BOGUSŁAW RYCZKOWSKI

On 8 January 1946, in Radom, the 2nd judge of the District Court in Radom, based in Radom, Judge Kazimierz Borys, heard the person named below as a witness. After being informed about the criminal liability for giving false testimony, the witness testified as follows:


Name and surname Bogusław Ryczkowski
Age 17
Parents’ names Eligiusz and Lucyna
Place of residence Firlej, Wielogóra county
Occupation student
Religious affiliation Roman Catholic
Criminal record none
Relationship to the parties none

I lived in Firlej in July 1941. Several times a week I saw covered trucks going from Radom towards the Firlej sands. Soon after the cars turned into the sands, gunfire rang out, from machine guns and single shots.

I wasn’t a witness to any execution. However, immediately after the execution I saw the place where the executed people were buried.

The executions took place systematically and repeatedly several times a week until October 1943. At that time, the Germans deported all the residents of Firlej and Wincentow, whose houses were near the execution site, and then they screened the sands from the side of the Warsaw road with straw mats and began to burn the corpses. I saw streaks of smoke hovering over the sands. I didn’t see the fire. The smell of burnt human flesh hung in the air.

What the crematorium was like, I don’t know. There were no traces of it.

The incineration lasted until April 1944. We thought then that the executions wouldn’t happen again. However, soon after the resettlement of the deported residents, the executions started up again and lasted until the Germans escaped. Apparently, in July 1944, apart from the executions at the Firlej sands, some Poles were also shot in another part of Radom, because some completely fresh corpses were brought to Firlej. One of my friends was there at the burial of these corpses. 60 dead bodies were brought at that time. The Germans ordered their clothes to be removed and distributed them as payment for burying the dead. The bodies were buried in common pits, on average 10 people to one pit. As my friend told me, the faces of those murdered could not be recognized at all, such was the extend of the massacre.

The report was read out.