On 28 November 1947 in Radom, the District Commission for the Investigation of German Crimes with its seat in Radom, this in the person of a member of the Commission, lawyer Zygmunt Glogier, interviewed the person mentioned hereunder as a witness, without taking an oath. Having been advised of the criminal liability for making false declarations, the witness testified as follows:
| Name and surname | Maksymilian Lechowski |
| Age | 47 |
| Parents’ names | Walenty, Lucyna née Woźnicka |
| Place of residence | Radom, Mleczna Street 11 |
| Occupation | none |
| Criminal record | none |
| Relationship to the parties | none |
In the period between the start of 1939 and 1946, I was working as an administrative person in the Radom prison. Throughout the entire occupation I tried to watch all the actions by the German authorities so as to later give testimony to the truth.
In September, October, November and December 1939 the whole prison administration was controlled by Poles. There was a Gestapo unit for supervision of the prisoners in German custody, wearing black uniforms, led by Pochluda – a Czech, Gestapo man. Apart from that, various arrestees brought from the surroundings of Radom were usually watched by the gendarmerie, not allowing the Polish guards to perform such duties.
I remember that several times in October 1939 the gendarmerie took away more than a dozen prisoners towards the Kozienice road. They were arrestees from various places, and they never returned to the prison.
It seems that in November 1939 the gendarmerie brought more than a dozen people to jail – I don’t know where from. A miller from Gulin was among the arrested. They were placed in cell no. 6. They were all tied up with string with their hands behind their backs. There were two men from the black, German prison unit under Pochluda’s command standing in front of the cell. Next day, around 6.00 a.m., all of them were taken away towards Kozienice. When they requested permission to confess to a priest, the blacks told them it would be of no use. Before they were taken, all of the warm underwear was taken away from them, leaving them in summer clothing despite it being winter. One vehicle set off then.
Due to the fact that I was on duty mainly during the day shift, I don’t remember any other people being taken away for executions in 1939. In November 1939, the Gestapo arrested almost the entire intelligentsia in Radom. All doctors, judges, attorneys, merchants, engineers, Jewish deputies – generally speaking, representatives of all jobs. After a couple of days, they began to be released – first individually, then en masse, leaving only a few people in prison who were then deported to the camps.
In 1940, the number of arrests and executions grew, starting from the time when a large number of arrestees – over a hundred – were brought from the Chlewiska direction by the end of March or at the beginning of April 1940. Gendarmerie in green uniforms brought them in and guarded them within the prison. To my knowledge, the gendarmerie who brought them were not the same gendarmerie who would usually bring arrestees to our prison.
All the arrested people were put in the female ward, which has an exit onto a secret courtyard. I saw in the morning how the gendarmes drove the prisoners out of their cells and told everybody to lie down on the asphalt ground in the courtyard. Then one of the gendarmes – seemingly the commander, who had epaulets lined with a silver ribbon and three nails on them – began to step on the people’s bodies, kicked them and beat them with a huge bat that he wielded. Then he told the prisoners to run around the courtyard, beating them at the same time. Then he played other games with them. The exercises went on for about half an hour.
Next day, I believe, all the warm underwear and clothes were taken off the prisoners, which I saw myself, then trucks pulled over in front of the prison and people, tied up, would be thrown on them like cattle, each vehicle carrying 40 people on average, then all the cars would leave towards Firlej. The vehicles went back and forth for the whole day, taking a larger or smaller number of prisoners towards Firlej. Around 130 people were taken away then. Gendarmes escorted them. I don’t recall more details of how this group of prisoners was handled.
I know that in February 1940 small groups of prisoners were deported from Firlej, each comprising several people, up to around a dozen.
I remember now that among the ones from Chlewiska, who were later taken to Firlej, I recognized Papiewski and Głogowski, who were arrested near Chlewiska supposedly in relation to guerilla resistance.
I can easily say that throughout 1940 there wasn’t a day when somebody wouldn’t be taken to Firlej. In my opinion, the number of people who were taken to be executed in 1940 could be as much as one thousand, all from the prison.
In May 1940 a special ward was created for political [prisoners]. Its director was Koch – more of a beast than a man, who tortured prisoners in cruel ways. I saw how he personally led arrestees who were under his supervision to the secret courtyard with a whip in his hand, and did the so-called gymnastics – exercises, during which he beat and kicked the prisoners. During one of the sessions like this, a prisoner died. It was very risky to peek at what was happening in the secret courtyard, because even as a guard you could easily put yourself in a situation where you’d be deported to a camp.
Until the special ward was created, the prisoners’ record was kept by the prison office. After the ward was formed, the record was still maintained by the prison office until sometime in December 1940. From 1943, the Gestapo took it over and the prison’s superintendent would only receive information on the number [of prisoners] in the special ward for his acknowledgment. Whether this was the actual number wasn’t known even by the superintendent, a German. The ward was completely isolated. It got to a point where whenever the Gestapo led their prisoners into the ward, the Polish guards had to turn their backs and face the walls.
As soon as the special ward was created, a constant flow of prisoners to and from interrogation began. They took them to Kościuszki Street. Until around February 1943, the prisoners who were taken away were recorded in a book which remained in the prison’s office. The same happened when they returned. The book should be found in the prison’s archive. From that time on, prison guards and I saw that the prisoners returning from Kościuszko Street were beaten so badly that they had to be supported by two colleagues. This went on throughout the whole time of the German occupation. All the people taken for interrogation were cuffed, no exceptions.
The following individuals came to collect the prisoners: a dark-haired man, stocky, short, with a mustache, speaking Polish very well; red-haired man of an animal-like face; skinny blond guy, who was called “Staś” and a tall blond man who spoke Polish poorly. I need to mention that very often I saw extremely battered women returning from interrogation on Kościuszki Street.
I can recall that in 1940 more than a hundred people from near Pionki and Kozienice were brought in, and most of them were sent to camps. In 1941 I noted that [the number of] arrests and executions decreased, although they still took place from time to time. In the summer of 1942 they brought in a portion of the people arrested in Garbatka.
Probably in October 1942 I saw how Koch [with] the red-haired man, the dark-haired guy with a mustache and several other Gestapo men each led ten prisoners out of section IV; they were then tied up with string in the guard-room, located downstairs in the prison. They led out four groups consisting of ten people each. Women were led out in the last, fourth group; they were also tied together. It seemed like the head [of the operation] was Josef Bauer, who could speak Polish well, and whenever there was an execution to take place, he would wander around the prison.
All 40 people were loaded onto vehicles that pulled over in front of the prison. Gallows made of birch were laid on each vehicle. Before the prisoners were loaded on the vehicles, Koch entered cell no. 4 occupied by Jews and called 4 people to work. He gave shoe polish to the four who volunteered, and told them to smear it over each other’s faces. They were supposed to paint mustaches and sideburns. Those 4 Jews were loaded on the vehicles in front of the prison along with the batch of 40 people and they were all taken away somewhere. As I learned later, all of them were hanged in various places near Radom. The Jews were brought back to the prison, and when I later asked them what kind of job they had, one of them answered: “I would never want to do such a job again.”
I would recognize Bauer any time. I heard Meyer – one of the assistants in Koch’s special ward – say, pointing at his forehead, that Koch was “ verrückt”.
In 1942, I believe in November, Koch shot these three prisoners on his own, as they supposedly tried to escape. In 1942, mass transports were leaving to the camps. We knew there would be another transport leaving, because Koch selected criminal prisoners to join it and then transferred them to his ward. As I heard from the guards, before being transported all prisoners had to lie on the ground in the corridors. Sometimes they lay like that for a couple of hours without moving a muscle. Then Koch personally tied their hands behind their backs with string that was delivered to the prison every time before a transport. There were cases when prisoners had to kneel outside during the long wait – usually they knelt on the vehicles that were taking them to the train station.
I can’t estimate how many transports there were, [but] there were many. In the period of 1939-1945, however, over five thousand people were deported from Radom prison in my opinion – and a portion of them were shot right after arriving.
From time to time, Fuchs visited section IV. There were [also] Jews in section IV. Their fate was horrible, because Koch tortured them. Jews were also in other wards – most of them were at Sondegericht ’s disposal. For example, around 50 Jews were convicted and then shot for leaving the ghetto. The Schupo were the ones who carried out the executions, at least it was them who picked the victims up.
We could hear the screaming and cursing of the beaten and tortured prisoners from section IV day and night. I heard that Koch welcomed every newcomer in such a way, that he told them to strip naked and beat them with a whip and kicked them. I saw Koch pop into a cell, jump onto a table and tell one of the prisoners to get closer, and when he did – Koch kicked with no concern. Once, when he was doing so, he fell off the table, and he got so furious that all the others in the cell got beaten up by him.
There were times when a dead body would be brought from an interrogation. Then they would wrap him in newspaper or paper, tie him with string, and take him out to the lavatory situated in the prison’s courtyard. Then a vehicle came and took the body away somewhere.
I know that [usually] Koch and his comrades seized most of the provisions delivered to the prisoners by the families and the Red cross. I saw Koch take whole packs of provisions out of the prison. Then a car would come every Thursday, and not even trying to hide it, all the parcels meant for prisoners were loaded onto it and taken away.
Annotations found in the prison files: “KZL” and “ ubył” were made by Guncelman [Guntzelmann?], prison wachmeister, who personally put the annotation down after every transport.
In 1943, they kept on bringing in new detainees, and also continued with the executions. Because of the strict isolation, the chance of observing anything was much smaller. In 1943, it seems, a large number of people were brought from in Traugutta Street, it was an LHD [Luftschutz- und Hilfsdienst] arrest. What happened to them later, I don’t know. I saw a woman, a rail pharmacist’s daughter, Miss Wasik, whose whole family got arrested – when they brought her from Kościuszki Street she was horribly battered, her flesh coming off her bones. That didn’t stop them from taking her for more interrogation, constantly.
In 1942 and 1943, Fijas, a doctor, was in charge, and he welcomed every prisoner who came to be examined with the words: “why have you come here, you criminal?”. Generally speaking, he was a strange and ruthless man.
I remember how in 1940 a group of around 33 people from the batch of prisoners arrested in Chlewiska were placed in a female cell, temporarily empty. There were two gendarmes in front of the door, who didn’t let anybody approach the cell. After some time, I noticed that fewer and fewer people were leaving the cell for a walk, and those who did were staggering, strangely. I consulted Dr. Jankowski then and advised him to see the German superintendent and tell him that these people could spread typhus around the prison, as they hadn’t been washed or fed for several days. Then Dr. Jankowski went to the superintendent and gained access to the cell, where he observed that people were already dying of hunger. He said it might be typhus, which resulted in the guards being removed, and the people could be saved. Out of those 33 people only one was released, because he lost his mind, and the rest were deported to camps.
I hereabove testified.
The report was read out.