Poznań, 3 April 1946
Commission for the Investigation of German Crimes in Poland, Warsaw City Leszno 53, Room 643
The Magistrate Court Building
I would like to submit the most important data concerning the criminal behavior of the German with respect to the Ujazdowski Hospital (before the war – Hospital of the Sanitary Training Center School).
From 14 to 26 September 1939 I served as commandant of the Ujazdowski Hospital Center, from 27 September 1939 to 31 March 1940 I served as commandant of the Ujazdowski Hospital, while from 2 August 1944 to November 1944 I served as director – or commandant – of the Ujazdowski Hospital.
The Germans’ behavior with respect to the Ujazdowski Hospital in 1939 and in the beginning of 1940.
In spite of the fact that there were big Red Cross flags hanging from the hospital roof and red crosses painted on its walls, and that the Germans were equipped with detailed maps of the city of Warsaw – which I later had the opportunity to see – in September 1939 the hospital came under fire repeatedly from German artillery and air force units. The damage it suffered as a result of the massive air raid of 25 September 1939 and the strong artillery attack that took place the following day was particularly serious.
It is out of the question that the attack was accidental. The hospital was located within a large garden, which reduced to an absolute minimum the possibility of it being hit by a stray artillery shell. This holds true especially for the German air force, which flew low over the city and could hit its targets with great precision. The losses caused by air raids were usually most serious. It was clear that German planes targeted the two-story building occupied by patients (the middle building, no. 4).
Fortunately, the holes in the roof and broken windows were the only damage done to the hospital. On 25 September 1939 three half-ton bombs destroyed the cesspool that collected waste from building no. 4 and its surrounding pavilions. The bombs were dropped on the road near the building. Another bomb hit the boiler room, damaging pipes that carried hot water used for preparing meals to the kitchen. The nearby warehouse was also destroyed by a bomb. The artillery fire damaged the walls and roof of the Mazovian Dukes’ castle along with a half of the building housing the hospital admission room. Fortunately, no one was killed.
After the Germans entered Warsaw, its hospitals, including the Ujazdowski Hospital, were assigned a so-called Betreungsoffizier. Throughout October the Germans, despite our requests and clearly in defiance of the relevant provisions of the Geneva Convention, did not supply us with food. At the beginning of November the hospital received rations of 1,200 calories per person. Malnutrition resulted in a high mortality rate among the wounded. It wasn’t until the end of November that the wounded received food rations equal to those consumed by the Germans.
On 6 February 1940, ambulances came unexpectedly to our hospital to evacuate wounded officers. The evacuation, supervised by Major Professor Richter (he later died on the front), was carried out in a barbarous way. Polish doctors weren’t consulted for their opinion. Some wounded officers didn’t have their clothes, because they were at the tailor’s, and some were too sick to be removed. The wounded were dealt with in a brutal way while being placed and carried on stretchers. They were cursed and yelled at, and we weren’t allowed to supply them with food to be had “on the way”.
2. The conduct of the Germans with respect to the Ujazdowski Hospital during and after the Uprising
When the insurgents’ attack on the Gestapo headquarters at aleja Szucha collapsed, the Ujazdowski Hospital found itself inside the area taken over by the Germans and controlled by the police battalion commanded by Captain Mayer. The battalion was based in the building of the Polish Parliament at Wiejska Street. The hospital began to suffer regular and vicious harassment, which, however, I don’t wish to dwell on here as it pales in comparison with the Germans’ savage and barbarous conduct which the hospital experienced later.
On 5 August 1944 the Germans burned down the hospital administrative building located near Górnośląska Street. When I intervened with Mayer, trying to persuade him to refrain from burning down the hospital, I was subjected to a torrent of abuse and informed that Wir haben von Berlin den Befehl bekommen ganz Warschau abzubrennen. Then he told me to get out. That day, at 10 p.m., I was ordered to evacuate the hospital. In our area, in addition to the Ujazdowski Hospital, there was also the Holy Spirit Hospital, the Training Institute for Invalids, the medical personnel living on the hospital premises, the people who on 1 August 1944 visited the sick and couldn’t return home because of the outbreak of the Uprising, and 350 women whom the Germans had evacuated from the burnt down houses on Wiejska Street – a total of 1,831 people, including the 369 sick, of whom 152 could be moved only on a stretcher. On 6 August 1944, around 10 a.m., a procession of people set out along Górnośląska Street to the building of the Physical Education and Military Training Office. At the end of this parade there were five carriages containing medical materials, food, and linen from both hospitals. We had barely begun to carry the sick into the building when the Germans arrived, the same police unit with Mayer in command, telling us to get out. They set the building on fire and confiscated our carriages, claiming that there was a weapon and ammunition hidden in them. We were told to go to Czerniakowska Street. Hospitals there were based in the Nunnery of the Sisters of St. Mary. During the days which followed, the Holy Spirit Hospital was moved to Powsin, while the Ujazdowski Hospital remained and, organizing itself with the aid of the population, began to admit the wounded – both civilians and insurgents. After the evacuation of the Ujazdowski Hospital from Górnośląska Street, the hospital buildings, set alight by the Germans, were partly burned down.
The Germans were well-informed about the location of the hospitals on Chełmska Street. I sent them the wounded Germans, and they sent soldiers who were going to give blood to other German soldiers in our hospital. On 30 August 1944 they carried out an air raid on our hospital, being fully aware of what they were doing, and dropping – at 6.30 p.m. – incendiary and explosive bombs. After the destruction of the hospital and the house inhabited by hospital personnel, they strafed those who were still alive. The wing of the building occupied by the Sisters of St. Mary and the children remaining in their care was left intact. The hospital wing and the building occupied by the personnel were almost completely destroyed. 180 people from among the wounded and hospital staff were killed under the rubble. The wounded were evacuated to Sadyba and Mokotów, but some of them stayed with the personnel in the part of the building that was left standing and over the next few days experienced three other air raids that killed another 60 people. All these raids together resulted in the deaths of 240 people. After the Uprising the wards of the Ujazdowski Hospital from Sadyba and Mokotów Górny were joined together in Milanówek. In mid-November the Germans evacuated the hospital by train to Kraków. During the three days of travel the sick and the personnel received neither food nor drink from the Germans.
Prof. Dr Teofil Kucharski
Doctor Colonel