On 10 June 1974 in Warsaw, the Deputy Voivodeship Prosecutor Janina Krężlewicz, delegated to the District Commission for the Investigation of Nazi Crimes in Warsaw, proceeding in accordance with the provisions of Article 4 of the Decree of 10 November 1945 (Journal of Laws of the Republic of Poland No. 51, item 293) and Article 129 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, with the participation of reporter J. Chrostowska, interviewed the below-mentioned as a witness. The witness was advised of the criminal liability for making false declarations, following which the witness declared by giving his signature that he had been informed of this liability (Article 172 of the Code of Criminal Procedure). The witness then testified as follows:
| Name and surname | Franciszek Krokowski |
| Parent’s first names | Henryk and Julianna |
| Date and place of birth | 15 April 1915 in Stara Wisła |
| Place of residence | Iłowo, [...] |
| Occupation | Track master for PKP [Polish Railways] |
| Education | Seven years of elementary school |
| Criminal record for perjury | None |
| Relationship to the parties | None |
During the occupation I lived in the village of Mławka, where my mother had a small farm. I worked as a porter at the camp in Iłowo. I was a porter from 1942 to 1945, so for two and a half years.
There was a transit camp in Iłowo, whose name in German I can’t recall. There were wooden barracks there (possibly about 20), which temporarily housed civilians of various nationalities: Russians, Poles, Lithuanians, and Ukrainians. There were also women and children. I presume that they were people evacuated from Russian territory ahead of the approaching front. They were here for a short time, sometimes a couple of days, as if they only stopped for a rest. Their clothes were disinfected and medical examinations were carried out. Some spent a couple of weeks there; they could have been workers from forced labor – they looked pretty emaciated, and lots of them died. I thought that they weren’t prisoners, because although the camp was guarded by wachmanns [guards], they would go out into the village, and some of them didn’t come back. Also, when transports of men for forced labor in Germany were put together, they were brought in from nearby villages and districts, first of all here, and only here was a larger transport prepared. So it was a transit camp.
There was one masonry building in the camp, where the children stayed. Pregnant women from forced labor in Germany, or mothers with little, newborn babies were brought here. The child was taken away from the mother here, and she had to return to labor. The pregnant women, after delivery, also had to leave their baby here and go back to where they’d come from. These women were of various nationalities, but there were no German women among them.
I entered that building when I was summoned. That was when I was ordered to take the corpses of children and transport them to the cemetery, or rather to a field where everybody from that camp was buried. I walked into a corridor where, on the floor in the corner, I saw a few children’s corpses lying wrapped in muslin [fabric]. It wasn’t every day, just from time to time, when a few corpses had collected. I brought in coffins for those children, specially from Działdowo. I placed the corpses separately into the small coffins, and transported them away. Camp workers went with me, and then they buried the coffins in a particular place in the field.
Women I knew worked with the children, as nurses. There was a doctor, a Polish man, going by the surname Knappe, who reported to the Germans. I wasn’t in the rooms where the children were, I only went into the corridor from which I collected their corpses. I couldn’t specify how many children died during the period of my work at the camp, meaning over the period of about two and a half years, although I believe the death rate was above normal.
I know nothing regarding the cause of their death. I didn’t talk to anybody about it, although there were women I knew working there. After the war, I also didn’t talk to them about it. Signs bearing numbers were placed on the children’s graves. Towards the end of the occupation, there were a couple of hundred such signs on the graves; maybe 300, maybe 400 – I’m not sure of the numbers, because I didn’t count them. Currently it’s a place that the scouts are maintaining. The site has been fenced, and a cross has been erected there.
Of the people who worked with the children, I can remember Ms. Zielska and Ms. Faltynowska from Iłowo.
The interview was concluded at this point, and after having been read out, the report was signed.