MARIAN ŁAZARZ

On 19 April 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 Marian Łazarz
Age 24 years old
Parents’ names Józef and Maria
Place of residence Opatów district, Opatów commune, Adamów village
Occupation tailor
Religious affiliation Roman Catholic
Criminal record none

During one of the civilian roundups, I was captured and deported to Germany for forced labor on 3 June 1940, from where I managed to escape on 25 August of the same year. After about one year, on 22 September 1941, I was arrested, while I was working, by former SD officers: Stanislaw Słonka and Nowaczyk, who took me to the local SD unit, and then imprisoned me for escaping the forced labor in Germany. After about two weeks, I was transported under the escort of the German gendarmerie to a temporary penal camp near Kraków; throughout the entire journey, I was handcuffed. At the first stage of the Sandomierz route I was handcuffed, for the first time, by a gendarme of German origin, Billert (aka “Biller”).

After two months in the aforementioned camp, I was transported to the concentration camp in Auschwitz, where I stayed for about four months. After that, I was relocated to the concentration camps in Wrocław, Oranienburg, and Lüneburg, where I stayed for about eight months in total, and then I was sent for forced labor in the Reich, where I was assigned to work again after a year, from which I managed to escape to Poland. During my stay in the Opatów detention center I witnessed 5–6 times how criminal police officers, Stanisław Słonka and Tadeusz Teodorczyk, took young people, arrested for not providing compulsory supplies, out of their cells. They put them in a nearby cell, where they were beaten mercilessly with rubber batons, in a cruel way; the evidence of this were the groans of the victims of torture and their stories later on. Among those who were mistreated, there were also suspects of political activity.

After my return from Germany, I found out from my uncle Leon Łazarz, residing in Opatów district, Ćmielów commune, Przeuszyn, that his son, and my uncle’s brother, Jan Łazarz, also residing in Przeuszyn, was shot down by former Blue Police officers of the Opatów station Ślęzak and Grys. It happened at the same moment when they detained him in the Gierczyce village, as he was the messenger of Bataliony Chłopskie [Farmers’ Battalions] in the aforementioned village, Opatów district, Wojciechchowice commune. I often saw how the mentioned Słonka, Teodorczyk, Nowaczyk, Ślęzak, Grys, and others went into the field together with the German gendarmerie, taking part in fights against the partisans.