EMILIA TALAGA

On 31 May 1947 in Zwoleń, the District Commission for the Investigation of German Crimes with its seat in Radom, this in the person of lawyer Marian Marszałek, acting pursuant to Article 20 of the provisions introducing the Code of Criminal Procedure, interviewed the person mentioned hereunder as a witness. The witness testified as follows:


Name and surname Emilia Talaga
Age 37 years old
Parents’ names Maria and Andrzej
Place of residence Zwoleń, Radomska Street
Occupation housewife
Religion Roman Catholic
Criminal record none

I am a resident of the city of Zwoleń. I spent the entire German occupation in Zwoleń. On a few occasions I visited my brother Andrzej Sobienek, a forester in Ćmińsk, commune of Samsonów, district of Kielce. My husband, Jan Talaga, was arrested in Zwoleń; he was later murdered in Oświęcim. They detained him in 1941 and found clandestine leaflets upon his person. On 15 January 1944, the Germans murdered 30-something people in the village of Leokadiów who had been reported as suspects by Volksdeutschers.

While visiting my brother at his lodge, I witnessed how the Germans (army and Gestapo) murdered once 60 people, and thereafter some 25 for having sheltered partisans. All these persons were burned alive. There were small babies among them. I saw how the Germans herded 60 people into one home, blocked the door and windows, and set the building ablaze with petrol. I saw two small children, 3–5 years of age, break free and try to run away into the rye. They were caught by a Gestapo man (with a death’s head on his cap) and thrown back into the fire, where their mother was already burning. This was in the village of Raszówka, district of Kielce. Because my husband had been arrested, I was thrown out of two newly found flats in succession. I suspect that my husband was denounced by Eugeniusz Senelewicz, the postmaster. He fled with the Germans. He was an informer of theirs. What is more, he was ill-disposed towards Poles in general, and readily informed on them. Leokadia Kryger, née Gede, ran away with the Germans. It was she who informed them that my husband was at home.