JÓZEF KULIKIEWICZ

On 4 May 1946, the Municipal Court in Opatów, represented by Judge Al. Zalewski, with the participation of reporter app. J. Kwiatkowski, interviewed the person mentioned below as a witness. Having advised the witness of the criminal liability for making false declarations, of the wording of Article 107 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, and of the significance of the oath, the judge swore the witness in accordance with Article 108 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, whereupon the witness testified as follows:


Name and surname Józef Kulikiewicz
Age 53 years old
Parents’ names Ignacy and Tekla née Korzeniowska
Place of residence Opatów, Łagowska Street 14
Occupation clerk
Religious affiliation Roman Catholic
Criminal record none

During the German occupation for some time, I was Rembów commune administrator in Opatów district. On 16 March 1943, I came across three gendarmes in the commune office. I found that one of them, blonde, short, and overweight, was called Berger. Right in front of my eyes he took the accountant Marian Sarnecki. He took him and the post office clerk, Dulemba, who he also detained, to a sawmill, where they were both murdered. From the then commander of the local Blue Police station, Prośmianowski, I learned that the perpetrator of the murder of one of them was a gendarme from Opatów – Berger.

After some time, I worked in the same position as [the] Dwikozy commune administrator in the Sandomierz district. Between September and October 1943, Miller, a Kreislandwirt [district farmer] from Opatów, came to our commune. While checking the names of those who did not provide the compulsory supplies, he drew attention to the Żalków family residing in Słupca, [in the] previously mentioned commune, which did not provide a significant part of the designated supply. Miller headed to their home where, after Ewa Żalek failed to meet the obliged [amount] to pay, he took her elderly mother and brother. At his command, they were murdered the following day at the Jewish cemetery in Opatów, which I learned from his trusted, late official of Kreislandwirt, Majewski; [this information] was [also] commonly known to others. Sometime later, Miller asked me to write a statement that I repeatedly rebuked the deceased to provide the supplies, which he needed in order to justify himself in front of the local SD from this kind of action.

Between October and November 1943, Stabsleiter [director of staff] Herman Wusowski came to our commune. Together with the gendarmerie, he discovered the hiding place (most probably as a result of the report by the Słupiec settlement administrator, later shot by the partisans) where one of the families, who had not provided the [required] supplies, kept its crops. In order to deter others [from doing the same thing], Wusowski ordered a public execution, as a result of which two men, from the Słupiec settlement ([their] surname[s] unknown to me) were hanged on a public display near the road leading to Zawichost. One of the victims was guilty only because he had the same name as the one who did not deliver the [required] supply.

Among Polish people, former criminal police officer, Stanislaw Słonka, had the worst reputation in the local area. He was feared more than many of the gendarmes. He took my motorbike, “setka” [Polish small engine motorcycle], and he tried to force me to make compulsory payments for it.