FELIKSA MARZEC

In Sydół on this day, 8 April 1948, at 5.00 p.m., I, Zenon Wilk from the Criminal Investigation Section of the Citizens’ Militia Station, 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 Feliksa Marzec
Parents’ names Wojciech and Wiktoria, née Góralska
Age 64 years old
Place of birth Policzna, Kozienice district
Religious affiliation Roman Catholic
Occupation farmer
Place of residence Sydół, commune of Grabów nad Pilicą
Relationship to the parties none

With regard to the matter at hand, I know the following: on the early morning of 18 March 1942, two Gestapo men, accompanied by a German colonist from Karolin, Hejniak, whose first name I don’t know, arrived at my place. They told my husband Franciszek, 61 years of age, to get dressed and go with them. Once outside the house, my husband had his hands cuffed behind his back. On the way, the Gestapo took all the other men out of their houses and marched them to the school in Karolin, where – after a trial which lasted only a few minutes – the men were subjected to brutal torture. At 12.00 p.m., having been tied together in fives, half dead, with their ribs and arms broken and their hands tied behind their backs, they were led to a pit and killed in a German way, that is, by a shot to the back of the head. The pit had been dug up by some local people.

That day the Germans murdered the following men: Marian Bąk, a teacher from Sydół, and five farmers from this village: Franciszek Marzec, Władysław Kuśmirz, Stanisław Kowalczyk, Adam Rębiś and Bębeniec; I don’t know Bębeniec’s first name. All of them were honest Poles. They left their families behind. Some of their loved ones still work on their farms, while some earn a living by manual labor. Antonina Bąk and her daughters Mirosława, Walentyna and Barbara earn their living by manual labor and live in Zwoleń at Radomska Street. My husband left me and my daughter Helena. My daughter works with me on our farm in Sydół. Stanisław Kowalczyk is survived by his son and his wife Zofia. Zofia works on a former German farm in Karolin. There are many people who still live and work on their farms in Sydół.

I don’t know why the Germans murdered the people I have mentioned above. I can say that in the autumn of 1941 three German colonists arrived at my place. I recognized one of them. His name was Hejniak. I don’t know his first name. They took my husband, Franciszek, somewhere to the woods, and it wasn’t until late at night that he returned home, black with bruises. He spent about four months lying in bed before he was taken again. I don’t know why they had taken him to the woods and what they had wanted from him. I wish to add that the people mentioned above were shot in courtyard of Józef Gramm, a German colonist from Karolin. He was a Gestapo man and the lists of Poles arrested by the Germans were drawn up by him.

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