On 15 December 1971 in Mława, Antoni Lamperski, prosecutor for the District Court in Mława, with the participation of court reporter Janina Lapeusz, heard the person named below as a witness. The witness was cautioned about the criminal liability for giving false testimony, after which the witness stated with her own signature that she had been cautioned about this responsibility (Article 172 of the Criminal Code). Next, the witness, [also] cautioned about her responsibility regarding the content of Art. 165 of the Criminal Code, testified as follows:
| Name and surname | Melania Faltynowska |
| Maiden name | Nowak |
| Parents’ names | Jan and Józefa née Andrzejewska |
| Date of birth | 2 January 1921 |
| Place of residence | Narzym |
| Occupation | housewife |
| Criminal record | none |
| Relation to the parties | none |
During the occupation, I lived in Iłowo, and as my parents were already old by then—my father had been retired from 1935—as one of the youngest siblings I stayed at my parents’ house. Together with me lived my sick brother, who suffered from tuberculosis. For this reason, he was not able to work at all. I was therefore in a very difficult situation and I had to get paid work.
As a servant in a German home, I earned 20 marks a month, and that’s what we had to pay for the flat. So I undertook all sorts of paid work to earn a living not only for myself but also for my parents and bedridden brother. Because I got on the wrong side of a German woman who was working at the station—because I bought cigarettes in the railway cafeteria and gave them to my current husband’s sister to give to him, which the German Bahnschutz official noticed—I had to leave my job at the cafeteria and look for another position. Basically, the Bahnschutz official made it a condition that if I left there would be no further consequences.
I got a job at the local Durchgangslager in Iłów. I worked in the kitchen, or rather in the rooms belonging to the kitchen, in the potato room. I should note that we didn’t have access to the kitchen. Six of us were employed scrubbing potatoes from 7:00 am till 4:00 pm. None of these people had any other function.
How many kilograms we would scrub, I really find it difficult to say, because first of all, the potatoes were piled up in a general heap and [those already] scrubbed were put into a special barrel. The barrels were certainly bigger than those used to transport herring. I don’t remember anymore, but we had to fill three or four of them with scrubbed potatoes. Anyway, it depended on the number of people currently in the transit camp.
In the potato room, as I have already pointed out, there were six people working all the time, and some Russians helped on the side. From the locals, as I recall, Wojdowa, Helena Powierska, Chabowska and Kucińska worked there. Chabowska has been dead for many years; she was the oldest of the people working there. As for Kucińska, she helped us with the scrubbing, but she was often reallocated to work in the laundry room.
In my camp, from what I can guess, about 30 people worked in the laundry, potato room, cleaning and de-lousing. I also recall that Jadwiga Barska, now Lipińska, from Iłowo, also worked in the kitchen. She lives on Sienkiewicz Street. Lipińska worked in the second kitchen, because I should point out that there were two kitchens in the transit camp—one at the bottom, just for the camp, the other at the top, for the German staff. It is difficult to say how many dinners were served by the top kitchen, and how many [by the bottom]. I cannot say exactly because of the fact that the number of people in the camp varied, and it happened that we would cook for a thousand, and sometimes even for three thousand people. Of this I’m absolutely sure.
In my estimation, in the hospital, and thus in the room with infants aged up to seven months, there were about 11 infants on the day of the liberation. The hospital doctor was Knappe, whose first name I don’t remember. His wife also worked there. I don’t know what the children were given to eat. I would imagine that Dr Knappe could give you a better idea.
Similarly, I can’t say anything about the mortality rate of the children, although in terms of the elderly it was extensive, and the deceased were thrown into a barrack specifically designed for this purpose. Where the dead were buried, Franciszek Krokowski, the camp’s carter at that time may well be able to say. I only know that there were also mass graves in the Roman Catholic cemetery.
To my knowledge, the children who were in the hospital were children whose mothers had given birth in the transit camp and left for work after the birth of the children. I don’t recall if after the liberation, in the area of the former transit camp, the nuns took care of the children. In giving the number of other children in the camp, I meant mainly those children who were split up, or rather, taken away to be brought up by the local community. Even I myself had intended to take one of the children, but in view of the fact that I was a young lady at the time, I changed my mind, especially as there were a lot of volunteers who had settled families. Five of these children are definitely still in Iłowo. I don’t know anything more about the children’s camp and have testified to everything that I know in this regard.