EDWARD ŻYŁA

On 15 January 1946 in Radom, the investigating judge from the 2nd Region of the District Court in Radom, Judge Kazimierz Borys, heard the person named below as an unsworn witness. Having been advised of the criminal liability for making false declarations, the witness testified as follows:


Name and surname Edward Żyła
Age 32 years old
Parents’ names Stanisław and Feliksa
Place of residence Firlej, Wielogóra commune
Occupation tanner
Religious affiliation Roman Catholic
Criminal record none
Relationship to the parties none

In the second year of the war, I noticed two large pits in the Firlej sands: they were about 8 meters long, 3–4 meters wide and 2 meters deep. These pits had been dug by the Germans. On the following day I saw trucks going to the sands from the direction of Radom, and later I heard shots. When the trucks had left, I went to the execution site and found pieces of human skin and fragments of a skull with hair. A year later, in the winter months, I saw a truck that stopped by the school in Firlej. The Germans led out two women and three men. All of them had their hands tied behind their backs. The victims were led uphill. Gendarmes or maybe Gestapo men with shovels walked behind. Shortly afterwards shots rang out.

In the summer of 1944 I witnessed an execution of seven people. A car with the condemned stopped at the sands and then seven men were led out of it. A German read something out to them by the car and then they were marched in twos to a previously dug pit and shot there. The Germans shot them from behind with rifles. When the first two fell into the pit, another two were executed. One of the men didn’t fall into the pit, and then a German forced him down with his leg.

Apart from these three incidents that I witnessed myself, I saw cars going between Radom and Firlej almost every day, and after they arrived at the sands shots would ring out. In the winter of 1943/1944, having expelled the local populace, the Germans began to burn corpses of the people murdered in Firlej. I saw smoke over the sands and I could also smell the stench of burning human bodies that were already decomposing. One of the Germans employed at this burning claimed that they were burning Jews. At the time when the corpses were being burned, large black trucks came to Firlej; they probably brought bodies from other locations.

After they had finished the burning, the Germans organized a party in the local school. One of them said that next they were going to burn corpses in Skarżysko. This German’s name was Paul.

After the burning was finished, people were still being shot in Firlej up until January 1945.

The report was read out.