BRONISŁAWA JAWORSKA

On 16 August 1947 in Jedlnia-Letnisko, the District Commission for the Investigation of German Crimes in Radom in the person of a member of the Commission, lawyer Zygmunt Glogier, heard the person named below as an unsworn witness. Having been advised of the criminal liability for making false declarations, the witness testified as follows:


Name and surname Bronisława Jaworska
Date of birth 31 May 1891
Parents’ names Jakub and Marianna
Place of residence Siczki, Jedlnia forest district
Occupation housewife
Criminal record none
Relationship to the parties none

I am the wife of deputy forester Józef Jaworski and I live in a forester’s lodge situated some 500 meters from the site of the executions. In December 1939, I saw several cars carrying Gestapo men and several covered trucks filled with people – all these vehicles passed by our lodge. Then I heard the explosions of grenades and single shots, and later I found out that an execution of victims brought from the direction of Radom had taken place there.

When passing through the forest in the winter of 1939, I myself saw cars and taxis climb a hill, and then Gestapo men led two elderly men in hats out of one car; the men were given shovels and were ordered to dig a ditch, and then I saw that the Gestapo men pushed these two men and two others into that ditch, and next I heard a grenade explosion and single shots. It gave me such a fright that I hurried home.

Another time, in the winter of 1940, I again saw cars and Gestapo men at the same location. I hid behind a tree and saw that the Gestapo men were repeatedly hitting some bodies lying in the ditch with shovels, and then they finished off their victims with shots fired in the direction of the ditch.

In the same year, 1940, one woman – if my memory serves me right, she was a resident of Kolonki, but I cannot recall her surname – came to see me and told me that when she was crossing the forest in the direction of Jedlnia-Letnisko, she saw cars and Gestapo men near the hill. At one point a well-bred young lady, probably a student, detached herself from the group of people standing by the car and began to run in the direction of the rivulet. Two Gestapo men ran after her. When she reached the rivulet, she stopped, not knowing what to do, and then the Gestapo men caught her, wrapped her hair around their arms and pulled her to the ditch that had been dug there, and then they flung her down and a shot rang out.

One day in 1940 I saw some young woman in the cab of a car headed for the execution site. When the cars were returning, she was no longer to be seen in the cab.

In the years 1939–1940, there were about 11 executions. I am unable to say how many people were executed. The executions were carried out at 3.45 p.m. sharp. More details could be provided by Jan Sułek from Kolonka, Jedlnia commune, who managed to see one such execution, Ryszard Dembski from Jedlnia, and forest district manager Kosterkiewicz, who even spoke with one of the officers after an execution.