On 8 January 1946, in Radom, the 2nd Judge for the District Court in Radom, based in Radom, Judge Kazimierz Borys, heard the person named below as a witness. After being informed of the criminal liability for giving false testimony, the witness testified as follows:
Name and surname | Adam Lipiński |
Age | 24 |
Parents’ names | Adam and Stanisława |
Place of residence | Firlej, Wielogóra county |
Occupation | tanner |
Religious affiliation | Roman Catholic |
Criminal record | none |
Relationship to the parties | none |
The first execution that I observed took place in Firlej on 4 April 1940. On this day, a dozen or so cars, both trucks and passenger cars, and several motorcycles came from Radom and turned in the direction of the Firlej sands. The trucks were covered, but through the windows you could see the faces of those being transported. Then I saw people being escorted from the cars and led over towards pre-prepared pits, and then the Gestapo shot the prisoners with automatic weapons or machine guns, because a volley of shots rang out. The people fell down straight away. On this first day of execution, about 100-150 people might have died. As I pointed out, this was the first execution I noticed. Whether or not there were any shootings in Firlej before then, I don’t know. The Germans buried the dead themselves.
Since then, executions happened repeatedly throughout the period of the German occupation. On average, almost every other day, as many people were brought to Firlej as could fit in one truck—that is, about 12 people.
I was an eyewitness to a series of executions. I saw the Germans telling people who had been led out of the car to dig pits, after which the diggers were shot and buried in these pits immediately after this operation. Even before burying those murdered, the Gestapo officers took individual prisoners out of the cars, forced them down and killed them with their pistols. The condemned were shot in the back in the head.
In the summer of 1944, the Germans ordered me to bury the corpses of some larger group of condemned. All those that were shot whom I buried had taken a bullet in the back of the head. 40 people were killed then. Some of those murdered were only wearing their underwear. The victims included both young people and old, people from the city and from the village, as could be distinguished by their attire. We were told to bury those who had been shot in graves scattered across the sands, each of which accommodated several victims. The murdered were also buried in mass graves, numbering about 10-12 people each. In such graves, the Germans buried the condemned themselves. When a larger execution was to take place, the Germans would prepare the pits beforehand.
Among those shot, I saw a small boy, about 10 years old. The child was following two Gestapo men who occasionally glanced at him and told him to hurry up. Then they ordered him to pick a flower from an acacia tree. The moment the child reached for the flowers, one of the Gestapo men shot the boy twice and killed him. The boy was wearing a coat, which was removed from him after his death and taken to the car. The Gestapo men buried the murdered [boy], and then they admired the acacia flower and set it on the grave. There were no other shootings that day, at least at that time of the day. I observed the execution described above from a distance of about 250 m. Nearer the place of this execution lives a certain Pytas, a worker at the Rottenberg factory in Radom.
In October 1943, the residents of Firlej and Wincentow, who lived near the sands, were deported. The Gestapo took over a school in Firlej. They brought some mats which they used to screen places on the sands from where corpses were then exhumed, as well as places where these bodies were then burned. Later, smoke and fire could be seen from far away, especially at night, and the scent of burning and decomposed human flesh hung in the air.
This incineration lasted until the spring of 1944. During this period, the executions continued.
About three weeks after the incineration of corpses had finished, when there was a noticeable break in the shooting, the executions resumed. They reached an observable peak in July 1944, when the Germans began to escape after the collapse of the Eastern Front. At that time, executions were carried out en masse. A couple of cars per day brought in the condemned.
The last execution took place two days before the arrival of the Red Army. A few people were shot at that time.
The first mass execution included some inhabitants of the Chlewiska commune (I don’t know the names of the villages), where there was a clash between the Germans and Polish partisans. Throughout the occupation, over 10,000 people were shot on the sands, as can be deduced from the number of vehicles—trucks and automobiles—which went to Firlej at that time.
In addition to mass executions, single executions also took place.
The report was read out.