In Sydół on this day, 8 April 1948, at 4.00 p.m., I, Zenon Wilk from the Criminal Investigation Section of the Citizens’ Militia Station in Kozienice, acting under Article 20 of the provisions introducing the Code of Criminal Procedure, following instructions from the District Commission for the Investigation of German Crimes in Radom issued on 31 March 1948 (L. 532/48/2) under Article 20 of the provisions introducing the Code of Criminal Procedure, observing the formal requirements set forward in Articles 235–240, 258 and 259 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, with the participation of a reporter, a Militia functionary from Zwoleń, Władysław Adamczyk, whom I have informed of his obligation to attest to the conformity of the report with the actual course of the procedure by his own signature, have heard the person named below as a witness. Having been advised of the right to refuse to testify for the reasons set forward in Article 104 of the Code of Criminal Procedure and of the criminal liability for making false declarations, this pursuant to the provisions of Article 140 of the Penal Code, the witness testified as follows:
| Name and surname | Katarzyna Rogala |
| Parents’ names | Józef and Wiktoria, née Sałko |
| Age | 35 years old |
| Place of birth | Sydół, commune of Grabów nad Pilicą |
| Religious affiliation | Roman Catholic |
| Occupation | housewife |
| Place of residence | Sydół, commune of Grabów nad Wisłą |
| Relationship to the parties | none |
With regard to the matter at hand, I know the following: on the morning of 18 March 1942, my husband Adam Rębiś came out of the house into the courtyard and noticed Gestapo men entering people’s houses at the far end of the village and taking all the men out. After he got back into the house, he looked through the window and said to me: "They are coming for me". Two Gestapo men, accompanied by a German colonist, Hejniok, whose name I don’t know, entered our house and searched it for weapons. My husband, whom I wasn’t allowed to approach, was immediately handcuffed and taken to the village of Karolin.
He was arrested along with many other men, and murdered together with Stanisław Kowalczyk, Antoni Kuśmierz, Franciszek Marzec, Marian Bąk and Jan Bębeniec, all of whom were taken to Karolin and tried (the trial was held at the school and lasted only a few minutes); at noon, already half dead because of the beatings they had suffered, they were executed in Józef Gramm’s courtyard. Gramm was a German colonist who at the time was serving in the Gestapo. The method of execution: the convicts were led out of the school with their hands tied behind their backs. Outside the school, they were chained together by the Gestapo, the gendarmerie and German spies who led them to the pit dug by farmers from Karolin and other villages. By the hole, three Gestapo men were assigned to each prisoner. The Germans tied their victims together in fives and led one group after another to their death. The prisoners were killed in a German way, by a shot to the back of the head. When one group of detainees was executed, the Germans forced the local population to get down into the pit and untie the victims’ hands (they had been tied with strings and ropes).
Some 75 people from various villages were murdered that day. The Germans didn’t discriminate between those who were and who weren’t guilty. I don’t know the names of all of the people killed. I know only some of them: Jan Chołuj, Gładysz (I don’t remember his first name), Jan Sałek, Aleksander Sałek, Stanisław [Kowalczyk] – farmers from the village of Karolin. I wish to add that Marian Bąk, resident of Sydół, was a Polish professor, an honest Pole. He is survived by his wife Antonina and three daughters: Mirosława, Walentyna and Barbara, all of whom live in Zwoleń at Radomska Street. My husband left me and our single child behind. The child was less than one year old at the time of the execution. Bębeniec was unmarried. His four brothers are still alive, living and working on a farm in Sydół, in the Grabów commune. Stanisław Kowalczyk is survived by his wife and his single child. His wife, who is responsible for the child’s support, works on one of the farms left by the Germans in Karolin. Antoni Kuśmierz is survived by his wife and his six-year-old son who helps his mother run their farm. Franciszek Marzec is survived by his wife and his daughter who now works on a farm in Sydół.
After the execution, the Gestapo forced some of the residents to dump the bodies into the pit and to fill it up with soil. Since there were lots of bodies in the hollow, the one-meter layer of dirt with which they were covered quickly became soaked with blood and quivered with the throes of the people who were still alive. German colonists from Karolin, who had for a long time been acquainted with the Polish local population and were considered Polish citizens, stood behind this barbarous crime. They were led by Józef Gramm who was a Gestapo man.
I am unable to say why all these people were executed. All I know is that two weeks before the execution a German soldier who was returning from his Polish girlfriend was killed in the forest some 15 kilometers away from Sydół. I don’t know the girl’s name.
At this point the report was concluded, read out and signed.