FRANCISZKA KACZYŃSKA

On 31 May 1947 in Zwoleń, the District Commission for the Investigation of German Crimes with its seat in Radom, this in the person of a member of the Commission, T. Skulimowski, acting pursuant to Article 20 of the provisions introducing the Code of Criminal Procedure, interviewed the person mentioned hereunder as a witness, without taking an oath. Having been advised of the criminal liability for making false declarations and of the provisions of Article 106 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, the witness testified as follows:


Name and surname Franciszka Kaczyńska
Age 43 years old
Parents’ names Józef and Anna, née Sobieszek
Place of residence Zwoleń, Krakowska Street 10
Occupation unemployed (works off and on as a trader)
Religion Roman Catholic
Criminal record none

My husband, Jan Kaczyński, had been working as the deputy secretary of the Municipal Board of Zwoleń since 1925. At 12.00 p.m. on 12 October 1942, after the ghetto had already been liquidated, a taxi cab with three German SS functionaries arrived in Zwoleń. The car stopped at the Municipal Board and the SS men entered the room in which my husband worked. Having checked his identity, they showed him an identity card which – as they stated – they had found upon a dead Jew in Ciepielów, adding that it had been issued and undersigned by my husband. They then took my husband, straight from the office, to Starachowice in the same taxi cab in which they had arrived. My husband was detained in Starachowice for some 2 months, whereafter he was deported to Oświęcim, and next to Gross-Rosen concentration camp. Finally, he was transferred to the camp in Oranienburg, where he died. I learned about my husband’s demise after I received a death certificate sent from the camp.

At the time of his arrest, my husband had been keeping a military register, and also issued identity cards and took care of affairs concerning the registration of residents. In Starachowice, I went to some German bureau at Starachowicka Street, near the prison, where I asked what my husband had been arrested for. An official declared that he had been detained for issuing false identity cards to Poles and Jews. My husband died on 2 October 1943.