I I EDWARD SERWAŃSKI, IRENA TRAWIŃSKA . DOCUMENTA L OCCUPATIONIS O V TEUTONICAE GERMAN CRIMES IN WARSAW 1944 GERMAN CRIMES IN WARSAW 1944 DOCUMENTA OCCUPATIONIS TEUTONICAE II GERMAN CRIMES IN WARSAW 1944 BY: EDWARD SERWAŃSKI AND IRENA TRAWIŃSKA FOREWORD BY: ZYGMUNT WOJCIECHOWSKI WESTERN INSTITUTE PUBLISHER POZNAŃ 1946 Reprint of the 1946 edition Original title: Zbrodnia niemiecka w Warszawie 1944 r. Zeznania – zdjęcia Editorial team: Bogumił Rudawski (editor) Monika Jania-Szczechowiak (proofreading) Maciej Grochowski (graphic design) Translation from Polish into English: Graham Crawford Thomas Anessi Krzysztof Kotkowski © Copyright by Instytut Zachodni PL ISSN 0860-4142 ISBN 978-83-61736-85-1 Poznań 2019 The publication was prepared thanks to co-financing by the National Programme for the Development of Humanities within the project “Documenta Occupationis Instytutu Zachodniego, t. I-VIII” (31H 13 0173 82). Skład: USŁUGI POLIGRAFICZNE MARCIN TYMA 62-020 Zalasewo, ul. Planetarna 21N/6 [email protected] Volume II in the series Documenta Occupationis may well be the most remarkable book ever published by the Institute for West- ern Affairs of Poznań. Remarkable not only because of its inclusion in the files of the Nuremberg trials. Its uniqueness lies also in the history behind the gathering of the documents that make up the volume. Accounts from the inhabitants of Poland’s capital who witnessed the Warsaw Uprising were collected clandestinely while the Ger- man occupation continued. Such accounts were collected in towns and villages near Warsaw almost in real time as the events unfold- ed. The campaign began shortly after the outbreak of the Warsaw Uprising. Some of the materials date as far back as August 1944. These are reports written down by the witnesses themselves, as well as those based on oral accounts provided by others. Much information about the way the evidence gathering cam- paign itself was conducted can be found in the Introduction writ- ten in 1946, which although unsigned, is known to have been penned by Edward Serwański. Evidently, there were issues the author could not or perhaps did not wish to discuss at the time. He did not even reveal the campaign’s code name of Iskra – Dog. No wonder he concealed the fact that the work was done by people active in the Polish Underground State and in the organisation Ojczyzna. Poland was already under communist rule. Serwański never mentioned another parallel operation that, even as early as December 1944, still secretly at the time, led to the establishment of the Institute for Western Affairs. Nevertheless, a mere two years after the publication of Zbrodnia niemiecka w Warszawie [German Crimes in Warsaw], Serwański, the initiator and leader of the Iskra – Dog operation, was arrested by the Security Office – the communist political police. He was not the only employee of the Institute for Western Affairs and former member of Ojczyzna to be arrested by that service. A year later, in March 1949, the same fate befell Kirył Sosnowski, also engaged in the publication of Zbrodnia niemiecka w Warszawie. To begin with, a reminder is needed of what Ojczyzna really was. It operated as an independence-seeking organisation established secretly in Poznań between late September and early October 1939. Ojczyzna was formed in a community associated with the national faction, formed by the above-mentioned Kirył Sosnowski and Witold Grott under the patronage, of sorts, of Rev. Józef Prądzyński. Its membership never exceeded 500. Ojczyzna’s members came from the social and intellectual elites of Western Poland. Dozens of them gave their lives, while others ended up in concentration camps and prisons. Ojczyzna immediately joined the Polish Underground State, helping to build the organisation. It operated mainly in Wielko- polska, although it was also active in other regions, including the General Government. Later, in Poznań, Ojczyzna set up the Main Branch of the Polish Government for territories incorporated into the Reich. It made contributions to the formation of the Armed Com- bat Association in the Poznań District (and later set up the Western Corps of the Home Army). In Warsaw, Ojczyzna established the Of- fice of the Main Delegate of the Government for territories incor- porated into the Reich (subsequently transformed into the West- ern Office of the Government Delegation for Poland), the Office of Education for Western Territories. Ojczyzna activists also took part in the creation of the Department of Information and Press of the Government Delegation for Poland, and the underground Western Territories University. In July 1944, Ojczyzna’s then leader Jan Jacek Nikisch joined the Council of National Unity, a political rep- resentation of the Polish Underground State with a dozen or more members. Another prominent figure with links to Ojczyzna was Zygmunt Wojciechowski, a professor at Poznań University and the subse- quent founder of the Institute for Western Affairs, who even before the war was a leading representative of so-called western thought. In late 1939, fearing arrest, he moved from Poznań to the General Government. In June 1941, he assumed the leadership of the Studi- um Zachodnie (Western Studies Institute) then being established, envisaged as a unit in charge of issues related to the location of Po- land’s new western border. The idea to set up a specialised institute VI for western studies was slowly becoming reality. The establishment of the Institute for Western Affairs was proposed in the autumn of 1943 by the Western Affairs Section of the Department of Informa- tion and Press of the Government Delegation for Poland. The plan remained on hold until the end of the following year. A key role of Ojczyzna and its members involved in the Polish Underground State was to disseminate information, counter pro- paganda, conduct research and gather evidence. Two themes were particularly prominent: justifying the annexation to Poland of the so-called postulated territories, and documenting German crimes in occupied areas. Note that at the outset of the Warsaw Uprising on 1 August 1944, many Ojczyzna activists were already in the General Govern- ment. Some were ordered by their organisation to come to Warsaw, others were expelled to the General Government, while others yet fled there to avoid arrest. Thus, at the time of the outbreak of the Warsaw Uprising, a number of Ojczyzna members were already in the capital. Their presence was also strong in the towns of Mila- nówek and Brwinów near Warsaw, the domain of Prof. Zygmunt Wojciechowski, Jan Jacek Nikisch, Zdzisław Jaroszewski and oth- ers. As mentioned earlier, the effort to collect witness accounts was initiated by Edward Serwański, who fought in the Uprising for sev- en days with the rank of second lieutenant of the Home Army. Once the area in which he was deployed was taken over by the Germans, he fled Warsaw amidst civilian refugees. As early as mid-August, Serwański recorded his own account of insurgent fighting and pro- posed a broad-based campaign of collecting witness accounts, which was approved. His main partner in the work was the attorney in training Irena Trawińska, who became a prominent lawyer after the war ended. Scholarly patronage over the entire project was ex- tended by Prof. Zygmunt Wojciechowski. The campaign was later given the code name of Iskra – Dog. Initially made up of a dozen or more members, the team soon grew to 30. According to a post-war account by Serwański, member- ship peaked at 100 at the highest point of the campaign. Members came from all walks of life and included outstanding intellectuals, VII such as the medievalist historian Prof. Kazimierz Tymieniecki, as well as regular workers and farmers. During the operation, Serwański wrote a number of memos (the first of which was dated 20 August 1944) and instructions for account takers. As the initia- tive had to be kept strictly confidential, code names were assigned to individuals as well as towns. The identities of those who chose to reveal their names were encrypted. Once collected, accounts were typed up and stowed in temporary hiding places. The overall area covered was divided into regions. Other than in Warsaw, informa- tion was gathered in the towns of Brwinów, Milanówek, Pruszków, Piastów, Ursus, and subsequently in Włochy, Podkowa Leśna, Grodzisk, Józefowo, Komorów, Nadarzyn. Later still, Zalesie Górne and Dolne, Konstancin, Piaseczno and Skolimów were also added. Ultimately, the operating range was broadened even further to in- clude Skierniewice and Łowicz. After the fighting ended, additional accounts were collected in Piotrków Trybunalski, Częstochowa and Kraków. The campaign produced 314 completed forms, long reports and edited compilations. As the numbering of forms and accounts began with consecutive hundreds, the majority of the documents bore num- bers above 400 or 500, which should not be taken to suggest there were that many materials. Once the campaign was officially com- pleted, all the documentation together with the secretariat files was secured and buried in empty milk churns in Brwinów Fire Station. After the Red Army ended its offensive, the collection was retrieved and handed over to the newly-established Institute for Western Af- fairs, which soon moved into new offices in Poznań. In January and February 1945, additional accounts were obtained, this time openly, with the help of the Polish Red Cross. Ojczyzna secretly finalised the setting up of the Institute for Western Affairs even during the occupation. This new research or- ganisation was formed during a December 1944 meeting at the Mi- lanówek residence of Zygmunt Wojciechowski. An unfinished note on the organisation of a new research entity, written most likely by Prof. Wojciechowski, was submitted to the Department of Informa- tion and Press of the Government Delegation for Poland. VIII Ojczyzna activists realised they had no other choice but to make the existence of the Institute for Western Affairs known to the com- munist authorities.