ANDRZEJ MAZUR

On 4 May 1946, the Municipal Court in Opatów, represented by Judge Al. Zalewski, with the participation of reporter app. J. Kwiatkowski, interviewed the person mentioned below as a witness. Having advised the witness of the criminal liability for making false declarations, of the wording of Article 107 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, and of the significance of the oath, the judge swore the witness in accordance with Article 108 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, whereupon the witness testified as follows:


Name and surname Andrzej Mazur
Age 32 years old
Parents’ names Józef and Waleria née Piórecka
Place of residence Opatów, Sienkiewicza Street 4
Occupation clerk
Religious affiliation Roman Catholic
Criminal record none
Relationship to the parties none

On 16 July 1942, I was summoned over the phone to the local SD unit, where I was arrested. During the interrogation I was accused, among other things, of supporting resistance activities in the local area. There was no evidence of this as they were erased by that time by third parties. During several searches I was shown various types of evidence, which stated my involvement, before the beginning of the war, in the Young Village organization. I worked there as a head of a neighborhood association on the territory of three adjacent communes.

During my stay in the local detention center, I was placed near the “staff room”, where “interrogations” took place every day for several hours. One could hear the moaning and crying of the tortured victims, coming from that place. From those who returned from there, and whose names I do not remember, I learned that the main torturer was Lejn, the deputy of the head of the local SD unit. Apart from him, such interrogations were attended by members of the former criminal police: Stanisław Słonka, Tadeusz Teodorczyk, and others. I recall that once a young man was brought to our cell, captured with a gun in his hand. It was probably a political offender, because only this kind of detainee was ever placed in our cell no. 2. In the evening of the following day he was summoned by the officer on duty and did not return to the cell anymore. The news that we received the next day, [said that] this man was shot dead at the local cemetery by a torturer known in our area, Ryszard Hospodar. He was helped by the Polish officer of the local criminal police, Stanislaw Słonka. He was said to have shot better than Hospodar, in that particular case, because the latter did not manage to shoot the young man, but Słonka did.

After one and a half months in the detention center, the day of departure had come. The officers of the criminal police – [who were] Poles – restrained our hands. I was restrained by the aforementioned Słonka. In an attempt to find out whether we were going to be executed, I asked if I should take a blanket with me. Słonka mockingly responded, “there’s no need to take it, as it will no longer be useful for anything.” Acting as the deputy secretary of the municipal office in Opatów, based on my own observations and comments of the general population, I conclude that the worst war criminals of the local area were Ryszard Hospodar and Stanisław Słonka.