FRANCISZEK PRĘDOTKA

On 5 May 1947, at the site of the exhumation of victims of German crimes from mass graves in the Jabłonna Forest by the village of Suków-Papiernia, Dyminy commune, Kielce district, the Radom District Commission for the Investigation of German Crimes, Branch Office in Kielce, in the person of a member of the Commission, assistant public prosecutor of the District Court, Edward Laskowski, acting in accordance with Article 20 of the provisions introducing the Code of Criminal Procedure, heard the person named below as an unsworn witness. Having been advised of the criminal liability for making false declarations, this pursuant to Article 140 of the Criminal Code, the witness testified as follows:


Name and surname Franciszek Prędotka
Occupation farmer
Place of residence Suków
Year of birth 1890
Criminal record none

During the harvest season of 1943, one day shortly after noon, when I was working in the field, some arrestees were driven in from Kielce, accompanied by a few cars with gendarmes, or so I gather. The group comprised several dozen detained men and women, and I saw them led away one by one and shot separately. At the end I heard a burst of machine gun fire. The pit had been dug in winter by the Germans from Suków, and a few Russian POWs were already lying there; they had been brought in and shot dead some two days earlier. After the execution, the Germans filled in the pit themselves. Some time in the spring of 1944, foxes uncovered these corpses. They were quite well preserved, and I reburied them with Jolka [...] from Suków. The execution was witnessed by many other people who were also working in the field at the time, for instance by Wincenty Banaszek, Jakub Banaszek, Szarek, Janina Mik [...] and other resisdents of Suków.

At the time, executions in the Suków Forest were more frequent than before. I myself saw three civilians brought in and executed, and later I saw single people being shot. Once some people were brought and strangled [?], for no shots could be heard, and next to [...].

The report was read out and signed.