STEFANIA BANASIK

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 Stefania Banasik
Age 20 years old
Occupation daughter of a farmer
Place of residence Suków

In September 1943, when I was harvesting Tartary buckwheat in our field, I saw – as did other people from my village – some Germans in grey uniforms arrive in a truck, bringing four civilians: one of them, whom the Germans were pushing, was lame; another had a crop of blond wavy hair. The Germans shot these people, covered the bodies with a thin layer of earth, and left. Whereupon the villagers, including me, came to the execution site and buried these people. I remember that the lame man was wearing an ash-colored jacket, and the blond one had a leather jacket. We did not check their identity papers, fearing that the Germans might return and arrest us. I didn’t witness any other executions, but I heard shots and it was said that during the harvest season of 1943, some larger group – numbering several dozen people – was brought from Kielce and executed by shooting.

The report was read out and signed.