ZENONA PANEK

On 15 December 1971 in Mława, Ryszard Juszkiewicz, judge of the District Court in Mława, with the participation of court reporter Ewa Jakubowska, heard the person named below as a witness. The witness was warned of the criminal liability for giving false testimony, after which the witness stated with her own signature that she had been cautioned about this responsibility (Article 172 of the Criminal Code). The witness, [also] cautioned about her responsibility regarding the content of Art. 165 of the Criminal Code, then testified as follows:


Name and surname Zenona Panek
Maiden name Kierzkowska
Parents’ names Hieronim and Gertruda
Date and place of birth 8 October 1943, in Iłowo
Place of residence Iłowo, [...]
Occupation manual worker
Education primary

I was not born to the parents whom I have cited above. I was taken after the end of the hostilities from the Iłowo camp by my mother, Leokadia Kierzkowska. This mother lived only two years. Hieronim Kierzkowski was Leokadia’s husband. After the death of my mother Leokadia, my father remarried and Gertruda Kierzkowska raised me—she appears in all documents as my mother. I was adopted by Gertrud and Hieronim Kierzkowski before the District Court in Działdowo. When I was picked up from the camp by my first mother, a plaque hung over my bed, which apparently read ‘Sina Sivoratov’, from which I gather that I came from the Soviet Union. As I was processed by the court, my name was transformed into Zenona, and my surname taken from my parents—the Kierzkowskis. It so happened that my husband, Stanisław, was also taken from the camp as a child.

I learned the details above from my mothers. I don’t have any documents from the camp. Next to my name on the plaque above my bed was supposedly my date of birth, which I have just given.

My mother-in-law, Adela Panek, knows more about the camp—she lives in Iłowo. My mother told me that when I was a child I did not have any hair at all and ‘I was in scabs all over’.

The hearing of the witness was thus concluded and the report signed after being read out.