On 16 July 1947 in Staszów, the District Commission for the Investigation of German Crimes for the District Court, with its seat in Radom, Staszów Branch, represented by former judge Albin Walkiewicz, now attorney in Staszów, interviewed the person specified below as a witness, without taking an oath. Having been advised of the criminal liability for making false declarations and of the provisions of Article 107 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, the witness testified as follows:
| Name and surname | Władysław Czapla |
| Age | 46 |
| Parents’ names | Kacper and Antonina |
| Place of residence | Staszów, Długa Street 33 |
| Occupation | blacksmith |
| Religious affiliation | Roman Catholic |
| Criminal record | none |
During the occupation I lived in Staszów. This entire time, unjust beatings were a normal daily occurrence. They were often prompted by failure to carry out an order, for example a German would pick up large cartwheels from my smithy and order Jews to carry them. One man was not capable of lifting such a wheel on his own, so the German would kick him and hit him with his hand and a stick. A Pole and a Jew were not considered people, the Germans didn’t respect their dignity as human beings and humiliated them in various ways. Protecting one’s dignity was unthinkable and could immediately result in death. We couldn’t make a complaint, there was no authority to whom we could turn in order to complain.
On 11 March 1943 I was arrested by the SD [Sicherheitsdienst – Security Service] unit from Opatów and by the gendarmerie from Staszów, together with 10 other residents of Staszów. We were accused of engaging in underground political activity. We were transported to a detention point in Opatów. On the third day, the same SD unit and gendarmerie arrested a dozen of our relatives who were transported to the camp in Auschwitz. About 10 of them were murdered there – they never came back.
In November 1942, while the displaced Jews were being rushed out of Staszów, I saw one German shoot three people dead. Hundreds of them were shot to death, but I only witnessed the execution of those three. The streets and apartments in the town were filled with the corpses of Jews, and there were large pools of blood in the streets. I think that the deportation of the Jews was carried out by the gendarmerie, aided by Ukrainian units.
I saw Teofil Celejowski from Kurozwęki, Staszów commune, district of Stopnica, being released from the Staszów gendarmerie’s detention center in 1943. They ordered him to give up the names of members of the underground. He refused to do so. He was then beaten so badly that his body was turned into a shapeless pulp. From that point onward, he couldn’t get up from his bed because his bones were broken. He died after a couple of months. While hiding in Kurozwęki, on many occasions I saw gendarmes transporting people by car to the cemetery in Kurozwęki and executing them. Those who tried to resist by the gate were beaten with rifle butts. While hiding in Olszanica, near Krakow, I saw fires in the villages raided by Germans. I then learned that the Germans would surround a village, herd its residents into one place, pick people whom they didn’t like, and shoot them. I know of three such instances. If during a search they found a document in which not everything was understandable to them – they burnt such a farmstead. In 1944 in Częstochowa I saw wagons filled with people who were being transported to the camp in Auschwitz. The prisoners had their hands tied with barbed wire, and it was forbidden to give water to those who were asking for it.
Lieutenant Rippert, Jasiński, Fenske and Cichoń were the worst butchers from the gendarmerie station in Staszów.
The food requisitions were severe. Many people were not able to fulfill the quotas. The Germans would punish a failure to do so with a terrible beating, and then transportation to a camp located in some village unknown to me near the Vistula river.
The round-ups of people who were then sent to Germany to perform forced labor started in 1941. These round-ups occurred at night. Each time a few dozen people got captured and were then transported to Germany. Hundreds of people were deported from Staszów. In 1942, during a Sunday service, the Germans entered the church and took people for labor in Germany.
I know nothing more. The report was read out.