SZAREK PELAGIA

Kielce, 2 July 1948 at 8.00 a.m. Jan Zielono from the Investigative Office of the Citizens’ Militia in Kielce, with the participation of court reporter Zygmunt Winter, interviewed the person named below as a witness. Having been advised of the criminal liability for making false declarations and of the wording of Article 140 of the Penal Code, the witness testified as follows:


Name and surname Pelagia Szarek
Parents’ names Ignacy and Zofia, née Kupczyk
Age 40 years old
Place of birth Węgleszyn, Jędrzejów district
Religious affiliation Roman Catholic
Occupation laborer
Place of residence Kielce, 1 Maja Street 58
Relationship to the parties wife

In 1939, one evening before Christmas, a Gestapo man came to my place, accompanied by a Polish policeman called Pawlik (I don’t know his first name, but he worked for the Gestapo). They appeared right after my husband’s return and he was immediately taken from home.

No sooner had they left than I put on some clothes and followed my husband. As I was leaving the police station I saw him standing next to a man whom I don’t know. They were handcuffed to each other and guarded by two policemen. When my husband saw me he told me that he had been accused of robbing Stanisław Arendarski’s house.

My husband spent two months in prison after which time his case was tried by the Gestapo. He, Jan Kuc and Andrzej Zagórski were all sentenced to death. After the trial they were transferred to the prison where they stayed for seven days, until the implementation of the sentence which took place on 26 February 1940 in the Stadium in the woods. They were executed by firing squad.

In the fall of 1945, my husband, Kuc and Zagórski were disinterred and reburied in the Partisans’ Cemetery in Kielce. Their bodies were transferred and buried in one coffin.

The report was read out.