The Ukrainians murdered 6 Poles: a mother with a 19‑year‑old daughter, parents with a 12‑year‑old daughter and a 12‑year‑old boy.

source: Żurek Stanisław, „75th anniversary of the genocide – July 1943”; in: portal: Volhynia — web page: wolyn.org [accessible: 2021.02.04]

Observing the tragedy of Poles seeking refuge in Włodzimierz, who miraculously saved themselves from the hands of Ukrainian degenerates, the 18‑year‑old boy, Sigismud Maguza at that time, had to show a lot of fortitude not to go crazy. But the worst was yet to come. After a few days, he decided to go to Witoldów with his friends to see what was happening with the Stankiewiczs' grandparents. What he saw surpassed his worst expectations. – I hoped that the Ukrainians did not move them – remembers Sigismud Maguza. – When I asked him about it, my grandfather always calmed me down. He said that I am older, so is my grandmother, and Weronika is an eleven‑year‑old child, so they probably won't kill us, because why would they do it? My grandparents' son Julian Stankiewicz, Józef Palczyński and Tadeusz Nowicki, traveled with me. We found a terrible sight. When I opened the kitchen door on the table I saw hens pecking at bread that Grandma had baked a few loaves. There were also shells on the kitchen floor. In the room on the floor lay three corpses of grandfather, grandmother and little Veronica, horribly massacred. It was all in blood. From the accounts of neighbors who were friends with my grandparents, we managed to recreate the course of the brutal murder. It turned out that my grandfather got up in the morning, harnessed the horses and wanted to go to some work. The bandits turned him around and made him lie on the bedroom floor on the right. On the left side of the bed, on the floor of the bedroom, there was a grandmother in a nightgown, on which Veronica's chopped corpse lay. Their daughter, or mother's little sister, seeing that it was not going well, jumped out of the window and started to run away. A Ukrainian shot her in the leg. Then she fell. A Ukrainian ran up to her and dragged her grandparents to the house by the leg, covering several dozen meters. They threw it on the body of her grandmother, her mother's, and beat her with an ax. As the neighbors told me, she screamed terribly – don't kill! He heard it, among others A Ukrainian, Kościbroda, living next door, who in 1939, as a loyal citizen of the Republic of Poland, volunteered for the mobilization of the 23rd Infantry Regiment and fought in defense of Warsaw. From his account, and also from his son, I know that Władysław Prociuk, Matwiej Romaniuk and Petro Horbaczewski participated in the murder of the grandparents' family. Romaniuk was my grandparents' neighbor who knew them very well. They came by wagon in the morning. Grigorka Kuzibroda picked them up. Grandpa just harnessed the horses. They led him into a room and told him to lie down on the floor. Grandma, who got up in her shirt, also ordered to do it, so much that on the other side of the bed. Weronika, seeing what was happening, tried to escape, but as I said, she was attracted by one of the torturers. Grandpa was shot by criminals first. They killed my grandmother with an ax, and so did Veronica. They murdered them with blows to the back, chopping them to pieces. After being shot, the tormentor did not hack the grandfather, but he literally stuck his head into his lungs with the head of the ax. When we turned grandfather on his back to take him to the yard to bury him and I took him by the armpits, and Tadziu Nowicki by the legs, my grandfather's brain spilled blood on my chest. It was hot and the blood did not freeze. Something still remained in her grandfather, even though almost the entire floor of the room was flooded with it, and the walls were stuck to pieces of bone and brain, which splashed in all directions when the bandit hit the head with an ax. Mr. Sigismud has tears in his eyes, when he tells his experiences at his grandparents' house and you can see that they have been deeply engraved in his memory. It is not surprising that he devoted a lot of time to researching all her circumstances, as well as other murders committed by the Ukrainians on Poles in Witoldów. – When I was in a sanatorium in Lądek Zdrój, I found Czesław Staszczyk from Witoldów, who lived there, a neighbor of my grandparents, who miraculously managed to survive the massacre organized by the Ukrainians – remembers Sigismud Maguza. I wrote down his account so that it would survive for posterity. According to her, the criminals started the murder of his family. Only he, seeing them, managed to hide. They didn't look too much for him, because they rushed to their grandparents, where they expected to find more loot. They hoped to find their sons and me with them. Earlier, they shot his mother–in–law, Mrs. Sochowa and her 18‑year‑old daughter Janina, and the wife of Czesław Staszczyk and the 14‑year‑old boy Zakrzywicki, who came to visit his aunt. Mrs. Sochowa died first. She opened the door for the criminals when they started pounding. After her, they shot Zakrzywicki, who was lying on a couch. Seeing this, my friend Janina Staszczyk fell to her knees and started screaming hysterically – don't kill !!! One of the torturers shot her in the forehead. After they had murdered everyone in the house, they started looking for Czesław Staszczyk. They tried to enter the barn and the dog started barking at them. One of them fired at him but missed. The dog whined, curled its tail, and hid in the kennel. They entered the barn, looked around and found that Staszczyk had escaped. – Ne maje joho, hdeto wtik – commented one and they went. But he was sitting in the hideout and saw everything through the gaps. At that time, Grandpa Stankiewicz came out in front of the house dressed in a sheepskin coat, because the morning was cold and he was leading two horses behind the mane. When they saw him, they took his horses and rushed my grandfather home to murder him. Then they broke into the neighbors of the Ukrainian Kozibrod's grandfather, shouting – hde Sigismud, hde Julik, hde Felik? – They thought those decent people hid us. – They spread their hands helplessly, saying – ne ma! – Postrelaby you – warned their torturers and let's look. Later, the Kozibrods showed how they were moving the beds and going through the attic. The arrival of Sigismud Maguza with his cousin and friend did not escape the attention of the local Ukrainians, members of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists. One fired several shots at them, but missed and ran away. – As soon as we set up, prepared by Julian Stankiewicz, crosses on the buried grave, we also retreated into the fields, hiding in the furrows. Earlier, my second cousin, Feliks Stankiewicz, took off his socks and put on his murdered father, whom we placed in the grave in a sheepskin coat where the Ukrainians murdered him. When we moved away a bit, the grandparents' farm was already on fire.

source: Żurek Stanisław, „75th anniversary of the genocide – July 1943”; in: portal: Volhynia — web page: wolyn.org [accessible: 2021.02.04]

source: Koprowski Marek A., „Run away, they murder!”; in: portal: kresy.pl — web page: www.kresy.pl [accessible: 2012.02.22]

Czesław S. (Staszczyk – footnote S.Ż) (born 1918): „At three in the morning I was in my barn, where I had a hiding place. I heard a wagon approaching. Through a crack in the boards, I saw two men with rifles jumped off the wagon towards the house. The third was sitting on the wagon. Next to the cart, I noticed a boy (16—17 years old)  […] of Ukrainian nationality, who lived near me in Witoldów. My dog began to bark terribly, the murderers directed the barrels of their rifles at him. They entered the apartment through an unlocked door. They fired at the heads close–up. Mozg was on the walls of the room. All people were lying on the floor in blood. Czesław Z. (Zakrzewski, 12 – Stanislaus Żurek's footnote) was killed on the couch. My wife Janina was on her knees with her arms spread. She must have knelt down, asking for her life. Mother–in–law fell under the table, overturning dishes and bottles. After murdering my family in my apartment, the killers rushed into the barn looking for me. «There's no joho» (he's gone, he's gone), they said  […] I heard a cart pulled away by two horses. I wanted to run away to my neighbor Konstanty S. (Stankiewicz – footnote S.Ż.), but because the murderers went towards his farm, I backed away. I managed to see that S. led two horses and a one‑year‑old foal to the meadow next to the orchard  […] After a few minutes, I saw the murderers catch him by the horses and lead him home. Terrified, I returned to my own yard and hid in a basement hiding place next to the barn, where I stayed until ten o'clock  […] Then I saw murdered S. (Stankiewicz – footnote S.Ż), shot and chopped with axes. Konstanty was lying on the floor with his head smashed  […] , next to it were  […] Balbina S. and their daughter Weronika (11 years old). There was silence for three days after the tragedy, I didn't see anyone. Hiding in the crops, from time to time looking at what is happening around the house, I managed to meet my Ukrainian neighbors. They made coffins out of boards and dug a hole for the grave. We buried the three murdered next to the house, in the orchard, putting a cross on the grave made by the Ukrainians. The Ukrainian woman brought me a loaf of bread for the journey and cried, saying: «We owe you nothing, if you live, you will find out who murdered». On the day we were burying my family in the orchard, some armed men in railway uniforms came to S.'s farm. The Ukrainians left the coffins and fled, fearing that something bad might happen to them. Hearing that Poles did indeed come, I ran to say hello and with tears in my eyes I saw Polish railroad workers with weapons, who came from Włodzimierz Wołyński. Julian S. with his brother Feliks / sons of the murdered S. /, with his nephew Sigismud M., prepared a grave in the farm yard, near the well. They placed three coffins in it and put three crosses. Immediately after the funeral and the departure of the Poles  […] , the Ukrainians ran from one Polish farm to another, starting fires. Left over ashes and burned orchards”.

source: Żurek Stanisław, „75th anniversary of the genocide – July 1943”; in: portal: Volhynia — web page: wolyn.org [accessible: 2021.02.04]

source: Odonus Barbara, „Summer 1943”; in: „Card”, in: No. 43 /2004/