MARIANNA BIENIEK

Kielce, 10 February 1948, 10.00 a.m. Marian Poniewierka from the Criminal Investigation Section of the Citizens’ Militia Station in Kielce, acting on the instructions of the Prosecutor from the District Court in Kielce, with the participation of reporter Jan Zielono, heard the person named below as a witness. Having been advised of the criminal liability for making false declarations and of the wording of Article 140 of the Penal Code, the witness testified as follows:


Name and surname Marianna Bieniek
Parents’ names Jan and Maria, nee Roleszczak
Date of birth summer 1908
Place of birth Dębska Wola
Religious affiliation Roman Catholic
Occupation housewife
Place of residence Kielce [...]

In the autumn of 1941, a camp for Soviet prisoners of war was established in the Fijałkowski barracks. There were only Soviet prisoners there, some 15,000–20,000 people.

Upon liquidation of the camp, the remaining prisoners were removed, but I don’t know where to. Before the Soviet Army entered, I saw the Germans arrange the prisoners in a column and march them towards the city.

In the first period of the camp’s operation the death rate was so high that every day some 10 or 12 or 14 carts would leave the camp, loaded with corpses. All these prisoners had died due to starvation, as they weren’t fed at all.

I neither saw nor heard about the Germans executing the prisoners by shooting. All the corpses of the prisoners were buried in mass graves in the forest by Bukówka. I didn’t see and so I don’t know how the prisoners were fed, but I know that on their way to work they would search rubbish bins for leftovers of bread, potatoes or cabbage; it was evident that they were very hungry.

I’m not sure if it’s true, but I heard that there was an infirmary in the camp, but that it was set up only towards the end of the period of its operation. There was a great epidemic of typhoid fever; the prisoners were also suffering from dysentery.

As for a crematorium in the camp, there was no such thing, and I haven’t heard anything about burning prisoners.

I know neither the surnames nor addresses of people who were imprisoned in the camp. I didn’t know the commander of the camp. I know only one surname: Ubman, a man who wore the uniform of an Unt. Officer [a non-commissioned officer] and who came from the Sudetes. He supervised the disposal of the corpses and the sending of the prisoners to work.

I didn’t see any executions and I don’t know whether the prisoners were shot or hanged. I have nothing more to add.

At this the report was concluded, read out and signed.