In 1939, there were SS-men stationed in the school on Stojanowska Street. The Germans dug a huge pit in front of Handlowa Street. Since it was cold, they burned straw to heat up the ground. After they had dug the pit, they executed 40 men there one evening. Every day at 8:00 p.m. one heard shots. Those were executions. When they led the convicts past our house towards the goose-house through the field, the latter would shout: “Dear gentlemen, we are innocent.”
On the morrow of an execution (each time), crows flocked to the corpses because, having been buried in winter, not covered with earth, they lay frozen and did not stink. And when the frost thawed, they covered them a bit, and then more. Later, when they executed [people] in warmer weather, they buried those murdered. A hunchbacked Jew buried them hastily, and later other Jews buried them flat in the ground.
If they were led in daytime, each convict had his hands tied behind his back and was tied to a cord; they shot in the back of the head, in the neck, all executed the same way.
There were officers and privates in the school grounds. Gestapo [surely], because the others didn’t execute, they were the execution specialists.
The area was fenced by the Germans with a tall barbed wire fence. There was a sign in front of the entrance in Polish: “Stop, or a bullet to the head.” They kept throwing grenades over the original school fence, which remained intact, in order to terrorize passers-by.
All the Germans stationed there did was shoot people, nothing but shoot. We were all very careful not to bring down the sign saying “Stop, or a bullet to the head,” because it was outside the wires and we thought they would execute us, they would accuse us of sabotage.
Signed:
Miklaszewski, Remiszewska Street 27
On behalf of the illiterate Antonina Miklaszewska, in her presence – Tykowa