On 12 January 1971 in Iłowo, Mławski county, Antoni Lamperski, prosecutor for the District Court in Mława, with the participation of court reporter Jadwiga Rulka, heard the person named below as a witness. The witness was warned of 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 | Regina Jackiewicz |
| Maiden name | Grabowska |
| Parents’ names | Maria and Teofil |
| Date and place of birth | 19 June 1921 in Iłowo |
| Place of residence | Iłowo, [...] |
| Occupation | none |
| Education | primary |
During the occupation, I lived in Iłowo and I was even employed in putting rooms for the future camp in order and getting them ready for use. Just after the barracks had been built [and] painted, I was working as a cleaner, I think this was 1940, early spring. I can’t provide a more detailed date and month, but I remember the exact time of the year due to the weather conditions.
On the camp grounds, next to the brick buildings, currently occupied by a vocational and technical school, there were typical wooden barracks and there were, I think, about 30 of them. I seem to recall that number from my memory, and I could even point out where the barracks were located .
The official name of the camp was Durchgangslager, headed by a lagerfiler [Lagerführer], whose name I can’t remember at present, but maybe others remember, like Krokowski or Lipińska. He walked around in a black uniform with a skull. His deputy was also a German, but he wore a blue-gray uniform with a skull. Both were regarded as SS men, which they certainly were. The latter, the deputy, always walked with an Alsatian dog (Alsatian Sheepdog), and the two were almost never parted. The dog was very aggressive and if it hadn’t been kept on a leash, it would have gone for people for sure. I even suppose it was a specially trained dog, as its behavior proved. However, I didn’t witness the [Lagerführer’s deputy] set this dog on anyone. It was enough that he showed himself—this made a big impression, because he terrorized the Poles and camp residents.
I know only one name— Verwalter Wagner. In contrast to the head of the camp and his deputy [he] was humane and even understanding, regarding the conditions prevailing during the occupation. First of all, he knew some Polish, but he didn’t want to master it and only spoke Polish out of necessity and rarely at that.
The camp was divided into two zones, the so-called upper and lower camp. In the lower camp was the entire administration and I suppose that it was forbidden to cross from zone to zone. This ban also held for employees, but we would break it, circumstances permitting.
In 1943, I was released from the camp because a ban was imposed on Polish women, forbidding them from doing any work in the camp. It apparently made them nervous that a Pole wearing the letter ‘P’ could move around the camp.
I heard about the children’s camp, but I never went there and that’s why it’s hard to say where their area was, that is, the building or the barrack. However, the existence of such a camp was no secret to anyone. Besides, I myself knew two Russian women, [including] a certain Nina from Kiev, who was brought to the camp while she was pregnant in order to give birth. Initially, they weren’t aware of the purpose of their arrival, but later they were made aware by us. They were very worried, they cried even before it was over, regretting their fate and the need to part with their child. Oberschwester Matilda was in the camp, but I don’t really know what her function was. I don’t even know if Nina and her friend gave birth to boys or girls. One of them worked at a German home in Memel (Klaipeda). The Russians even left their address with me, they took my address too, but we didn’t manage to communicate after the war, especially since I lost Nina’s address because I had to move several times as a result of the occupation. I should mention that I was thrown out of my apartment, and because they threatened and carried out frequent searches, I was afraid to officially keep the addresses of any Russians. I didn’t meet them after they gave birth. I think that Nina had at least finished high school, she was an intelligent girl, but what kind of school she finished, I don’t remember.
The camp was definitely guarded day and night. It was surrounded by barbed wire and there were at least three watchtowers on the corners with floodlights illuminating the camp and wire. I am talking about the three booths, because these were the most relevant to me and were within my sight, and I didn’t care about the camp as a whole, because we weren’t allowed to walk around it. In the camp there were janitors in civilian clothes, recruited from the Germans and partly from other nationalities.
Michał Bieganowski, a Pole from Lviv, who currently lives in Gdynia in Wzgórze Focha [Wzgórze św. Maksymiliana], Mikołaja Reja Street, was there together with the Ukrainians, because in later times they formed the majority in the camp. He was ready to be sent to Germany for forced labor, along with the others.
In the transit camp—in addition to what I have already said, and the existence of the children’s camp—there were things going on that still shock me when I recall them, and I’m even reluctant to talk about them or remember them at all. Well, I mean young children between the ages of two and six, brought in with their families. Regardless of the time of year and weather, they walked barefoot, ragged and almost naked. From a purely human sense of duty, as they didn’t have conditions to live, we organized help for them from outside the camp. This came in the form of deliveries of any kind of shoes and clothing for those little freezing children. It can’t be described, all the more since similar situations happened over and over again en masse. Of course, the help was provided in secret, without the knowledge of the German authorities. There was a punishment for that. We helped the most, because most of them were Ukrainian.
The horrors and the prevailing misery can also be shown by the fact that the dead—and I should point out that the mortality rate was high—had all their clothing taken away and [the corpses] were thrown together into one box in fives, regardless of sex and age. There were many children. The dead were buried together in these compact boxes [and] transported to the square behind the tracks, near the forest. Whether the box was buried together with the bodies, I don’t know. In this area, Krokowski may be able to provide more exhaustive answers—he was a carter and dealt with removing the bodies of the dead to a burial place that wasn’t a cemetery. After the liberation, to commemorate the dead, this place was fenced off, although I am convinced that this was not entirely in order to commemorate them, but was merely a gesture.
Hunger and misery prevailed in the camp, as I have already mentioned, and so it is no wonder that in such conditions diseases spread, including typhoid fever. The Poles were also affected, although, due to the functions we performed and our contact with others, the Germans subjected us to protective vaccination. The food rations were miserable and so, working in the kitchen, we kept stolen food products from the warehouse and then, also surreptitiously, we fed those most exhausted. So that this food operation wouldn’t be revealed, we took out food in buckets of rubbish, peelings, which the camp residents would then be informed about so that they could take it. For the sake of hygiene, as far as we could we wrapped the produce in paper, old rags or cloths.
I would like to point out that every transport from Ukraine brought in food products, such as bread, butter, sausage and even honey in barrels, but these products weren’t distributed, only stored. At the time of unloading or immediately after storing in the warehouses, the products could easily be stolen because they hadn’t yet been included in the records.
As I mentioned, in 1943 I stopped working in the camp, and perhaps after my departure, the children’s camp developed more, hence my humble information in this regard. How many children, babies, remained after the liberation, I don’t know, but I know that several children were taken in by the local people of Iłowo to give them an upbringing. I personally know such people myself—Panek, Szymczak, Pinczewska, Tułodziecka and others. Three of the ones I mentioned have already started families, but none of them managed to find their mother.
This concludes the report, which the witness signed after reading.