RYSZARD SKRZYPKOWSKI

On 28 May 1946 in Olsztyn, Investigating Judge Stefan Ciśla interviewed the person named below as an unsworn witness. Having been advised of the criminal liability for making false declarations, the witness testified as follows:


Name and surname Ryszard Skrzypkowski
Age 22
Names of parents Józef and Julia
Place of residence Olsztyn, Orkana Street 18
Occupation Administrative employee
Religious affiliation Roman Catholic
Criminal record none
Poles had been gathered in the Stauferkaserne barracks since 2 August 1944. They were

residents of Mokotów and those whom the Uprising had caught by surprise there. We were told that we were being taken hostage and that if the Uprising was not supressed soon, we would all be executed. Next, our documents were checked and a group of men was sorted out to be executed immediately while the rest of us were placed in those parts of thebarracks which were not occupied by the military. The women were all released.

Initially, we were used for clean-up work in the barracks, then we dismantled bunkhouses and loaded them onto wagons, and at night we dug firing positions and entrenchments. Sixty of us were handed over to the Gestapo, some being strapped onto advancing tanks as protection. During work, many of us died or were wounded.

Executions were carried out during our work so I do not know how many people died and where they buried their bodies. Only one execution was performed in public: it was an execution by hanging, of a man by the name of Sowiński, who had been brought in from Mokotów Prison, which was located opposite the Stauferkaserne.

The Poles were watched by SS soldiers, whose commanding officer Lieutenant Patz was also the camp’s commandant and it was on his orders that executions were carried out.

The camp was moved from Warsaw to Włochy near Warsaw, and later to Germany, to the town of Kullmark Neuzelle. I have met one former prisoner of the Stauferkaserne, currently living in Gdańsk (Wrzeszcz, Staszica Street 10), a certain Zbigniew Dujnowicz, who studies at the Medical University.

The report was read out.