Poznań, 4 May 1946. The District Commission for the Investigation of German Crimes in Poznań, in the person of Deputy Prosecutor Alfons Lehmann, with the participation of reporter Marek [?] Stefankiewicz, acting on the basis of Article 4 of the Decree of 10 November 1945, heard the person named below as a sworn witness. Having been advised of the criminal liability for making false declarations, the witness testified as follows:
| Name and surname | Teofil Kucharski |
| Age | 57 years old |
| Names of parents | Józef and Józefa, née Braun |
| Place of residence | Poznań, Focha Street 47 |
| Occupation | doctor, colonel |
| Religious affiliation | Roman Catholic |
| Criminal record | none |
In September 1939, on the fourteenth, I found myself in Warsaw as a sanitary chief of the Poznań Army, and I took up the post of commandant of Ujazdów center, of which the main part was Ujazdowski Hospital at Górnośląska Street 45, formerly a hospital, [at that time] the Center for Sanitary Education.
The proper hospital staff had been evacuated on 7 September 1939. At first Ujazdowski Hospital was seized by a vigilante group, but was gradually taken over by the incoming military medical and sanitary staff.
The hospital was situated in a large garden and was composed of a number of pavilions for administrative, maintenance, and strictly medical purposes. The most important part was a two-story building for the sick people, marked no. 6. There were large red crosses painted on the rooftops, and there were also flags of the Red Cross.
Until 25 September, the Germans had not done much harm to the hospital. Polish artillery was stationed in the vicinity, in Ujazdowski Park and in Łazienki, but they were far enough to ensure that Ujazdowski Hospital would be spared the German bombardment.
From the morning of 25 September 1939, for almost the entire day, Warsaw was bombed by German aircraft. Anti-aircraft defense was extremely poor, almost non-existent. As a result the German airmen could fly very low and aim the bombs accurately. Three half-ton bombs hit the roadway in front of the building at no. 6, destroying the main sewer which was carrying water and sewage from the hospital buildings. Another bomb destroyed the boiler house and paralyzed the kitchen, while yet another one destroyed a nearby warehouse.
There were no casualties. Bomb explosions damaged roofs and shattered almost all the windows in the hospital. At that time the power plant and the municipal gas works were destroyed, [so] because of the lack of electricity, the water works and the artesian well on the hospital premises could not be operated. There were no other wells on the premises.
This state of affairs – lack of water, gas, electricity, and obstructed sewers – caused very difficult conditions for hospital work and very harsh living conditions for the sick and wounded people. The sick and wounded were mainly military people.
The Germans spent almost the entire 26 September bombing the place. Artillery missiles destroyed half of the buildings of the admission unit, and partially the walls and the roof of the Mazovian Princes Castle. There were no casualties.
Some witnesses were: Colonel Dr Felicjan Guda-Wołkowiński (Poznań, Seweryna Mielżyńskiego Street), Lieutenant Colonel Dr Witold Waligórski (Poznań, Regional Hospital), nurse Wiłkomirska (Warsaw).
When the Germans entered Warsaw, at first the German authorities were not interested in Ujazdowski hospital. It was just a scene of petty offences by individual soldiers and small German units. I myself reported to the City of Warsaw Command with a request for food rations and protection against the lawlessness of the German units. A Betreuungsoffizier was assigned to our hospital, as was the case with all Polish hospitals.
All military hospitals were subordinated to a German doctor from the City Command. In October, the Warsaw hospitals (including Ujazdowski Hospital) received neither subsidies nor food. Upon my offer, a unified management was set up for all military hospitals in Warsaw and within 60 kilometers of the city. I was entrusted with management of all military hospitals which were in the care of the so-called Betreuungsoffizier.
During October the hospitals did not receive any foodstuffs from the Germans, in violation of the explicit wording of the Geneva Convention, despite my efforts and using the said convention as an argument. At the beginning of November, the hospital received 1200 [calories?] per person. Undernourishment resulted in a high mortality rate among the sick and wounded people, and I notified the German authorities about that fact. Only at the end of November 1939 were the wounded people allotted the same food rations as the wounded Germans.
On 10 November I was arrested together with doctor Górski as a hostage, due to the commemoration of 11 November [the restoration of sovereignty of Poland]. We were released two days later. We were incarcerated in a basement of the Sejm [Polish parliament] hotel at Wiejska Street, and it was crammed with newspapers. There were also 35 civilian hostages. We were thrown into that basement with the following words: Müssen sie sich betreuen. On my intervention, the mattress for the hostages was moved to another room. We were incarcerated probably in retaliation for my protest against the search that had been conducted in the hospital a few days earlier by the police from the Sejm building close to the street. During this search, allegedly for weapons, the German police had robbed us also of private and hospital belongings, such as boots, blankets, linen, and Professor Kucharski’s notes.
When I protested, the doctor – Betreuungsoffizier – obtained a partial return of the stolen objects.
A brutal search was conducted in the branch of the hospital located in the building of the YMCA. The wounded people – even the most seriously wounded ones – were thrown off their beds in the search for weapons.
On 5 February 1940 a few Polish officers fled from the hospital. On the night of 5/6 February I was arrested, and on the morning of 6 February, sanitary vehicles for the evacuation of the wounded officers arrived at Ujazdowski Hospital. The evacuation was conducted by Major Professor Richter, in a barbarous manner.
Professor Richter was [later] killed on the front.
Polish doctors had nothing to say; some of the wounded officers did not have their clothes as they were being mended by the tailor, some of them should not have been transported due to ill health. Nobody was allowed to provide them with food for the journey; the wounded people were cursed at and called names, they were put on stretchers and transported in a brutal way. The staff and other sick people who wanted to give something to the wounded or simply to say goodbye were denied access to the loaded cars.
I was released on 7 or 8 February. I protested against the brutal evacuation of the officers. Major doctor Stein, then a Betreuer (he was later downgraded to private) told me that this was not harassment, but macht ausnötig, der hocheitrucht. As I learned later, the wounded people were deported to German hospitals in the Reich. Among the deported was Colonel Horyński, whose surname I don’t remember – Commander of National Defense from Gdynia, and Colonel Quartermaster of the Poznań Army.
Witnesses were: Colonel Dr Bartkowski, Colonel Wołkowiński (as above).
Ujazdowski Hospital, as a military unit, was dissolved effective as of 31 March 1940. Doctors and privates were demobilized, and disabled officers and other officers were sent to camps. The hospital was turned over to the Polish Red Cross. I remonstrated with Dr Richter’s friend at the City Command about such a step, pointing out that taking care of wounded Polish soldiers was a responsibility of the Occupation Government.
Finally I would like to add that in the above-described period there were only 5–16 civilians in the hospital. At the end of 1939, on the order of the German authorities, we had to hand all civilians over to civilian hospitals.