ANTONI DRYJA

On 14 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, the witness testified as follows:


Name and surname Antoni Dryja
Age 36 years old
Parents’ names Józef and Julianna
Place of residence Wólka Klwatecka, commune of Wielogóra
Occupation carpenter
Religion Roman Catholic
Criminal record in 1942 sentenced to a term of imprisonment of six months for assault
Relationship to the parties none

While living near the execution site in Firlej, I saw many trucks plying the route between Radom and Firlej. The vehicles, which transported prisoners who were to be killed at the location, drove there and back daily. On average, you would see one to two trucks a day. But there were also days when a few or even a dozen or so truckloads of victims were delivered.

I was an eyewitness to one of the executions held in Firlej, which I observed from my roof. Having stopped their truck in the sands, the Germans led out four people, untied their hands, and ordered them to dig a hole. Next, they threw them into the pit and shot them. Having killed these four, they went back to the truck and brought out a few more prisoners and ordered them to proceed to the hollow, where they were then executed. This was repeated until all those on the truck had been murdered. They were executed with a revolver, although some follow-up shots were also fired from machine guns.

I witnessed a few such executions. During the first, which took place in 1943, the Germans killed 18 men and one woman, 19 people in total. In the course of each subsequent execution, all of which I saw in 1943, they shot a dozen or so people on average.

I would like to explain that I didn’t reside in Firlej throughout the entire German occupation. Thus, my observations concern only a certain period of time. In the autumn of 1943 the Germans evicted the local residents and, having first screened the area with mats on the side of the Warsaw highway, started burning the bodies of the murdered victims. In the night you could see a flame over the sands, while during the day there was a lot of smoke, accompanied by the stench of rotting human flesh. These incinerations ended in the spring of 1944.

The shootings continued unabated throughout this period, and indeed intensified thereafter. The last execution took place just before the final German units left.

The report was read out.