On 3 August 1947 in Jedlnia-Letnisko, the District Commission for the Investigation of German Crimes in Radom in the person of a member of the Commission, lawyer Zygmunt Glogier, heard the person named below as an unsworn witness. Having been advised of the criminal liability for making false declarations, the witness testified as follows:
| Name and surname | Jan Kurkowski |
| Date of birth | 8 September 1893 |
| Parents’ names | Jan and Agnieszka, née Warchol |
| Place of residence | Jedlnia-Letnisko |
| Occupation | railwayman |
| Criminal record | none |
| Relationship to the parties | none |
Since I have lived in Jedlnia-Letnisko, Kozienice district, since 1921, I know the entire area very well. In the village of Siczki in the same district, about half a kilometer from the main road, by a hillock, on the side of Letnisko, there are single and mass graves of Poles who were shot or murdered with grenades by the Germans in the period from 1939 to 1940. There are seven mass graves that might contain from a dozen to several dozen people each. There are two single graves. All these graves are easily found, as the local residents – having a profound reverence for these sites – have decorated them with moss and marked them with crosses.
During the occupation, in 1942 I think, a demonstration was held by these graves, as the local populace decorated them with flowers and national emblems for All Souls’ Day. When the Germans found out about this, they immediately arrived at the site and set up sentries by the graves in the hope of apprehending the perpetrators, but this was to no avail, as the locals had received an early warning and didn’t show up.
Towards the end of 1944, the Germans returned to the execution site, but only to cover up traces of their crime. The whole area was heavily guarded by Gestapo units, and the Germans plowed up the graves with the use of some machines and burned the uncovered bodies. It is difficult to say in what manner they did that, as people were scared and therefore kept their curiosity in check. One day I myself saw a Gestapo unit come to the common grave located in the vicinity of Nowy Młyn, near the village of Siczki, and I saw them plow the ground with some machine and then level it. When some time later I visited the site once again, I didn’t find any trace of the grave. I know that of all the graves in Siczki Forest, only the one located just by the hill was not destroyed by the Germans, and only because it didn’t look much like a grave, as it was covered with a thick layer of pine needles, and thus the Germans overlooked it. Towards the end of 1943 the executions were no longer being held in Siczki, and it was said that the Germans were conducting them in Pionki instead.
The first mass executions in Siczki Forest were carried out in November and December 1939. Who was brought then, how many people and in how many transports – this I can’t say, as the area where the executions took place was so heavily guarded by the Gestapo that nobody took the risk of approaching the site. I remember that in winter of 1940, when I went for a walk along Golczewski’s road that leads to the forest – it was 10.00 a.m. – I noticed two trucks by the hillock. When I took a few more steps towards the forest and came to the river, I was ordered to go back by a Gestapo man who stood guard on the bridge. Then, as I was coming back home, I heard grenade explosions and single shots. It was later said that this was one of the executions.
In October or November 1939, as I was coming back from Jedlnia Kościelna through the forest in the company of the Bahnschutzpolizei men, at one point I noticed that two Gestapo men were standing on the spot where the graves are presently located, and that my friend Zbigniew Uchański from Radom was standing by a tree, bareheaded, wearing only his clothes. Apparently due to the fact that my companions were Germans, the Gestapo men didn’t say anything and let us pass. When we were some several dozen steps away, I heard automatic gunfire, and later I learned that Uchański had been executed. Uchański is probably buried in one of the single graves, provided of course that the Germans didn’t destroy it.
In the winter of 1940 I saw the Germans dig a ditch by the hillock. Since I knew it meant that in a few days an execution would be held there, I watched the site in order to see the Germans bring their victims, and indeed a few days later two trucks came to the same spot as always, carrying school students of both sexes. There might have been some 150 people. As soon as the Germans began to unload the trucks, some girls ran into the forest, and then I saw that the Gestapo men dispersed and began to catch them, pulling them by the hair in the direction of the ditches. Next I could hear the grenade explosions and single shots with which the victims were finished off. Some farmer, unknown to me, who happened to pass by the execution site a few hours after the execution, told me that the earth covering the victims was still moving, though the Germans were no longer present by the grave.
In my opinion, there might have been some 11 executions from 1939 to 1940. I would estimate the number of people killed in Siczki Forest at several hundred people. More detailed information pertaining to this matter could be provided by forester Jaworski, who was a ranger at the time, because the trucks carrying the victims had to pass by his lodge, and by his son Józef Jaworski, who works in the Bata factory in Radom.