MIROSŁAW KIECZMUR

On 14 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:


Forename and surname Mirosław Kieczmur
Age 17 years old
Names of parents Bazyli and Maria
Place of residence Radom, Kielecka Street 3
Occupation baker’s apprentice
Religious affiliation Roman Catholic
Criminal record none
Relationship to the parties none

I live opposite the place where the gallows were set up on Kielecka Street. I witnessed the execution carried out on 13 October 1942 by the Kielce road in Radom. On that day, at about 6.00 a.m., one of my neighbors came and told me that the gallows were being erected across the way from our windows. I looked through the window and I saw the gallows, built of an unhewn birch wood, on the other side of the street. Ropes could be seen hanging from a bar supported by three spans.

At 7.00 a.m. Gestapo men were brought to the execution site in several cars. A covered truck carrying the convicts arrived at 7.30 a.m. The convicts were hanged one at a time, having been led one by one out of the truck. The two hangmen who carried out the execution had beards. I don’t know whether the beards were natural or whether the men were wearing masks. They were Jew-like in appearance. One of them led the convicts out of the car and up to the gallows and the other put a noose around their necks and removed a stool from under their feet.

I didn’t watch the whole execution because my mother didn’t allow me to. It wasn’t until the fourth convict was about to be hanged that I started watching it. Ten men were hanged. All of them had numbers written on their backs, their hands tied behind their backs. Their mouths weren’t gagged. One of them was saying something before he died. From what I could hear he said that he had been promised to be released and that instead of being released he was about to die. Then a Gestapo man read something from a sheet of paper and the man was executed.

I didn’t know any of those executed next to the Kielce road and, consequently, I can’t recognize any of them in the photograph presented. Those who knew the victims said that the following men were among the people hanged by the Germans: Bołdok, the railway cashier Dłużewski and Kielbowski, whose name I don’t know.

The bodies were left hanging until 4.00 p.m. Then they were loaded onto a truck and taken away, but I don’t know where.

The Germans set up a board next to the gallows. It contained information that the convicts had been executed because of the aid they had given to "Polish bandits". I don’t remember exactly what it read.

Having been shown a photograph of the people executed by the Kielce road in Radom, the witness testified as follows:

I don’t recognize any of the executed because I didn’t know any of them. Those who saw the execution said the man hanging first from the right was called Bołdok. I don’t know his name. I do recognize the gallows and the background against which the gallows had been set up. The house that can be seen behind the gallows, across from the middle part of the scaffold, is owned by Sikora, and the one on the right side of it belongs to Ziętkowski, both of whom are my neighbors.