Warsaw, 5 March 1946. Judge Alicja Germaszowa, delegated to the Commission for the Investigation of German Crimes, interviewed the person specified below as a witness. Having advised the witness of the criminal liability for making false declarations, and of the significance of the oath, the judge swore her in, after which the witness testified as follows:
Forename and surname | Stanisława Kiclak |
Date of birth | 5 May 1897 |
Names of parents | Maria, Franciszek |
Occupation | dressmaker |
Education | elementary school |
Place of residence | Warsaw, Złota Street 55a, flat no. 44 |
Religious affiliation | Roman-Catholic |
Criminal record | none |
On 26 May 1943, my husband, Leon, was arrested by the German Gendarmerie at the railway station in Łochów. As he later told me, he was arrested because a gendarme who was passing by heard my husband say to a friend of his “Anyway, the Germans will get a thrashing.” That gendarme immediately beat my husband up, kicked him, and took him to the blue police station.
After four or five days, my husband was transported to Treblinka (I was in contact with him when he was at the blue police station). After two months, I received information from the hospital in Klimowina (Węgrów or Sokołów county) that my husband had been brought there as a result of his dermatitis. At that time, I was able see my husband a few times.
He looked horrible; he was emaciated like a skeleton; though he had been 86 kilograms, he was 46 kilograms after his two month stay in Treblinka. He said he had been beaten almost all the time. The beatings had usually been done by the camp Kapos with rubber batons.
I could see a lot of weals on my husband’s body, on his arms, legs and back. He could not walk on his own. The other patients who had been prisoners in the Treblinka camp, and whom I saw in the hospital, were in the same condition, for example, the patient Mazurek (I do not know his name or address) told me that he had been beaten so much that he was injured all over and all blue.
My husband told me that throughout his stay in Treblinka he received meals, like other prisoners, twice a day, which only consisted of overcooked flour, and nothing more. They all slept on bare floor planks, covered only with their clothes. When one prisoner managed to obtain a mattress it was immediately burnt by a German from the camp personnel.
When after seven weeks in hospital my husband was ordered to return to the camp I helped him to escape from hospital.
My husband hid out in Warsaw for some time and then found a job outside Warsaw in the construction of health equipment (I do not remember what place was that).
On 8 October 1943, I was with my husband at the Dworzec Główny main railway station; with us was a friend of his, someone he had met not long before, who was to work with him. Suddenly, five Germans in plain clothes, holding guns, came up to us; they searched us, took away our Kenkarten, money and my husband’s and his friend’s luggage. They took us outside the railway station. There were two covered vehicles standing there, which we were ordered to get into. We were transported to the Gestapo HQ at aleja Szucha; I was taken to one cell and the men to a different one. After a few hours, I was called out for an interrogation; I was asked in detail about my family and what organization my husband belonged to. After some time, when I was back in my cell I heard my husband’s voice coming from not far off (the cell door was not closed); his words were: “Oh God. Oh Christ,” and there were sounds of beating.
On the same day we were taken with a whole group of people in a truck to Pawiak prison; I was not able to talk to my husband because men and women had been separated. After two weeks, I learnt from a senior prison guard that my husband had been killed in a public execution that had taken place on 26 October 1943 at Leszno Street 3/5. I was told the same at Gestapo HQ when I was interrogated there for the second time. I was asked again what organization my husband had belonged to; during the interrogation, the Gestapo man told me that my husband had been executed because he had acted to the detriment of the German state.
I was in Pawiak prison for two months; I was then ransomed by my cousin for 20,000 zloty. I worked as a dressmaker throughout my stay in Pawiak prison.
The witness interview report was read out.