On 1 June 1946, the Municipal Court in Opatów, represented by Judge Al. Zalewski, with the participation of reporter R. Cybulski, interviewed the person named below as a witness. Having advised the witness of the criminal liability for making false declarations, of the wording of Article 107 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, and of the significance of the oath, the judge swore the witness in accordance with Article 108 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, whereupon the witness testified as follows:
| Name and surname | Zdzisław Małycha |
| Age | 41 |
| Parents’ names | Jan and Bronisława |
| Place of residence | Opatów, Ćmielowska Street 3 |
| Occupation | head of the District Fire Department |
| Religious affiliation | Roman Catholic |
| Criminal record | none |
| Relationship to the parties | none |
Since 1942 – I don’t remember the exact date – I was assigned to the local detention center as a supervisor on behalf of the municipal council, a position which I held until the arrival of the Red Army. Throughout my stay, the cells were often crowded to such an extent that the prisoners, standing almost naked, were fainting. The majority of the detainees were offenders accused of political activity; fugitives from or captured for forced labor in the Reich; people arrested for illegal animal slaughter, non-delivery of compulsory quotas, etc.
Initially, the detainees were interrogated almost every day in what was called the “staff room”, where during such [interrogations] the prisoners – Poles – were beaten and tortured mercilessly; [they were] put on the table and beaten with whips prepared and kept for this purpose. Those who were particularly cruel during these kinds of “investigations” were:
1. Ryszard Hospodar, a cynical oppressor of Poles and Jews;
[2.] former officers of the criminal police under the local SD unit – Stanisław Słonka and Tadeusz Teodorczyk – who tortured the detainees with a fat stick kept for this purpose.
Due to “officer’s fatigue” the practices were carried out in turns. During such tortures, the victim would lie in their own feces, while the blood stains visible on the walls proved the oppressors’ cruelty.
Throughout my stay, the aforementioned two officers – Hospodar and Słonka – took a total of some 50–60 people to the local cemeteries, chosen as execution sites. Hospodar, among many others, took part in the murder of Pronobis, a member of the Bataliony Chłopskie [Peasant Battalions], caught with a gun in his hand in the Iwaniska area. In a mass murder of 21 people, carried out in the nearby [....] forest, on the anniversary of which its indirect perpetrator, the head of the local SD unit, Schulz, was shot dead. Equally cruel were two other German gendarmes, Polish citizen Alfred Biller and Wiktor Berger, who also took part in the harassment of those detained and took 50 people to be executed. Known for his hostile attitude towards Poles was Georg Hoffman, the head of the local Arbeitsamt [labor office]. He was the initiator and coordinator of formal orders and manhunts, especially against young Poles, thousands of whom he sent into Teutonic slavery. Many times, he personally captured people on the street, so he was commonly avoided. Those captured in person or during the manhunts were imprisoned at his command in the local detention center, where he beat, kicked, and insulted them.
Of the officers of the former Blue Police, those who were particularly servile towards the Germans and who carried out acts harmful for the nation were: Andrzej Szymczak, Witold Ślęzak, Stefan Grys, Andrzej Pisarkiewicz, and others. They escorted those captured for forced labor in the Reich, went into the country to capture those hiding from service in the student corps, and took part in fighting the Polish partisans. Witold Ślęzak became “famous” for the murder of a man who, having been sentenced by a German court for secretive animal slaughter, had tried to escape. Tadeusz Teodorczyk, a criminal police officer, kicked and beat the victim on the ground in a way that was not in accordance with human dignity. Andrzej Szymczak brought a man into the remand prison, at whose place illegal papers were found during a search; as a result, about 70 people were arrested in Ostrowiec and the surrounding area. Some of them paid for it with their lives. Stefan Grys was known for his brutal attitude towards people waiting in the queues for their food rations. He beat them and made their wait unpleasant in every possible way, extorting various kinds of payments from people. For example, there was a man, Przysiwek, who lived in Karwów, in Opatów district and commune, who had to pay him a formal payment in kind for turning a blind eye to his, as it was called, secret slaughter. In addition to my testimony, I would like to mention that Stanisław Słonka, together with another police officer, Taszycki, captured and handed over to the SD [two people]: Goldman’s son and his friend, a Jew, whom they had accidentally met after the deportation of the general Jewish population. Despite the fact that in exchange for sparing their lives, they offered them a treasure hidden in the mill by the parents of one of them, in the amount of ¾ kg of gold coins. The majority of which was taken by Słonka, while the rest he gave to the local SD unit.
Once I witnessed Słonka declaring to Zygmunt and Aleksander, the Kapsa brothers from Kobylany, who were detained together with four others: “You wanted to shoot me, now I will shoot you,” and then he hit one of them in the face, while the other one was tortured so badly during the interrogation that he could not move. Both of them, together with many others, were transported to Auschwitz. The transports were also escorted by criminal police members Stanislaw Słonka and Nowaczyk, who tied the detainees’ hands with rope prior to the journey. Słonka, Teodorczyk, Nowaczyk, Grys, Szymczak, and Ślęzak were known for capturing many fugitives from the Reich, who were transported to Germany, where they were usually placed in death camps. The aforementioned Hospodar, among his innumerable crimes, took attorney Jan Kazański from Opatów to an execution site in Ostrowiec.