Warsaw, 20 July 1948. The member of the District Commission for the Investigation of German Crimes in Poland, Judge Halina Wereńko, heard as a witness the person specified below; the witness did not swear an oath. Having been advised of the criminal liability for making false declarations, the witness testified as follows:
| Name and surname | Maria Arkita née Parzyszko |
| Parents’ names | Jan and Franciszka née Pasiewska |
| Date of birth | 14 September 1914, Reducin, Garwolin district |
| Religious affiliation | Roman Catholic |
| Nationality | Polish |
| Place of residence | Warsaw, Tczewska Street 7, flat 2 |
| Occupation | housewife |
At the outbreak of the Warsaw Uprising I was in my flat at Dembińskiego Street 6 with my children: son Zbigniew (7 years old) and daughter Teresa (5 years old). During the first days of the Uprising (I don’t remember the exact date), our house burnt down – I don’t remember whether it had been bombed or had been set on fire. Then I moved with my children to the basement of the house of the Rogalscy at Dembińskiego Street 2/4. Shortly afterwards, I don’t remember the date, the people gathered in the basement read a German leaflet calling for people to leave Marymont.
I don’t remember the exact wording, I don’t have the leaflet. I have no idea what the military action in Marymont had looked like.
By about 10 September, since many adjoining houses had been set on fire, more than 100 people were gathered in the basement – the inhabitants of that house and of the neighboring ones. On 14 September I had been in the basement since morning. The atmosphere was tense. I didn’t know what was going on outside. After dinner, I cannot say exactly when, I heard someone hammering on the door. I was at the rear with my children, so I know from others that the German soldiers forced the door and at the same time threw a grenade through a window; the shrapnel wounded me slightly in the face, and my daughter in the back of her head. There was some commotion near the entrance, I heard that the priest got up. People began to leave. I was very perturbed at that moment as my son had gotten lost in the crowd and I barely managed to find him. I left among the last ones to do so, and I saw that Gąsiorowicze left after me. At the entrance to the house at Rogalskiego Street I saw a few soldiers in German uniforms who were standing with rifles at the ready. Nobody was walking in front of me, but I saw corpses lying on Rogalskiego Street. How many bodies were lying there, I cannot tell, I saw only a few, I did not recognize anyone. As I was walking I was not looking around, so I didn’t notice any machine guns on stands. Holding their hands, I entered Dembińskiego Street with my children and, leaving the fuel shed behind on the left, I went in the direction of the ponds. After a few steps along Dembińskiego Street, my son was shot in the back of the head and fell. I left him lying on the street and with my daughter entered a wooden house on the even side, I don’t remember its number. After some time my cousin, who had been in the basement before, also came there (Janina Śliwińska, now married). When I found shelter in that house, the houses closer to the ponds were already burning, and in the afternoon the fire reached the house in which we were hiding. Then I went to the basement through the yard, and on the following night I went with my daughter to a bunker in our own house. We stayed there for six weeks, during which time the German soldiers looked into it twice but did not notice us. At the end of those six weeks my cousin met Jan Rogalski and a baker (whose name I don’t know) who were also hiding, and we decided to leave Warsaw together. At Gdańska Street we were halted by German soldiers. We were joined to a group of people who were arrested in the same way, but I managed to break away and get to Izabelin, near Laski, with a woman from Laski.
During an exhumation carried out by the Polish Red Cross in the spring of 1945 in Marymont, I found the body of my little son. It was buried on the same spot where he had been killed. I didn’t see any other exhumed corpses.
At this the report was closed and read out.