WŁADYSŁAWA CZYŻYŃSKA

On 22 March 1947, the District Commission for the Investigation of German Crimes in Radom, Branch Office in Busko-Zdrój, with the head of the Commission, Busko-Zdrój Municipal Court Judge Jan Jurkiewicz, presiding, and with the participation of a reporter, registrar Stanisław Kamiński, interviewed the person specified below as a witness. Having advised the witness of the criminal liability for making false declarations, of the provisions of Article 107 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, and of the significance of the oath, the Judge took an oath therefrom pursuant to the provisions of Articles 111–113 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, following which the witness testified as follows:


Name and surname Władysława Czyżyńska
Age 53 years old
Parents’ names Piotr and Marianna
Place of residence Busko-Zdrój, Pińczowska Street 74
Occupation housewife
Religious affiliation Catholic
Criminal record none

In 1942 or 1943 (I can’t remember exactly), my son Jerzy Wojnakowski started working in the cooperative in Busko-Zdrój, in the eggs department. On 27 February 1944, my acquaintance Bronisław Trzaskowski came over and said that the Germans had escorted my son, wounded, to the gendarmerie station. So I started looking for my son and learned on the following day that he was being detained in the gendarmerie station. I went there and brought some food for him, but they didn’t let me through – they only took the food.

On Tuesday, 29 February 1944, my son was taken to the Gestapo headquarters where he remained until Thursday, 2 March 1944. On that day he was transferred to Pińczów prison. I managed to talk to him while he was being transported and he said that the Germans shot him while he was walking with his friend Świech to Siesławice village on Sunday, 27 February 1944. They then took him and escorted him to the gendarmerie station. My son didn’t say which one of the Germans had shot him, but I later learned from other people (everybody said so) that he had been shot by the deputy governor of Busko-Zdrój – von Christen. When I spoke to my son, he told me that he didn’t feel guilty and that he hadn’t done anything that justified the shooting or the arrest.

On the second or third day after he was transported to Pińczów, I delivered four pairs of underwear and some food for him, but the warden had allowed food to be delivered only once. The underwear was lost and my son never received it. They didn’t let me see him in prison at all and I didn’t know what happened to him.

On 18 March 1944 I learned that my son had been killed in prison on 17 March 1944. I didn’t receive any official notification concerning my son’s death from the German authorities, and only after some time four Germans came over and told me that my son Jerzy had died in prison. After the Germans left, one of the prison wardens pointed my daughter to the place where my son had been buried, and my daughter searched for his corpse, but found nothing. Later I learned that the Germans had burnt everyone who had been executed on 17 March 1944, including my son and his friend Świech.

I don’t know whether my son belonged to any organizations, since he never told me so. He was 28 years old, quiet, calm, modest, and single. I have nothing more to add.

The report was read out.