Warsaw, 28 April 1948. Judge Halina Wereńko, a member of the District Commission for the Investigation of German Crimes, interviewed the person named below as a witness, without taking an oath. Having been advised of the criminal liability for making false declarations, the witness testified as follows:
| Name and surname | Kazimierz Wendlak |
| Parents’ names | Jan and Ludwika, née Jędrzejczak |
| Date of birth or age | 31 January 1906 in Warsaw |
| Religion | Roman Catholic |
| Citizenship and nationality | Polish |
| Education | three classes of vocational school |
| Place of residence | Piusa XI Street 10, flat 5 |
| Profession | fitter |
During the Warsaw Uprising I was with my family in Siekierki. The area along the Wisła had been occupied by the Wehrmacht.
On 23 August at noon, an SA detachment (in yellow uniforms) arrived from the city and ordered the men residing in Siekierki and those who had come from Warsaw to gather at the school in Siekierki, and that they would be taken for work. Some 800 men of various ages gathered, myself among them. I later learned from my wife, Henryka Wendlak, that an hour after the men had been marched off, the Germans took the remaining civilian population through Bagatela Street, Unii Lubelskiej Square and Rakowiecka Street to the Western Railway Station, and from there to the transit camp in Pruszków. Our group was led by SS men to aleja Szucha, to the courtyard of house no. 25, which was occupied by the Gestapo. In the courtyard the group was handed over to soldiers in green uniforms with black lapel badges and death’s heads on their uniform collars and caps. They had their sleeves rolled up, so I could not see whether they had SD markings on the sleeves. They then proceeded with the segregation of our group. Our documents were checked, and we were divided into three groups.
I could not establish the criteria of segregation, for all three groups contained men of different ages. Some of them had their documents seized, while others had them returned. The first group was placed in the rear area of the Gestapo building. I later learned that these were deported from Warsaw. I met M. Zieleziński, who was in this group, in Warsaw and I know that he currently lives in Kutno-Łąkoszyn. I was allocated to the second group, which the soldiers then joined with the third group; in all, we numbered more than 500 men. We were all marched off to the shooting range, and from there to cells – the so-called tramcars – in the basement. I found myself in a cell with a group of some 50 men. Gendarmes came by the next day (they had dark brown lapel badges on the collars of their uniforms) and demanded people for work; I later learned that they were stationed on the premises of the Parliament. They took me in a group of 15 men and ordered us to clean up the casino at aleja Szucha 29. In the evening, when we had returned to our cell, there was no one there, while in the room in front of the entrance to the corridor which led off to the tramcars I saw a pile of clothes and small suitcases. A few of the men from our group recognised the clothes of their loved ones (fathers, sons), who had been in our group in the morning and were now absent.
I don’t know the surnames of the men who recognised the clothes of their loved ones. Our group of 15 men included, among others, Józef Grzelec and his son (currently residing in Siekierki), Władysław Sikorski (employed at the Executive Committee of the Polish Workers’ Party in Warsaw at Aleje Jerozolimskie, corner of Emilii Plater Street), Kawka – a labourer at the Wedel factory (Zamojskiego Street 25) in Warsaw, Grzelec (I don’t know his first name), residing in Siekierki, the proprietor of a flower shop at Marszałkowska Street 5. We worked on cleaning up the casino for one week.
Next we were used to transport ammunition from the Western Railway Station to the open- air kindergarten, where we placed the ammunition on the grass. As we were laying down the ammunition, we found ourselves opposite the partially destroyed wing of the Chief Inspectorate of the Armed Forces. At the time this building was still standing, at least from the side of the open-air kindergarten. On this side the building was standing up to the first floor, which was covered with rubble; the structure had suffered more severe damage from the side of the courtyard. Near the wall of the building in the open-air kindergarten there were petrol barrels and a stack of logs. I saw young boys coming through the central door of the destroyed building, carrying clothes and loading them onto a handcart. On another occasion, while laying down ammunition in the open-air kindergarten, I heard single rifle shots coming from the ruined building. However the wall obstructed any view of what was going on inside. In 1945, following liberation, I was walking down aleja Szucha and saw that the building no longer had any wall from the side of the open-air kindergarten and the courtyard.
While being held in the “tramcar” at aleja Szucha 25 I met the very same young boys who – as I saw – had been loading the clothes carried out of the Inspectorate building in the open- air kindergarten.
I don’t now the surnames of any of them. They told me that they were transporting the clothing of murdered civilians to the camp at Litewska Street 14. There were approximately 20 of them, and they said that they had been caught committing petty offences (such as jumping onto tramcars) before the uprising. Initially, during the first days of the uprising, they were held at Litewska Street 14, while later (I don’t know the date) at the Gestapo building in an open cell. They told me that from 1 August they had been used by the Gestapo to carry the bodies of murdered civilians to the ruined wing of the Inspectorate, where they burned the corpses on a pyre. The civilians were shot by Gestapo officers in uniforms with death’s heads. The murders were most frequent during the period up to 19 August.
I don’t know which groups of the civilian populace were executed, nor where they came from.
For two weeks I lived in a cell at the Gestapo building and I saw the boys during this time; subsequently our group was transferred to the camp at Litewska Street 14 and I possess no reliable information concerning their fate thereafter. The prisoners said among themselves that the boys had been shot, and that only one had managed to escape. No precise information is available.
The camp at Litewska Street 14 was guarded by a detachment of the technical Gendarmerie. The commandant of the camp was a non-commissioned officer by the surname of Waluga. The command headquarters of this unit of the Gendarmerie was located at Litewska Street 3, while another unit of the Gendarmerie – identical to the one that guarded us – was stationed at the corner of Żelazna and Chmielna Streets.
Initially, I was used to dig trenches and build barricades. The camp would be visited by gendarmes from another detachment, who would carry a card specifying that they needed a certain number of labourers. In November, Waluga knocked out three of my front teeth (the witness proceeded to show that he lacks three front teeth). In December 1944 the gendarmes from Litewska Street 3 took me and other prisoners from our house, using us to drill mine holes. I worked in this capacity at the Brühl Palace, in the Belweder, and in villas in Kolonia Staszica.
I remained in the camp until 16 January 1945, when we were sent to Błonie by road. I escaped along the way.
At this point the report was brought to a close and read out.