Account of Engineer Tadeusz Żebrowski concerning the rescuing of Jews and German persecutions in the region of Puszcza Biała. Interview recorded on 6 October 2001. Recorded by Tomasz Strzembosz.
1. In winter 1943, in December, I think, three or four German gendarmes came to the municipal village of Sadowne. They reported to the village mayor and took up residence in the local school. This was located on the main street of the village.
One evening, precisely in that street, they bumped into three Jews and stopped them. They were bundled up and carried something. After determining that they had bread on them, the gendarmes asked them where they had got it from. The Jews said that they had gotten it (or bought it) from Mr. Lubkiewicz, a baker. Then, they brought Mr. Lubkiewicz, his wife, and their younger son, Stefan, from the bakery which was located some way off, and took them to another bakery which was owned by Stanisław, the older son, and was located by the main street.
After an interrogation, in which they were found guilty of issuing bread to the Jews, the gendarmes shot dead Mr. Lubkiewicz, his wife, and, during an attempted escape, their son Stefan.
2. In the village of Sokółka, located in the Sadowne municipality (on the right side of the tracks), between Warsaw and Małkinia, people were helping the Jews who came there at night to receive assistance (mostly food). One day, German gendarmes rounded everybody up in the middle of the village, in the square, and said that they knew that the locals were helping Jews, and then, in front of everybody, the village administrator was executed with a shot in the back of the head. I forgot his name, but someone else will surely remember.
Eng. Tadeusz Żebrowski,
resident of the Sadowne village,
where he was born in 1928 and where he lived through the entire war period.