Bochnia, 28 November 1947
Józef Greniuch
surveyor at the Salt Mine in Bochnia
Dworcowa Street 46
To
the Supreme National Tribunal
National Museum building
Kraków
I hereby describe the details of the German crime.
On 1 September 1939, my son Marian, a 17-year-old pupil of the second grade of the state high school in Bochnia, was assigned, among others, to guard barracks and railway bridges as part of the school military preparations. In the night from 1 to 2 September 1939, he prevented three Volksdeutschers from installing mines on the railway bridge in Podłęż, arrested them and handed over to the Polish military authorities. One of the arrested men was a German from Bochnia. When the Germans defeated our army, they liberated all the prisoners. We did not have to wait long for the revenge of that German. On 20 July 1940 at night, the Kraków Gestapo arrested my wife, my son, and myself. As they were arresting us in our house, they beat us. My wife was released from the barracks on that same day, but my
17-year-old son and I were taken to the prison in Tarnów. After some time, I was released, but my son was transferred to the Montelupich prison after a month, and later on to Auschwitz.
Paying money to different people, I secretly communicated with my son, who constantly asked me to send him bandages and pills, because he was being tortured by the German butchers in the Montelupich prison. He was a very tough boy, a Pole. He held on.
On 8 January 1941, he was transported to Auschwitz. On 18 May, he was sentenced to death by firing squad by the camp’s commandant, and on 11 November, on Independence Day, he was executed by murderer Palitzsch personally at block 11. Edward Hillubrand and Edward Mostaj from Bochnia witnessed that crime.
Should the Supreme National Tribunal consider my written testimony suitable, I am ready to testify as a witness, so that I can look those criminals in the eyes and tell them how they murdered us.