ALEKSANDER BAKALARZ

On 11 January 1946 in Radom, Investigating Judge Kazimierz Borys of the II District of the Regional Court in Radom with its seat in Radom 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 Aleksander Bakalarz
Age 41 years old
Parents’ names Piotr and Antonina
Place of residence Firlej, commune of Wielogóra
Occupation laborer
Religion Roman Catholic
Criminal record none
Relationship to the parties none

I lived in Firlej throughout the whole German occupation. I observed what went on in the sands. I remember that some taxi cabs drove up there in the spring of 1940. At the time I didn’t hear any shots, but some boys who had been grazing cattle near the sands told me that the Germans had shot and buried someone. The next day I went to the spot where the boys told me that the execution had taken place. I started digging in some freshly heaped earth. At a depth of some 50 centimeters, I discovered the corpse of man dressed in a cassock. In all probability, the victim had been a priest. The boys had told me that three men had been shot, however I didn’t dig up any other graves.

The next year (I don’t remember the exact date) the Germans dug three square holes in the sands, approximately three meters deep and five meters wide. This was done in the afternoon. After the Germans had left, I and some other men walked up to the sands in order to find out what was going on. It was then that I found that these pits had been dug. On the next morning, a few dozen trucks drove up from Radom. They stopped near the sands. People were led from the vehicles and shot there. I didn’t see this execution myself, for the whole area was so closely guarded that I wouldn’t have been able to pass through. But I heard the shots. The day after the execution I walked up to the execution site and saw skull fragments, ears and fingers strewn over the freshly heaped earth. Clearly, these were the remains of an execution.

Trucks, accompanied by taxis, plied the road between Radom and Firlej without pause, practically daily from the spring of 1940. You could often hear the sound of vehicles turning towards Firlej, and see their headlamps at night. In the early morning, the trucks would return from Firlej.

In the summer of 1944 – in July, I think – I was an eyewitness to the shooting of three men and two women. I was fishing in a stream that flowed by the sands. When I noticed a German truck driving up, it was too late to run. So I hid in the rye. I then saw how the Germans led three men from the vehicle and ordered them to dig. One of them was obviously unable to comply, maybe due to sickness or exhaustion. He stood by the truck. When the other two had finished digging the hole, the Germans first brought forward the third man, who had been standing by, and threw him in. Next, they forced the other two men in, and thereafter shot them with sub-machine guns. The execution was observed by some women who were also in the truck. After the men had been murdered, these women were taken out, thrown into the hollow and themselves killed. The Germans then covered up the pit and left. I was at a distance of some 80 meters from the execution site.

Once, also in the summer of 1942, I was forced to bury the bodies of a few murdered victims. We would place on average four to six corpses into a single hole and cover it up. At the point where I was working, there were approximately 15 bodies. But I must add that there were a few groups of laborers such as mine.

In the autumn of 1943, having first evicted the nearby residents, the Germans started burning the bodies. This was evidently so, because you could see smoke and fire rising above the sands, and smell the stench of rot. The incinerations continued until the spring of 1944.

But then the executions were renewed, and were conducted right until the entry of the Red Army.

I don’t know whether the shootings were carried on during the incinerations, for I didn’t hear any shots. I did, however, continue to see vehicles driving to and fro between Radom and Firlej. I don’t know whether their cargo was alive and sentenced to die, or whether they carried bodies.

The report was read out.