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Our today’s interviewee:
Katarzyna Łaniewska (born in 1933 in Łódź), theater and film actress, talks about the period of German occupation in Warsaw and about the Warsaw Uprising. She was a witness to a public execution on Aleja Niepodległości and saw people collecting fragments of the victims’ corpses laying on the ground. She recalls a young Jewish girl coming from the ghetto to their flat in the Mokotów district to warm herself and eat. During the Warsaw Uprising, Katarzyna Łaniewska and her family stayed in Mokotów until the district collapsed on 27 September 1944. Her grandmother burned documents confirming her brother was a member of the Home Army just before the capitulation and therefore saved his life. After being captured by the Germans, Katarzyna Łaniewska along with her brother Ryszard, mother and grandmother went through a makeshift camp for civilians at the horse racing track in Służewiec, and eventually ended up in the Pruszków transit camp. Then they were transported to the town of Wolbrom, where they were taken in by a local family. Surprisingly, Katarzyna saw her father’s photo hanging on the wall - Józef Łaniewski was a pre-war entrepreneur and founded branches of the "Społem" cooperative in different parts of the country. The house’s host was also a Społem owner and was in a group photo with Józef Łaniewski, taken on the occasion of the foundation of the "Społem" branch in Wolbrom.
Copyright by Instytut Solidarności i Męstwa im. Witolda Pileckiego.