BOLESŁAW HELMAN

On 11 November 1947 in Radom, the District Commission for the Investigation of German Crimes with its seat in Radom, this in the person of a member of the Commission, lawyer Zygmunt Glogier, interviewed the person mentioned hereunder as a witness, without taking an oath. Having been advised of the criminal liability for making false declarations, the witness testified as follows:


Name and surname Bolesław Helman
Age 57 years old
Parents’ names Maria and Lucjan
Place of residence Żeromskiego Street 25, Radom
Occupation factory owner
Criminal record none
Relationship to the parties none

I was arrested for the first time by the Gestapo in Radom on 22 October 1943. They assigned me to a Sonderabteilung [special unit], in Koch’s prison. At the time, they arrested some 60 people, nearly all from the intelligentsia. I was interrogated twice at Kościuszki Street. I myself was not handcuffed, however others were. The majority of those taken to “examinations” were beaten. You could see what they had gone through when they returned. I would like to stress that some were battered so heavily that they didn’t come back. Women received the same treatment, and the doctor, Gajdziński, would be summoned to those most seriously beaten. I spent some three months in the Sonderabteilung, whereafter I was pardoned; some time previous, a Gestapo man had read all of us our death sentences. The “pardoning” proceeded thus: Fuchs’ interpreter, a short and stout black-haired man who always wore a mustache, would summon 10 or so people to a separate room in the prison and declare that the Germans were magnanimously sparing them their lives, at the same time warning that they must not join any organizations in the future and tell no one what went on in the prison or at the Gestapo; finally, he would instruct those gathered to report about all and any underground activities. Whereupon the prisoners, and myself in one of the groups, would sign a declaration and be released.

On 22 August 1944, I was arrested in Garbatka during a sweep operation that was being carried out in the area. At the time, they detained some 500 people, only men, and transported us in 12 wagons to Radom, where they locked us up in former buildings of the [illegible] train station. Only some of the arrestees were interrogated by the Gestapo, however, while the rest were segregated, with the elderly and infirm being sent to Małogoszcz, and the rest to Częstochowa. Some 100 people who volunteered for work were sent to Radomsko. All those sent to Małogoszcz returned, however I don’t know who of the people sent to Germany came back. I spent a month in Małogoszcz.

The above is concordant with my oral testimony.

The report was read out.