ADAM KAMIŃSKI

Warsaw, 2 January 1947. Judge Halina Wereńko, member of the District Commission for the Investigation of German Crimes, has interviewed the person stated below as a witness, without oath. Being advised of the criminal liability for making false declarations and of the contents of Art. 107 and Art. 115 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, the witness testified as follows:

Name and surname Adam Kamiński


Names of parents Julian and Klara née Hejde
Date of birth 18 October 1889
Religious affiliation Roman Catholic
Place of residence Warsaw, […]
Education technical school
Occupation manufacturer

During the Warsaw Uprising I stayed with my family in my bicycle factory, located at Wolska Street 151. There were no insurgent fighting in the surrounding area. Nevertheless, starting from 1 August there was heavy traffic on Wolska Street. On 2 August, tanks drove down the street and military troops passed. On 4 August 1944, a unit of Germans occupied the earthwork and the Orthodox cemetery.

On 3 August, several German soldiers came to our house (I could not recognise their weaponry) demanding that the men of our house come out to clear away the corpses. However, on the side of Wolska Street, there were only women in the house. The men, including myself, were hiding in a camouflaged shelter at the factory, on the side of Jana Kazimierza Street. So the Germans departed, taking a few bikes with them. They came back on 5 August, at 9 a.m., and ordered all the residents to leave. They shot about 30 women and children and they threw grenades at those who had stayed in the flats.

My wife, Feliksa Kamińska, who managed to hide in the flat, saw the execution. So did two other residents: Nowakowska and Stefańska (currently residing at Wolska Street 151, flat 72). During the execution I was in the main building of the factory. I could hear the shots. A little girl whom I didn’t know warned me that people were being killed in the first courtyard. Then I withdrew to the shelter. At about 11 a.m. I saw through the window Germans leading the residents of the house number 147 to the courtyard and shooting them. They shot approximately thirty people. It was only later that I found out that the remaining residents of Wolska Street 147 were killed in a mass execution on the square, next to the forge. A similar execution took place on the same day, in Sowiński Park. On 7 August I managed to escape over the railroad tracks in the direction of Piastów. The people who had stayed in the bunker were led by Germans to Saint Lawrence church on 7 August, then sent in a transport to the transit camp in Pruszków.

At that the report was concluded and read out.