STEFANIA WASIAK

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 lawyer Marian Marszałek, acting pursuant to Article 20 of the provisions introducing the Code of Criminal Procedure, interviewed the person mentioned hereunder as a witness. The witness testified as follows:


Name and surname Stefania Wasiak
Age 35 years old
Parents’ names Andrzej and Weronika, née Rożańska
Place of residence Zwoleń, Staropuławska Street 11
Occupation shopkeeper
Religion Roman Catholic
Criminal record none

I have been living in Zwoleń since the day I was born. This is where I resided throughout the last war. The Germans started applying repressive measures immediately after entering Zwoleń. The resistance movement was the first to be targeted. They considered that military men and teachers were harmful by definition, and therefore arrested all of them, however first tricking them into registering. I know of the following people [who were detained]: Mr Franciszek Markiewicz – a teacher, Mr Jakub Styczyński – a teacher, and others. The Germans issued an order restricting trade, and this led to terrible persecution, for people continued trading in secret and thereby ran the risk of being executed or deported. People suspected of working [...] were hit particularly hard by these measures. One of the victims was my husband, Władysław Wasiak, who was detained on 30 November 1941 and deported together with his friends, Jan Talaga and Władysław Piechota, to Oświęcim. That is where he perished.

Residents of villages in the region were severely victimized for providing assistance to the resistance. The measures that I have mentioned were implemented both against individuals and groups. In Karolin, for example, the Germans murdered some 70 people whom they had arrested there or nearby. The shootings were held in public, before everyone’s eyes, while sometimes people were even forced to attend these grim spectacles. By 1945 the citizenry of Zwoleń, which before the War had counted around 10,000 people, was reduced to 1/5 that number. All of the Jews and some 30% of Poles were expelled. As regards the surnames [...] of these Germans, I know that of Leokadia Krygier, née Sede – a Volksdeutscher, and Sianelewicz – the postmaster, also a Volksdeutscher. The latter was an informer of the Feldgendarmerie. Working in secret, he would gather information about those active in the resistance and pass it on to the Germans. On Good Friday in 1943, the Nazis publicly executed 20 people – Poles from the vicinity of Kozienice. At the time, the Germans herded people in from the church and ordered them to look. A second similar execution took place in 1944, on 19 June; exactly 44 people were killed, a great many of them from Zwoleń. After Poland was liberated, their bodies were exhumed and identified. I know and remember nothing else.