On 2 December 1946 in Warsaw, Investigative Judge J. Ignatowicz of the 1st District of the Regional Court in Warsaw, interviewed the person specified below as a witness, without administering an oath. Having been advised of the criminal liability for making false declarations and of the provisions of Article 107 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, the witness testified as follows:
| Name and surname | Janina Suchodolska |
| Age | 37 |
| Parents’ names | Wojciech and Franciszka |
| Place of residence | Styki Street 10, flat 1 |
| Occupation | director of the Central Welfare Committee |
| Religious affiliation | Roman Catholic |
| Criminal record | none |
| Relationship to the parties | none |
From 1941 until April 1945, I worked in Lublin as deputy plenipotentiary of the Central Welfare Council in the Lublin Voivodeship. The Polish Welfare Committees functioned as the branches of the Central Welfare Council in various cities. In Lublin, I was the immediate supervisor of the prisoners aid operation, and I oversaw the logistics of the Central Welfare Council in the Lublin Voivodeship. This is why I often encountered victims of German terror.
The first wave of this terror was in 1943 when the so-called pacification of the districts of Zamość, Tomaszów, Biłgoraj, and Kraśnik began at the end of June, and lasted through July and August. The pacification was carried out in the following manner: the Germans surrounded each of the villages, deported their residents, and then burnt the villages or resettled them with Volksdeutschers from Romania. In first order, the displaced population was sent to transit camps in Lublin – in Majdanek and at Krochmalna Street 6 and 31, as well as in Zwierzyniec, Zamość, and Budzyń. From there, they were transported to Germany. In the camps in Zamość and Zwierzyniec (at first also in Lublin), children were immediately separated from their parents. Later in Lublin children were deported from labor camps at Krochmalna Street together with their parents. Only men were detained in the camp in Budzyń. I received this information from the agencies which I supervised and from the elderly mothers who had been released. Incidentally, in the winter I also personally witnessed Russian children being transported away from field no. 1 in Majdanek in three vehicles. These children were separated from their mothers before our very eyes. They were up to 10 years old. The mothers were lamenting and crying out their children’s names. Interestingly, all of these children were dressed uniformly in decent clothes. One of the prisoners told me that they were to be transported to Łódź.
The parents and children were then sent to transit camps in Poland, camps in Świnoujście, Starogard, Hamburg, Strasshof near Vienna, Tuhringia, Halle, Wrocław, the Sudetes, Neumark, Schwerin and Rhineland. This information was passed on to us by a Polish woman named Maria, who was an office worker at the Arbeitsamt [Labor Department]. I don’t know her surname. She even invited me once to the office after hours in secret and showed me the lists of the deportees. Later I received letters from the parents deported together with their children, which stated that the children got separated from them. I destroyed all these letters but one, and I still possess it to this day.
Having been separated from their parents, the children were sent most likely to Łódź, where they were to be brought up as Germans. I established this on the basis of the following facts: before the pacification, the Germans began the campaign of forcing the Polish population to sign up for a list of the Volksdeutschers, but it was met with resistance. This is what brought on the pacification. In addition, the Germans started a large propaganda campaign, making use of the press, which aimed at presenting the Zamość region as a former German territory and its population as Polonized descendants of the German colonists. A plate was put up in the Old Town in Lublin, claiming that Lublin was a German city. Thanks to our efforts, I managed to obtain a permission form one Türk, head of the Population and Welfare Department [Abteilung Bevölkerungswesen und Fürsorge] in the General Government’s administration to release about six thousand women and children from Majdanek. But prior to that, a sergeant with SS insignia came from Łódź, supposedly from some Ansiedlungskommission [settlement commission], and declared that he was against this release, because the blood tests had shown that the children in question were of German descent. The sergeant said this in the office, in my presence. Eventually the people were released, but their number was only 2167, and we had to immediately send 594 of them to a hospital, as they had fallen ill with typhus fever. These people were so frightened that none of them wanted to say what had happened to the rest of the six thousand. They only said that some of them had been transported to Germany. The rest probably died due to terrible conditions, which had been described to me by prisoner Lang, with whom I spoke when these 2167 people were being released. Lang has changed his name and now works at a canteen at Zygmuntowska Street 14.
The second operation of pacification took place in June and July 1944. This time it was mainly adults who were being displaced, while children were displaced only from the districts of Biłgoraj and Zamość. These children hadn’t been separated from their parents in Poland, but I don’t know what happened to them in Germany. This pacification was carried out also in the Chełm and Hrubieszów districts.
During several months in the winter of 1944 (starting with January), a significant number of Poles were transported away from Wołyń. Many of these transports passed through Lublin and Przemyśl. These transports passed through every day. In response to our intervention, the German authorities explained that these people were voluntarily escaping from Ukrainian terror. But when I talked to the people in the transports I learnt that they had been forced to do so. On the other hand, it was true that many of them were victims of Ukrainian terror, since many had been harmed by the Ukrainians. We managed to free some of them from the transports and helped them settle in Poland.
From among the victims of German terror I remember the Miśkiewicz family from the Zamość region, commune of Majdan – Majdan Górny, I think. Nowadays this may be the Tomaszów district, for the Zamość region was divided into two districts. One elderly lady came to me and said that her four small girls (the Miśkiewicz couple’s daughters) had been taken away during the pacification, their father died during the pacification, and the fate of the mother was unknown. More details can be provided by Janina Guzowska, whom I repeatedly sent into the field in order to steal children back from the Germans. Her address, as well as the addresses of other workers and of the children themselves (victims of terror) can be obtained in the District Welfare Committee in Lublin, at Krakowskie Przedmieście Street 51.
I remember the following names of the Germans who were involved in organizing terror:
SS- und Polizeiführer [SS and police leader] Globocnik, who ordered pacifications.
SS Lieutenant Rolfing, who supervised the pacification in 1944 – I intervened with him in connection with providing food for children. He denied that there were any children in Majdanek. After I said that I had personally seen them, he permitted packages to be sent to the children via the post. However, before he made that decision, he had gone to another room and then stated that a moment ago he had learnt via telephone that the children had arrived.
Fritsche, head of the Population and Welfare Department in the Lublin district. He mainly made sure that the people on their way from Wołyń do not get released from the transport.
Vilnow, head of the same Department in the Lublin district. She reported that in Poland we secretly spoke with people who had been transported from Wołyń. She did that after in the Central Welfare Council she seized a notebook with confidential notes. I was consequently summoned by Fritsche and due to her presence I had a hard time explaining myself.
Ramm, head of all the Arbeitsamts in the Lublin region (head of the district Abteilung Arbeit [Labor Office]).
Thumann, head of the political department in Majdanek.
Walter, head of the camp in Majdanek during its last period. At first he refused to allow me to send food to children, saying that there weren’t any children in the camp, and then kept creating problems for me after I had brought a permit.
Lang, a former tradesman from Vienna, was Fritsche’s deputy.
Hoffman (not the one who had already been sentenced), who made it difficult for me to provide food for the children.
Külpe, a non-commissioned officer of the SS, who even shot at us when we tried to give the children food while they were coming back from the washroom.
Peters, the SS man who euthanized Rolfing’s employee.
Hännschen’s wife obstructed the release of the sick, claiming that they were only pretending.
The report was read out.