Katowice, 6 April 1946. Judge W. Medlewski interviewed the person named below as a witness, without taking an oath. Having advised the witness of the criminal liability for making false declarations and of the wording of Article 107 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, and of the significance of the oath, the judge took an oath therefrom under Article 109.
The witness testified as follows:
| Name and surname | Zygmunt Juchniewicz |
| Parents’ names | Henryk, Stefania |
| Date of birth | 14 March 1888 |
| Occupation | forestry engineer in Sękocin |
| Education | forestry academy |
| Place of residence | Sękocin, Warsaw district |
| Religion | Roman Catholic |
| Criminal record | none |
I have been a forest district manager in the Sękocin Forest since 1924. Presently, since February 1944, I hold the position of forester in Sękocin (Chojnów forest district office). I live in a forester’s lodge located near the road at the entrance to the forest.
I know on the basis of my own observations and from what I heard from forest district office personnel and local residents that during the German occupation numerous executions of Poles took place in Sękocin Forest.
In December 1939 I first observed trucks stopping on the road near my home. These vehicles contained a few Germans dressed in civilian clothes (they spoke with each other in German), who brought with them a young man in handcuffs, also dressed in civilian clothes, whom they referred to as ‚the Polish lieutenant’. This man pointed out certain locations, where they dug in the earth as if
searching for something. This was repeated three times, and the man looked as if he had been cruelly beaten (swollen face, arms).
In April 1940 they brought with them a different man. This time three Germans came in a motorcar: one in uniform (I didn’t see his unit) and two civilians. One of the civilians entered my house, requested that I lend him a shovel and said that if today the man ‚does not finally show us the spot, he will be killed’. They drove on in the direction of a grove. Shortly thereafter I heard shots ringing from […] a different direction. Half an hour [later] the motorcar returned. One of the Germans threw my shovel onto the porch.
I then went to search for the body of the murdered man, accompanied by a ranger. On the basis of information provided by labourers who worked in the forest, who had seen the motorcar from which three men had stepped out and proceeded into the depths of the forest, after which some shots were fired with only two returning to the motorcar, we found the spot where the body had been hastily buried, covered with conifer needles.
In the winter of 1940 a German motorcar arrived at my house, and the same German civilian who had borrowed my shovel got out. The German told me that they had killed a ‚Polish bandit’, and gave me a piece of paper with the man’s name and surname: Jan Więcek, born in 1920. I informed the police of this, and they busied themselves with burying the body.
Apart from these instances, I know from reports made by rangers that on a few occasions in the summer of 1941, vehicles of the German Gendarmerie were transporting Poles for individual executions. Passing cars were seen and shots heard; this was happening during the daytime. I know that in one instance the SS shot one man, then another – two, and once three men.
This information was given to me by ranger Antoni Czarnecki, residing in Sękocin (ranger’s lodge).
Beginning in the morning of 26 May 1942 I observed heavy German motorcar traffic; the vehicles were carrying SS officers in the direction of the forest. Next, in the afternoon, two trucks full of army personnel arrived. Shortly after this, ranger Czarnecki reported to me that the Germans had set up a cordon around the area of forest for which he was responsible and were not allowing anyone to enter on the pretext of army manoeuvres. During the night I saw three trucks returning from the forest; they came from the same direction in which they had driven during the day. These vehicles were full of singing German soldiers.
I would like to add that the sound of gunshots came continuously from the area cordoned off by the military. All of us thought that an execution was taking place there, although none of us had seen the vehicles carrying the detained victims. In all probability, they had been driven in in the evening.
The next morning Wacław Lewicki, a resident at the Magdalenka housing estate (an area of the Sękocin Forest nearest to the spot where the execution had taken place) went to the location of the alleged manoeuvres. Once there, he found a rectangle 40 m long and 18 m wide freshly covered with earth, additionally masked with […] […] from a grove. After removing some of the earth, he could see numerous bodies thrown one onto another in complete disorder.
For some time after the abovementioned execution, the area was full of German intelligence agents, dressed in civilian clothes, and gendarmes, who asked the local populace whether and what they knew about the execution.
Soon everyone in the neighbourhood knew, and additional information was received from Warsaw that some 500 people, including 20 women transported from Pawiak, had been shot dead during the execution.
Specifically, this information was provided to myself by Wacław Lewicki and Roman Papaj (residing at the Magdalenka housing estate), who were more closely interested in matters relating to this execution.
Presently this location is marked with crosses and decorated with greenery, being maintained by the local populace as a grave. To date, no exhumation has been performed.
In November 1944 I received information from residents of the Magdalenka housing estate that executions were once again taking place in the vicinity of this housing estate. Three times at night, in weekly intervals, we heard the rumble of motor vehicles driving deep into the forest, and this was followed by the sound of shots coming from the same direction; the vehicles returned in the morning. These were always German military vehicles, trucks.
More detailed information about the above may be provided by Stern (I don’t know his first name), residing at the aforementioned Magdalenka housing estate, and my assistant forester, Zenobiusz Bucholczyk, who currently resides at the Regny forest district office near Łódź.
The bodies of the victims were covered with a thin layer of earth, there were empty cartridge cases on the ground and blood could be seen.
I saw the abovementioned locations on the days immediately following the executions.
In January 1945 bodies were gradually exhumed from these graves; some of them were collected by the victims’ families (six or seven in total), while the remainder – 28 in all – were buried at the cemetery in Raszyn. Some of the bodies were identified, and their surnames may be found at the Commune Office in Raszyn.
According to information that I possess, all of the bodies of those murdered by the Germans, with the exception of a mass grave dating from May 1942, were exhumed by the local exhumation committee or by families.
I would like to add that the information concerning the Germans who carried out executions in the Sękocin Forest was given to me by Kregielewski (I think his name is Julian), who lives in his own house in Raszyn, and who during the German occupation worked in the criminal police and told me that he had the surnames of some of the people who performed the abovementioned executions.