KLEMENS MIŁKOWSKI

On 24 February 1949, the Municipal Court in Lipsko nad Wisłą, in the person of Judge Aniela Krężelewska, with the participation of reporter Stanisław Wroński, on the motion of the Main Commission for the Investigation of German Crimes in Poland, pursuant to Article 4 of the Decree of 10 November 1945 (Journal of Laws No. 51, item 293) and Article 254 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, and pursuant to Articles 107, 109, 113 and 115 of the said Code, heard the person named below as a witness. Having been advised of the criminal liability for making false declarations and the significance of the oath, the witness was sworn in accordance with Article 111 of the Code of Criminal Procedure and testified as follows:


Name and surname Klemens Marian Miłkowski
Date and place of birth 23 November 1896, Kraśnik, Janów district
Religious affiliation Roman Catholic
Nationality and citizenship Polish
Occupation teacher at the Secondary School and Pedagogical High School in Solec nad Wisłą
Place of residence Solec nad Wisłą
Criminal record none
I was present in Solec nad Wis łą when the German troops entered the town on 11 September

1939. On the evening of 10 September 1939 the roar of engines of approaching cars could be distinctly heard. On entering Solec on 11 September 1939 between 10.00 and 11.00 a.m., the German soldiers set fire to a town district located by the road to Lipsko–Podemłynie, and the district burnt to ashes. They were also shooting, although there was no one to shoot at, as the Polish troops retreated over the Vistula. Next they were going from house to house, breaking down locked doors and robbing people of everything they could. Those people who were at home at the time were herded to the grounds of a local secondary school and almost all the men were led with their arms raised. At the time my brother-in-law had a flashlight stolen from his pocket by some German soldier.

When some residents of Solec were driven from their homes and gathered together, not many locals remained in town, as the majority had escaped to neighboring villages and woods. The German soldiers separated Poles from Jews: they herded the group of Jewesses, numbering 40 women, into the female boarding house and locked them up there, and next crammed the Jews into a room, bordering on the courtyard of the secondary school of the Observant order and located between the sacristy and the high altar, and then pelted them with hand grenades and fired a salvo from their machine guns. The room into which the Jews were driven was filled with all sorts of bedding and garments which the local populace wanted to save from the flames.

The salvos and the grenades started a fire. The Jews, who were wounded but still alive, were engulfed in the flames. Agonizing moans and cries were soon heard. The Jewesses, locked up in the female boarding house, were also screaming, sensing that something horrible was happening to their loved ones. Only one victim of this German crime managed to get away from the massacre: an extremely strong man, thirty-something years old, a tailor by the surname of Honig. His wife managed to obtain permission from the Germans to take him to the hospital in Ostrowiec, but he died there a few days later due to his sustained wounds and burns. Having put out the fire, on the next day the Germans ordered the Polish populace to bury the charred remains of the Jews by the wall of the monastery. Moreover, the Germans killed two Poles in the street on 11 September 1939.

The Jewish populace, returning to town in the following days, was harassed by the German soldiers in a sophisticated manner. The rabbi was stripped of his gabardine and pulled by his sidelocks, and Jewish shops were plundered en masse. The biggest robbery took place on 12 September 1939. All robbed property was brought to one place, that is to where the field kitchens were organized, segregated there and loaded onto cars which left in the direction of Lipsko. I cannot say what kind of German unit entered Solec on 11 September 1939, I only recall that they had green uniforms and either combat helmets or side caps, and swastikas on the sleeves of their uniforms. Then these troops crossed the Vistula and marched on. A few days later other German units entered town, and they robbed the town of everything of any value.

At this the report was concluded, read out and signed.