BRONISŁAW KARAŚ

On 23 January 1948 in Kozienice, the District Commission for the Investigation of German Crimes in Radom, Branch Office in Kozienice, in the person of lawyer Dr Gustaw Słupnicki, interviewed the person mentioned hereunder as a witness, without taking an oath. Having advised the witness of the criminal liability for making false declarations, of the provisions of Article 107 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, and of the significance of the oath, the judge took an oath therefrom, following which the witness testified as follows:


Name and surname Bronisław Karaś
Age 38 years old
Parents’ names Marian and Józefa, née Śmietanka
Place of residence Kociołki, commune of Kozienice
Occupation farmer
Religion Roman Catholic

In the autumn – it was September – of 1943, a bus column of German gendarmes stopped in the forests next to our village, Kociołki, and – as I was later told by neighbors – some of the gendarmes went to the forester’s lodge and detained forester Antoni Nowakowski. A short while later, his body was found next to the highway. The remaining gendarmes stayed next to their vehicle. At the time, one Władysław Wzik – a laborer – was walking barefoot along a footpath from his house near the forest to that of his brother-in-law, who lived in another part of the village. When the gendarmes saw him, they called him over, however I do not know what happened next – I only heard a shot. Józef Czyżewski, resident in the village of Śmietanki, was said to have been driving by on his bicycle from the direction of Policzna; I then heard a second shot. After some 15–30 minutes, the Germans summoned myself and some other men, and ordered us to bury both bodies.

Apart from this, in the spring of 1944 gendarmes surrounded our village, Kociołki, and used a list to detain ten people as hostages. These were the following: Tadeusz Rojek, Antoni Rojek, Feliks Rojek, Stanisław Krajewski, Stanisław Połeć, Jan Cieślik, Eugeniusz Połeć, Jan Szurtas, Franciszek Przychodzień, Stanisław Wielgomas, and Bolesław Maciejczyk. Of these men, only Stanisław Wielgomas returned. Whereas following the Germans’ withdrawal, the bodies of Feliks Rojek, Antoni Rojek and Stanisław Krajewski were brought in from Zwoleń, and those of Jan Cieślik and Stanisław Połeć from Pionki. I don’t know what happened with the others. Since they were not criminals, I would assume that they were partisans. I know nothing about any other crimes.