JANINA ZUREK

On 8 January 1946, in Radom, the 2nd Judge of the District Court in Radom, based in Radom, Judge Kazimierz Borys, heard the person named below as a witness. After being informed about the criminal liability for giving false testimony, the witness testified as follows:


Name and surname Janina Zurek
Age 16
Parents’ names Feliks and Marianna
Place of residence Klwatka Szlachecka
Occupation dependent of parents
Religious affiliation Roman Catholic
Criminal record none
Relationship to the parties none

During the German occupation, I went to school in Firlej. I often saw trucks and taxis heading towards Firlej from Radom. Later I would hear the sounds of gunfire coming from the sands. However, I didn’t see any of the executions. Only once did I see two Gestapo men kill a small boy who had been brought by taxi to Firlej. On the sands, when the boy reached for an acacia flower, one of the Gestapo men shot him with a revolver. Another time, I saw a woman get shot after being dragged by her hair down to a [dug-out] pit.

Cars went to the sands not just once but a couple of times per day. The executions lasted until the final days before the Red Army arrived.

From October 1943 to April 1944, all the residents of Firlej and Wincentow, whose homes were near the sands, were deported. During this period, the Germans burned the bodies of the murdered. From a distance you could see fire and smoke rising above the sands and there was the stench of burned flesh. How exactly they incinerated the corpses, I don’t know.

The report was read out.