On 19 November 1947 the Municipal Court in Iłża, with Judge M. Pytlewski presiding, heard the person named below as an unsworn witness. Having been advised of the criminal liability for making false declarations and of the provisions of Article 107 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, the witness testified as follows:
Name and surname | Władysława Fajdek |
Age | 41 years old |
Parents’ names | Franciszek and Katarzyna Domagała |
Place of residence | Podsuliszka village, Zalesice commune |
Occupation | farming |
Religious affiliation | Roman Catholic |
Criminal record | none |
Relationship to the parties | mother of the murdered Bronisław Fajdek |
In mid-August 1944, German troops – several hundred [soldiers], whose uniforms I don’t recollect – were quartered in the village of Podsuliszka and at the Modrzejowice estate for some three or four days. In our village there lived Bronisław Kopania, who was a policeman; he supposedly informed on us to the Germans, saying that there were numerous partisans in our village and that we gave shelter to many of them.
On 14 August 1944 the Germans surrounded the village and took all the men, whom they marched off to the Modrzejowice estate. The young ones were numbered with red paint. The Germans took two of my sons: Bronisław, who was 19 years old, and Jan, who was 14 years old.
Before daybreak of 15 August 1944 we heard shooting in the Pakosław Forest, and when on the morning of that day we went to the Modrzejowice estate, we were told that the young men had been deported, but our people told us that in actual fact they had been shot. It was only after the Germans had left in the afternoon that we went to the forest and found my son Bronisław, who was not buried in the pit but was lying far away in the forest together with Czyż. On the third day I buried him in the cemetery in Skaryszew, in one grave with Józef [Wacław] Czyż. Who these Germans were, what they wore, what their surnames were – that I don’t know, and I wouldn’t know any of them should I see them.
The report was read out.