QUESTIONNAIRE
on camps
Township: Kielce
Commune: Kielce
District: Kielce
Voivodeship: Kielce
1. Name of the camp:
Camp for the Russian prisoners of war.
2. Location of the camp:
Fijałkowski barracks, 2 kilometers from Kielce
3. Size of the camp:
Ca. 9 hectares
4. Date of establishment of the camp:
the end of November 1942
5. Date of closure of the camp:
Approx. in the middle of April 1943
6. Were the prisoners only Poles, only Jews from Poland, or Poles and Jews from Poland?
No
7. Were there any foreigners in the camp (nationality, number)?
Russian prisoners of war and Russian civilians (only men, treated as prisoners of war).
8. Average number of prisoners in the camp:
Approx. 8,000 people
9. Total number of prisoners who passed through the camp during its period of operation:
Approx. 8,000 people
10. What happened with the prisoners upon liquidation of the camp?
Almost all of them died due to exhaustion and mass epidemics of typhus and typhoid fever.
11. Did the prisoners work in the camp? (types of work performed, types of workshops)
It is unknown.
12. Did the prisoners work outside the camp? (types of work performed, locations)
Stronger prisoners were forced to unload wagons and work at the railway in Kielce, as well as to dig graves and bury the dead in the forest by Telegraf [mountain].
13. How were the prisoners fed?
Once a day, the prisoners received soup made of frozen and rotten potatoes, swede or fodder beet.
14. Was there an infirmary or a hospital in the camp?
It is unknown.
15. Where there any epidemics in the camp? (If yes, what kind)
Typhus and typhoid fever.
16. Are data on the death rate in the camp available?
50–350 people died daily due to the above mentioned epidemics, starvation and cold.
17. Were executions held at or outside the camp?
33 prisoners were shot for an act of cannibalism on three fellow prisoners. An eyewitness of the execution, citizen Franciszek Węgrzyn, residing in Kielce at Czwartaków Street 136, lives to this day.
18. Were the corpses destroyed?
No
19. Was there a crematorium in the camp?
No
20. Was the burial site of the murdered victims determined?
In the camp, the victims were buried in mass graves in the forest by “Telegraf.”
21. Current condition of the camp – what was destroyed? What is located on the site of the camp?
Used as barracks of the Polish Army.
22. Has any material evidence survived from the camp? (Type, place of storage, has it been secured?)
Nothing survived.
23. Are the surnames and, possibly, addresses of the people who had been imprisoned in the camp known?
No
24. Are the surnames of the Germans, the camp commander and other functionaries known?
No
On 6 October 1945, the contents of the above questionnaire were officially certified by Ludwika Bazylewska, acting on the authorization of the president of the city of Kielce, with the Municipal Court in Kielce.