ZOFIA BRETSZNAJDER

On 13 December 1945, in Radom, Kazimierz Borys, Investigating Judge from the Second District of the District Court in Radom, based in Radom, interviewed the person named below as an unsworn witness. Having been advised of the criminal liability for making false declarations and of the provisions of Article 107 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, the witness testified as follows:


Name and surname Zofia Bretsznajder
Age 68 years old
Names of parents Robert and Antonina
Place of residence Radom, Starokrakowska Street 21
Occupation pensioner
Religious affiliation Roman Catholic
Criminal record none
Relationship to the parties none

My daughter, Halina Bretsznajder, born on 7 November 1907 in Mikołajew in Russia, a secretary at the Polish Red Cross and Chief of the Radom and Kielce Scouting Regiment, was executed by the Germans on 15 October 1942, on the gallows set up beside the Warsaw road in Radom. She was arrested at her workplace at the Polish Red Cross office on 25 September 1942, about three weeks before the execution. I never saw my daughter after she had been arrested.

When I arrived at the execution site her body had already been removed from the gallows, but I don’t know where to. I was told that it was left hanging from the morning to 4.00 p.m. When I arrived on the spot the gallows were just being dismantled. I didn’t see any noticeboard nearby.

That my daughter was executed on the gallows by the Warsaw road I learned from people who were at the execution site when her body was still there. Jan Pisarek was among those who told me about what had happened. He lives in Radom at Sienkiewicza Street 4.

I was told that the Socio-Scientific Institute had some photographs of the people hanged by the Germans, but I haven’t had the strength to watch them and I don’t want to be shown them now.

The German authorities didn’t notify me of my daughter’s death and I don’t know why she was arrested.

The report was read out.