Massacre of Pawiak prisoners in Warsaw's ghetto ruins revealed

During the German occupation, Pawiak prison in Warsaw held over 100,000 inmates, of whom roughly 37,000 were killed on site or nearby. In October 1943, after the suppression of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising, German forces began a systematic extermination of prisoners. Approximately 600 detainees were taken naked, bound, and led to the ghetto ruins, where they were shot in succession with machine guns on Pawia 36-42 and Dzielna 37-42, the killing continuing until about 4 a.m. Survivor accounts describe the removal of personal items, the sealing of mouths, and the transport of bodies in blood-stained cars.

This atrocity was linked to Franz Kutschera's appointment as SS and police commander, whose orders triggered daily mass arrests and public executions aimed at terrorizing the city. The murders persisted until the prison's demolition in August 1944, as the Nazis attempted to erase evidence of their crimes.