During the Warsaw Uprising in 1944, four hospitals operated in the Wola district of Warsaw.

The most dramatic moment in the wartime history of Wola's hospitals was the mass slaughter of district residents carried out in the first days of the uprising by Schutzstaffel (SS) units and Ordnungspolizei. On "Black Saturday," 5 August 1944, the Germans massacred the staff and patients of the and the St. Lazarus Hospital. The next day, the patients of the Karol and Maria Children's Hospital also fell victim to the massacre. Thanks to the brave stance of the staff, the St. Stanislaus Infectious Disease Hospital escaped destruction. A few days later, the Wola Hospital also managed to resume its activities. The staff of both facilities provided aid to the Polish civilian population expelled from Warsaw by the Germans until the end of October 1944.

Wola Hospital

Wola Hospital was located at 26 . During the German occupation, the hospital director and head of the surgical department was Dr. . Both the director and many other members of the medical and auxiliary staff actively cooperated with the resistance movement. The extent of the staff's involvement in underground activities is evidenced by the fact that in the fall of 1939, meetings of the leadership of the Service for Poland's Victory were held at Wola Hospital. In subsequent years, hospital premises were used for meetings and briefings, including those of the Warsaw District and the leadership of the Government Delegation for Poland. Additionally, underground education of medicine was conducted at the hospital on Płocka Street, weapons and underground press were stored, Jews and individuals sought by the Germans were hidden, and medical assistance was provided to underground soldiers wounded in combat actions. In February 1944, doctors unsuccessfully tried to save the life of Second Lieutenant , codenamed Lot – the commander of the operation and the first executor of the sentence on SS-Brigadeführer Franz Kutschera.

At the outbreak of the uprising, the facility with 480 beds had 220 patients. Among the staff present were eleven doctors and a group of medical students. The Home Army command planned that Wola Hospital would become the central medical point in Wola after the uprising began. Moreover, before "W" Hour, a medical patrol was formed in the hospital, tasked with providing medical assistance to Home Army soldiers fighting in . The patrol, led by Dr. Kazimierz Drozdowski, included several medical students and some physical workers of the hospital. However, as the Germans quickly dispersed the Wola Subdistrict units advancing on Ulrychów, the patrol members were ultimately forced to stay at Płocka Street. Meanwhile, as a result of the first battles fought on 1 August 1944, Wola Hospital found itself on the border between areas controlled by the insurgents and those under German control. Over the next three days, staff members who had been unable to reach their workplace due to the outbreak of fighting gradually arrived at the hospital. There was also a constant influx of wounded and refugees from quarters of Wola occupied by the Germans. The hospital was repeatedly visited by the chief of sanitary services of the Home Army's Wola Subdistrict.

On August 5, German units under SS-Gruppenführer Heinz Reinefarth launched an assault on Wola. Simultaneously, a mass slaughter of Polish civilians began. That morning, several German aerial bombs fell in the immediate vicinity of the hospital. The insurgent command sent a liaison to Director Piasecki with an order for the immediate evacuation of the hospital to Śródmieście. However, due to the lack of time and, especially, the lack of transport means to evacuate several hundred patients, this order was unfeasible. Shortly afterward, the staff was informed that German soldiers were calling for a doctor on nearby Wolska Street. Professor , who spoke excellent German, went there accompanied by Dr. Leon Manteuffel. During the conversation, a German non-commissioned officer warned the Polish doctors that the Wehrmacht would not harm them, but soon the SS would arrive in the area, and the situation for the Poles in the hospital "would be unenviable".

The first two Germans entered the hospital before noon. They were interested in the building's layout and inspected places from where the insurgents supposedly fired at German soldiers. Finding no evidence to support their accusations, they asked if there were any wounded German soldiers in the hospital. At that time, only one German was being treated at Płocka Street – a Wehrmacht soldier named Schliefacke or Schliffacke (according to other sources – Lübke). The soldiers assured the wounded man that he would soon be evacuated, informing him simultaneously that the hospital would be blown up. After the Germans left, Director Piasecki instructed Dr. Zbigniew Woźniewski to immediately warn the residents of nearby buildings hiding in the hospital's basements about the danger. Several dozen men heeded the warning and escaped to the insurgent-controlled area.

Shortly afterward, a group of SS men, accompanied by soldiers from one of the Azerbaijani collaborationist battalions, entered the building. The SS officer ordered Dr. Piasecki, Professor Zeyland, and the hospital chaplain, Father Kazimierz Ciecierski, to be brought into the director's office. All three were made to stand behind the desk, after which the officer shot them in the head. Soldiers also shot several wounded patients lying in the hospital basement. They then began to brutally expel patients and staff from the building, often accompanied by beatings and looting of personal valuables. In some cases, severely wounded patients and postoperative convalescents were taken directly from hospital rooms (over 20 patients had to be carried on stretchers). Outside the hospital building, the crowd of Poles was formed into a column and marched westward. The route led along Płocka and Górczewska streets, between burning buildings and through piles of corpses. Near the railway viaduct over , the soldiers began preparing to execute the entire column. However, likely due to the considerable commotion caused among the crowd, the execution was temporarily called off. The group from Wola Hospital was eventually led to the halls of the railway workshops on nearby Moczydło Street.

Thousands of Wola residents had already been gathered in the workshops on Moczydło Street, where they waited in cramped and scorching conditions, without water or food, for a decision on their fate. Upon arrival, the Poles brought from the hospital were segregated – nuns, civilian nurses, doctors, medical students, auxiliary staff, and male and female patients were separated (though as the halls became increasingly crowded, these distinctions began to blur). Between 2:00 and 3:00 PM, men and boys started being taken out of the halls – supposedly to work on dismantling barricades and clearing streets. In small groups, usually from 10 to 12 people, the victims were led to nearby execution sites and shot by machine gun fire. Mass execution sites included areas around the workshops, the courtyard of the house at 51 Górczewska Street, the Simplex boiler factory at 53 Górczewska Street, and especially the yard of the tenement house at the corner of Górczewska Street and the now-nonexistent Zagłoby Street (near the railway tracks). Around 4:30 PM, when most of the healthy and able-bodied men had already been taken out of the halls, the Germans began calling out the remaining men – including patients and staff members of the Wola Hospital. In one of the last groups, doctors and medical students were led to execution. The executions continued until late evening. Historians estimate that at least 4,500 district residents were murdered in the Górczewska and Moczydło areas during those days. According to some sources, the number of victims could have reached up to 12,000.

The liquidation of the Wola Hospital on "Black Saturday," 5 August 1944, resulted in over 360 victims. The Register of places and facts of crimes committed by the Germans during the Warsaw Uprising states that 300 patients and 60 medical and auxiliary staff members were among those shot. Six doctors were murdered – besides Dr. Piasecki and Professor Zeyland, the victims included Professor Dr. Józef Grzybowski, Dr. Olgierd Sokołowski, Dr. Stanisław Chwojka, and Dr. Kazimierz Drozdowski. Long-time Wola Hospital feldsher Stanisław Łempicki, and twenty-three auxiliary male staff members known by name, were also executed. Six medical students, participating in clandestine medical studies conducted under the auspices of the legally operating Private Vocational School for Auxiliary Medical Personnel led by Dr. Jan Zaorski, were also killed. They were Aleksander Banasiewicz, Kazimierz Łągiewka, Ludwik Mikulski, Telesfor Opiłowski, Juliusz Sieragowski, and Ryszard Sułkowski (all of whom were practicing at Wola Hospital). Among the patients and those on hospital grounds, Father Józef Rzychoń of the Congregation of the Mission (prefect of the Silesian seminary in Kraków from 1937 to 1940) and Antoni Braunschweig (a seminarian from the Warsaw seminary) were also killed.

Only a few of the men led out of the hospital managed to survive the Wola massacre. From the group of doctors and students taken to be executed, Jan Napiórkowski escaped at the last moment from the execution site. Two patients, Father Bernard Filipiuk and Eugeniusz Trepczyński, survived the execution by hiding under a pile of corpses. A hospital worker, Wacław Dąbrowski, survived in a similar way. Father Marian Chwilczyński disguised himself as a nun and hid among the Daughters of Charity. A patient using the name Jan Bęcwałek was saved due to his Volksdeutsche status. Surgeons Leon Manteuffel and , along with nurses Barbara Warda and Irena Dobrzańska, were pulled from the column heading to Moczydło and taken to work at a German dressing station. Soon, both doctors were transported to the area near the railway viaduct over Wolska Street (Dr. Manteuffel reported that it was the courtyard of the Kirchmayer and Marczewski factory at 79/81 Wolska Street), where they encountered three employees from the St. Stanislaus Infectious Disease Hospital. Initially, the Germans did not know what to do with the brought Poles; one SS non-commissioned officer even stated that according to the Führer's order, they should be sent to the devil. Ultimately, however, an order came from Reinefarth's staff to transfer the entire group to St. Stanislaus Hospital.