CZESŁAW JAKUBOWSKI

Warsaw, 4 March 1950. Janusz Gumkowski, acting as a member of the Main Commission for the Investigation of German Crimes in Poland, interviewed the person named below, who testified as follows:


Forename and surname Czesław Jakubowski
Date and place of birth 14 July 1910 in Warsaw
Names of parents Piotr and Regina, née Sobierańska
Father’s occupation bricklayer
State affiliation Polish
Religious affiliation Roman Catholic
Education 4 grades at elementary school
Occupation caretaker
Place of residence Miedzeszyńska Street 108, flat 11
Criminal record none

From the beginning of the Warsaw Uprising I was in my flat at Miedzeszyńska Street 108. Until 23 August 1944, when the Germans took us (both the men and women) to Pruszków, they did not commit any crimes in the area of Saska Kępa up to Francuska Street.

For the first few days shots could be heard in Saska Kępa, but later everything went quiet. Since our house was near Poniatowskiego Bridge on which the Germans had set up anti- aircraft artillery batteries, we did not enjoy complete freedom of movement. The Germans shot at people who appeared in the streets. On 7 August (I am not completely sure of the date) at around 04.00 a.m., they surrounded our house and started pounding on the gate. When my wife, Maria, opened the gate, they burst inside with cans full of petrol. They ordered all the men (there were 14 of us) to walk out into the street and stand by the wall of the house. The women were led to the attic. They intended to set the house on fire.

A resident of our house, Larysa Zajączkowska (currently resident in the same building, in flat no. 4), who is fluent in German, learned that these Germans, Wehrmacht soldiers, had come to perform an execution in retaliation for shots that had supposedly been fired from our house, and which had killed a German officer and a driver on the embankment. The men were to be executed, and the house set on fire. We were saved thanks to the intervention of one of the soldiers, an Austrian I think, who had come round to our house a few times while on patrol (our house was high, with three storeys, and you could observe Warsaw from the attic). On that day he was on sentry duty on the embankment and purportedly saw where the shots had been fired from. After talking to Mrs. Zajączkowska, the soldier told the officer in charge of the execution that he could point out the house from which the shots had been fired. A while later we saw that the house at the corner of Jakubowska and Estońska streets was on fire. It was said that cartridge cases had been found there. There were no residents in that house.

On 13 August the Germans started to displace people from the area delineated on one side by the embankment, and on the other by Francuska Street, leaving only mothers with small children. Since my wife stayed behind so did I, albeit hiding in the basements. The Germans would frequently come to our house and the neighboring buildings, dragging out those who had remained.

On 23 August they displaced people from the other areas of Saska Kępa. On that day I was in the house at Walecznych Street 62, visiting a friend. The Germans took me from there together with the remaining residents. They led us to the Eastern Railway Station, from where we were transported to Pruszków, and from there to Germany, to the camp in Stutthof.

At this point the report was concluded and read out.