WŁADYSŁAW SOBAŚ

In Kielce, on 27 February 1948, at 8:50 AM, I, Jan Zielono from the Investigative Department at the Citizens’ Militia station in Kielce, acting pursuant to the recommendation of the prosecutor of the District Court in Kielce, issued on the basis of Article 20 of the provisions introducing the Code of Criminal Procedure of 16 December 1947 (file no. ŻN 22/47), while observing the formalities listed in Article 135, 140, 258, and 259 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, in the presence of reporter Józef Łukasik, whom I have instructed of the obligation to certify the compliance of the Protocol with the course of procedure by signing, heard the person named below as a witness. Having been advised of the criminal liability for making false declarations, the witness testified as follows:


Name and surname Władysław Sobaś
Parents’ names Izydor and Anna
Age 35
Place of birth Kielce
Religious affiliation Roman Catholic
Occupation farmer
Place of residence Kielce, Wojska Polskiego Street 125

Regarding the present case, I have the following knowledge. The camp in the Fijałkowski barracks was founded in the summer of 1941, and in the autumn they brought the first Russian prisoners to it. Only Russian prisoners were in the camp. The first time, they [Germans] brought 9,000 prisoners to it, and later they brought fewer. About 15,000 prisoners passed throughout the existence of the camp, 12,000 of which died or were killed.

The Germans used the prisoners who stayed in the camp for different kinds of work: for removing snow from the roads, cutting trees in the forest, etc.

As for the nutrition of prisoners, it was very poor; [those] people would pick up various wastes from the ground and feed off of it. Every day, we transported about 300 corpses on wagons to the forest in Bukówka. There, other prisoners dug large pits, threw these corpses one on top of another, and scattered chloride [on them].

These prisoners died mainly of starvation, and I don’t know whether there were executions in the camp, because I never saw [them]. I do not remember the names of Germans who were in this camp. The camp was liquidated by the Germans in the summer of 1944, and the prisoners who remained in it were transported away.

I conclude my testimony and signed it after it was read out to me.