Ostrowiec, 23 January 1947. Acting District Judge Mieczysław Radwan, a member of the Radom District Commission for the Investigation of German Crimes, interviewed the person named below as a witness. Having been advised of the criminal liability for making false declarations, the witness testified as follows:
Name and surname Jan Sitarski
Religious affiliation | Roman Catholic |
Age | 46 years old |
Occupation | economic clerk at the Municipal Board in Ostrowiec |
Place of residence | Ostrowiec |
Throughout the War I worked as a mechanic at the Municipal Board in Ostrowiec. During the course of the War, 17 out of the 37 employees of the Municipal Board were arrested at various times. The first arrest was effected in March 1940. The following people were then taken: Mieczysław Mann, Marian Rzepka, Czesław Gałkowski, Kazimierz Zebrowski, Wacław Pękalski, Adam Błaszkiewicz and Józef Byczkowski. Of this group, only Adam Błaszkiewicz survived: he had been so cruelly tortured during his interrogation that he was sent to the hospital in Sandomierz, from which he managed to escape. The rest were taken in an unknown direction and, according to information in our possession, executed by shooting. They were arrested by the local Gestapo on charges of membership in a secret organization.
A few weeks later, the deputy mayor, Józef Dziarmagowski, was arrested together with other residents of Ostrowiec; allegedly, he was executed in Skarżysko. Shortly after the arrest of Dziarmagowski, the municipal engineer Jabłczyński was detained and deported to Auschwitz, from where he hasn’t returned. Towards the end of September 1943, the following people were arrested and hanged in the marketplace of Ostrowiec: Dr. Józef Senda [?], Stanisław Matyjas, Józef Trepczyński, Jerzy Cywiński and others, 30 people in total. The following people were arrested in the winter of 1944: Franciszek Reszczyk, Marian Batorowski, and Czesław Rebącz; of these, only Rebącz managed to escape. The other two were deported from Ostrowiec and haven’t been heard of to this day. As for Reszczyk, there were announcements about his execution by shooting. There were also several mass executions of townsmen and neighboring villagers: 40 people were murdered in the first, and 30 in the second, while there were also some smaller executions, in which a total of 170 people lost their lives.
I didn’t come into any personal contact with German officials in Ostrowiec. I avoided them as I didn’t speak any German. It is generally believed in the municipal council that all the arrests of clerks were effected with the help of one of them, Słodowiecki, who was later sentenced to death by the Organization and executed by shooting.