JAN TUSZNIO

In Suchedniów on this day, 7 June 1948, at 9.00 a.m., I, Ignacy Kołda from the Citizens’ Militia Station in Suchedniów, acting on the basis of Article 20 of the provisions introducing the Code of Criminal Procedure, on the instruction of citizen Deputy Prosecutor from the Region of the Prosecutor’s Office of the District Court in Kielce, this dated 23 March 1948, file number ZN 71/47, issued on the basis of Article 20 of the provisions introducing the Code of Criminal Procedure, observing the formal requirements set forward in Articles 235-240, 258 and 259 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, with the participation of reporter Alojzy Kocela, whom I have informed of the obligation to attest to the conformity of the report with the actual course of the procedure by his own signature, have heard the person named below as a witness. Having been advised of the right to refuse to testify for the reasons set forward in Article 104 of the CCP and of the criminal liability for making false declarations, pursuant to Article 140 of the Penal Code, the witness testified as follows:


Name and surname Jan Tusznio
Parents’ names Piotr and Joanna, née Takowczyk
Date and place of birth 15 November 1897, Łączna, Suchedniów commune
Religious affiliation Roman Catholic
Occupation road janitor
Place of residence Ostojów 229, Suchedniów commune
Relationship to the parties none

With regard to the matter at hand I can provide the following information: On 6 July 1944 the gendarmerie from Kielce brought 33 people to Suchedniów, near the railway station. At that time I worked as a road janitor, and after the execution, the former village administrator, acting on orders from the Germans, told me to bury the dead on the spot on which they were killed. It took me and some men whom I took from the road two hours to bury the dead. I wish to note that when the gendarmes brought these men they all had their hands tied behind their backs with a spring. The Germans escorted them out of their cars in groups of 11, lined them up in a row and shot. I haven’t been able to establish the names of the perpetrators. Nor do I know the names of those whom they shot.

The bodies of the victims were buried on the spot and remained there until the liberation. In 1945 the bodies were exhumed. Seven bodies were identified by their families and taken to Kielce, Skarżysko and Zagnańsk. I don’t know their names. The rest were reburied in the cemetery in Suchedniów. Their clothes were described but their names remained unidentified.

At this the report was concluded, read out and signed.