Stoczek Węgrowski, 31 March 1988
Cecylia Borkowska
[...]
07-104 Stoczek
The Main Commission for the Investigation
of Hitlerite Crimes in Poland
Warszawa, Ujazdowskie Avenue 11
During the Hitlerite occupation my parents offered aid to persecuted Jews, as a result of which they both lost their lives. It also led to the death of my two brothers. The Nazis burned our house and farm buildings. In order to claim compensation for these losses, last year I approached the Jewish Historical Institute in Warsaw where to my dismay I learned that my family’s plight was never recorded in the Register of Hitlerite Crimes.
I would like my report of the events which took place in the years 1924–1944 [sic!] to serve as a basis for further examination and an official confirmation of the crimes perpetrated by the Nazi occupiers against my family.
My father Stanisław Postek, who lived with his family on [...] in Stoczek Węgrowski during the occupation, had acquaintances among Jews in Warsaw. When the Germans ramped up persecution, this Jewish family came to us and asked for shelter. I remember that it was a family of three; unfortunately, I do not know their names. My parents sheltered these Jews in a converted potato cellar. When in August 1942 the Nazis were rounding up Jews in Stoczek to deport them to Treblinka, our close acquaintance, a Jew named Hajkiel, asked to be sheltered for a few months. My parents agreed and my father dug an underground shelter where Hajkel hid – alone at first, and after two months with three other Jews who joined him. In 1943 after the revolt in Treblinka many Jews escaped from the camp, including several residents of Stoczek. Among the escapees who reached our house were two men whose last name was Majorek and their sister with her child. I did not know the other six people or their names. Some of the escapees were injured; we treated their wounds and put them in the shelter where Hajkel was already staying with the three-person group. My parents were unable to feed so many. My father delivered potatoes and bread baked by my mother to the shelter, but the Jews had to obtain a lot of the food by themselves at night. They also prepared meals during night time. It went on like this until 5 September 1943 when the Germans organized a round-up in Stoczek, setting up posts along the forest which the town borders on. We lived next to this forest. Because the Germans were watching our buildings very closely, we began to leave the house; first, my two sisters Zofia and Maria, then my brother Franciszek, who took the cow to the pasture and also escaped. Myself and my youngest brother, Jerzy, went to school. My two brothers Henryk and Wacław, as well as my parents, didn’t manage to escape. At 10:00 a.m. my teacher Mrs. Zofia Kościukiewicz approached me and told me not to go to my home but to my relatives, because Jews were discovered somewhere. I went with my brother Jerzy to the village of Marianów. There we learned that my father and two brothers had been deported, and my mother killed. In November 1943 my brothers Henryk and Wacław, imprisoned by the Germans at Pawiak, returned home. My father was taken to Auschwitz and never returned. My brothers relayed to me the events which unfolded after I had left the house on 5 September 1943.
At one point the Germans came to get my father and told him that they had seen a group of strangers who disappeared into his yard. They ordered my father to open the cellar where the group of six Jews from Warsaw were hiding. They were led to the forest and shot. Next, the Germans conducted a thorough search and discovered the second shelter holding eleven people. One of the Jews took off running and was shot. The rest of the Jews, my father and brothers were ordered to lie flat on the ground, and the Jews were then shot. My father and brothers were ordered to get up and dig a pit in the yard. In the meantime, the Germans brought about ten Poles and ordered them to throw the bodies into the pit and bury them. The Germans took my father and brothers with them, first to their headquarters in Sadowne, and three days later to Pawiak. Only my mother was left at home. After the murdered Jews were buried, the Germans left the farmstead, but returned after a while to punish my mother for baking bread for the Jews. Each of the Germans beat my mother with a stick. Brutally massacred, she died the following day, on 6 September 1943. A distant relative buried her at the local cemetery on 8 September 1943. My brothers Henryk and Wacław were released from prison at first, but in June 1944 they were re-arrested by the Germans (allegedly for questioning) and were never heard from again.
After the war, in September 1945, the bodies of the Jews who were buried in our yard were exhumed and buried in the cemetery in Stoczek. Allegedly, an exhumation report was then drawn up.
There are still many people living in Stoczek who can corroborate the abovementioned facts.
I kindly request that this crime be examined.