiers also burst into the stairwell, and I heard shots.

I do not know any of the residents of the building at Sandomierska Street 19. Stanisław Anioł observed the execution together with me.

I would also like to testify that Feliks Zawadzki and Józef Banasiak, resident at Sandomierska Street 23, could provide more details concerning the execution at Sandomierska Street 23.

The report was read out.