On 18 April 1946, the Municipal Court in Opatów, represented by Judge Al. Zalewski, with the participation of reporter 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 | Michał Plebanek |
| Age | 63 years old |
| Parents’ names | Walenty and Katarzyna |
| Place of residence | Opatów, Iwańska Street 20 |
| Occupation | tax officer |
| Religious affiliation | Roman Catholic |
| Criminal record | none |
During the German occupation until 6 February 1943, I lived in former state company buildings, which were turned into the German gendarmerie headquarters. I saw many times how criminal police officers Tadeusz Teodorczyk and Stanisław Słonka brought young detainees (whose [battered] appearance indicated that they were political prisoners) who were subsequently transported away in an unknown direction, usually in the afternoon of the same day.
One time, as I lived close to the cemetery, I saw gendarme Billert and former criminal police officer Stanisław Słonka taking a man towards the cemetery. I heard gunshots shortly after. On multiple occasions I saw Billert doing the same thing on his own, and another time – I can’t remember the exact date – I saw Hospodar and Słonka dragging a young woman, who was later shot down at the cemetery. I witnessed myself a few times how Tadeusz Teodorczyk beat people while taking them into custody. A former Blue Police officer, Grys, did the same; I even saw him get hit by a German gendarme for dealing with people in such a violent manner. Everyone I mentioned went with the German gendarmerie into the field to fight partisans and participate in roundups of people for forced labor in the Reich.
In one of those aforementioned buildings was located the District Agricultural and Commercial Cooperative in Ostrowiec, the head of which was Adam Spendowski from Poznań. This man was a servant to the Germans and an enemy of Polish people. It was five or six times that I witnessed him shouting and hitting local farmers with his hands and with a whip, when they came to deliver compulsory supplies or receive some allotments. When I told him to stop, he threatened me with gendarmerie and stated I wouldn’t stay there for long, and indeed, soon after, I was expelled from the mentioned buildings. People in the entire district complained about the socially harmful economic policy of Spendowski, who claimed a certain percentage of delivered crops for various reasons and refused to issue allotments; he instead sold them in great quantities to private stores and thus made a great fortune at the expense of the whole community. I don’t know anything specific about whether he was a Volksdeutscher, as it was widely claimed.