JÓZEF JAWORSKI

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 Józef Jaworski
Date and place of birth 23 September 1882, Wierzbica, Radom district
Parents’ names Franciszek and Julianna
Place of residence Siczki, Jedlnia forest district
Occupation deputy forester with the State Forests
Criminal record none
Relationship to the parties none

At the beginning of 1943, a penal labor camp for young men was established in the buildings formerly occupied by a labor camp for Jews, which had been liquidated in 1942; this camp was moved here from Solec nad Wisłą. There might have been from 300 to 600 young men at that camp. It was run by the Germans. The youths worked from 4.00 a.m. until sundown, in pairs, carrying heavy 2-meter long logs of oak and beech, and they had to work like this fast. As for food, they received coffee and a piece of bread in the morning, and dinner in the evening – it was either rutabaga or some watery soup.

Since the families of the boys would come and bring provisions, it all ended up at my place and also in the neighboring colony. Some scant quantities of food could be delivered to the boys only after the camp authorities had been bribed, and therefore mortality at the camp was high. The boys were 20–23 years old. They were sent to the camp for failure to show up for work or for some other slight offence. They were incarcerated there for a period of one week to one year. Some of them worked in chains. They had roll calls by my lodge, and it was from there that they were sent for work; my family and I tried to help these boys by secretly giving them food. Individual work units were supervised by Volksdeutschers, who treated the boys in a very brutal manner. The camp was liquidated in 1944, when the Germans were already beginning to lose the war.

My family and I witnessed how in the summer of 1943, one boy ran away from his group. Then five boys were chosen to find the fugitive along with their supervising Volksdeutscher who, after the boy had been found, shot him and – in order to set an example – also one innocent boy from among the five chosen for the search. The bodies were thrown onto a cart and transported away. More details pertaining to this case could be provided by Janina Poduszczak, resident of Jedlnia-Letnisko, who was sent to the camp in Częstochowa for helping these young boys.