On 17 December 1980 in Białystok Waldemar Monkiewicz, assistant prosecutor of the District Prosecutor’s Office in Białystok, delegated to the District Commission for the Investigation of Hitlerite Crimes in Białystok by the Prosecutor General of the Polish People’s Republic, proceeding in accordance with the provisions of Article 4 of the decree of 10 November 1945 (Journal of Laws No. 51, item 293) and Article 129 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, interviewed the person named below as a witness. Having been advised of the criminal liability for making false statements, the witness confirmed with his own signature that he had been informed of this liability (Article 172 of the Code of Criminal Procedure). The witness then testified as follows:
| Name and surname | Leonard Skłodowski |
| Parents’ names | Hieronim and Amelia |
| Date and place of birth | 10 January 1931, Skłody-Piotrowice |
| Place of residence | Skłody-Piotrowice, Zaręby Kościelne commune |
| Occupation | farmer |
| Education | three years of elementary school |
| Criminal record for perjury | none |
| Relationship to the parties | none |
Until 20 January 1944 I lived together with my parents in the village of Skłody-Piotrowice. On that day at around 8:00 a.m. I stepped out into the yard and noticed that the German gendarmerie was in the village, close to our buildings. The horse wagon carrying the gendarmes stopped near our house on the street which ran through the village. I watched the gendarmes get off the horse wagon and approach our yard. Several of them took position close to our buildings and two entered the yard.
At that time my father, 39-year-old Hieronim Skłodowski, and my mother, 35-year-old Amelia Skłodowska, came out into the yard together with my siblings. Upon entering the yard one of the gendarmes called for everybody to exit the house. This German spoke some Polish. At his urging also my father’s sister, 37-year-old Apolonia Skłodowska, came into the yard. However, my father’s 82-year-old mother stayed in bed, as she was unable to walk.
The gendarmes ordered us to line up against the wall of the house and asked where the Jews were. My father answered that he did not shelter Jews. I no longer recall how many gendarmes stayed behind to guard us; the rest went over to the barn, where on their orders the residents of our village had gathered. The gendarmes ordered them to move the grain from the grain bins. That is when a hideout in the grain was revealed. Even though the gendarmes didn’t find anybody in the hideout, its existence was reason enough for my father to be led to the field behind the barn and shot.
I did not witness my father’s shooting. I was still standing against the wall of the house, from where at one point the gendarmes took my father and led him behind the barn. I believe that a single gendarme came to get my father.
Today I cannot describe the gendarmes. There were many of them and I believe they arrived on several horse wagons, of which I only saw one. I also heard that, besides the gendarmes, also present were the commissars from Jasienica and Zaręby [Kościelne], but I did not know them and so I cannot confirm this.
I heard gunshots about a dozen minutes after my father had been led away. I suppose that the two shots were fired from the direction where my father was taken by the gendarmes. A moment later the gendarmes ordered us to go inside the house. That is when, through the window, I saw my father’s body lying about five meters away, behind the barn.
For around fifteen minutes we were not allowed to leave, and then they drove [us] into the yard and ordered to get on our horse wagon and head to Zaręby Kościelne. We were escorted by two gendarmes who followed our wagon on horseback. In Zaręby we were held in jail for 24 hours. The next day we were taken – also on a horse wagon and under escort – to Jasienica. We spent seven days in jail there, after which we were released and ordered to go to the village of Skłody Średnie, to the home of Piotr and Bolesław Uściński. They were my mother’s brothers and we lived with them for the rest of the occupation.
While we were still jailed in Jasienica we learned that our grandmother Aleksandra Skłodowska, who was 82 years old, was murdered in bed at our house right after we were taken to Zaręby. She was shot by the German gendarmes. The gendarmes ordered the residents of the village of Skłody-Piotrowice to bury the bodies of the murdered – my father and my grandmother – in the field next to the road, close to our buildings. Our farm was handed over to Jan Skłodowski, a resident of the village of Świerże-Kończany. He ran our farm until the end of the occupation. After the war the bodies of my father and grandmother were exhumed and moved to the cemetery in Zaręby Kościelne. I have no knowledge of the names of the gendarmes who murdered my father and grandmother.