FRANCISZKA KANIA

On 18 October 1947, with the participation of reporter R. Muszyńska, the Borough Court in Końskie, represented by Judge W. Kuryłowicz, interviewed the person named below as an unsworn witness. Having been advised of the criminal liability for making false declarations and of the wording of Article 107 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, the witness testified as follows:


Name and surname Franciszka Kania
Age 40
Parents’ names Marianna and Józef
Place of residence Kornica, Końskie commune
Occupation housewife, lives off her widow’s pension, owns a hectare of land
Religious affiliation Roman Catholic
Criminal record none

On 16 September 1943, the Germans arrived in the village of Kornica; having surrounded it, they arrested 19 men, including my husband Walenty Kania. I recognized one of the German gendarmes – Reich; I didn’t know the names of the others. The Germans took all the men arrested that day to the prison in Końskie and tortured them for a week during interrogations; they knocked [out] two of my husband’s front teeth. After a week of imprisonment in Końskie, they transferred my husband to the camp in Barycz and shot him on 23 September 1943. He was buried on the spot. It was not until 1945 that my husband’s body, together with the others, was transported to the Catholic cemetery in Końskie [and] buried [there]. My husband was arrested as a partisan because he had been denounced by Natalia Walińska, who knew all about the partisans in Kornica because she lived there; she denounced them because they had given her a whipping as punishment for maintaining relations with the Germans.

The report was read out.