The Baranek family from the village of Siedliska near Miechow, together with their children, were killed by the Germans on the same day. The occupiers murdered first the Jews and then the Polish family.
When the sun was just rising on 15 March 1943 six Sonderdienst officers (the German police in the General Government appointed by Governor Hans Frank) and one gendarme entered the farm of the Polish Baranek family from the village of Siedliska near Miechów. They knew that there were Jews hidden by the Poles. There was an unconditional death penalty for sheltering Jews in the General Government. Such strict regulations were in force only in the occupied Polish territories.
A special hiding place
First, the Germans went to the village chief and ordered him to gather a group of men. Then they were ordered a search of the Baranek household. The men entered the attic but found no one there. They did, however, discover a specially added wall (between the house and the pigsty) where a hiding place had been arranged for the Jews. There were four people there: men from Miechów, and the two Gotfrid brothers with their father. The hiding people were led out and shot.
Crime during a boozing
After the murder of the Jewish people, the Germans looked after the Baranek family. They ordered the others to leave the homestead area. While drinking alcohol, they brutally interrogated the Baranek family. Soon they shot the mother and father (Lucia and Wincenty). They then took their sons (nine-year-old Tadeusz and thirteen-year-old Henryk) and murdered them with a shot to the back of the head. Only Wincenty’s stepmother, Katarzyna, survived the massacre. Thanks to her petite stature, she hid behind the cooker.
However, the German Nazis announced to the villagers that if they did not find the woman, 40 other Poles would be murdered. The intimidated villagers found Katarzyna and led her to the German police station, where she was shot dead.
Who informed the Germans?
It is not known how the Germans found out about the Jews in hiding. It is suspected that they were informed under torture by one of the soldiers of the Polish independence underground, the Home Army. However, he was exonerated by a court after the war.
3 July 2012. Lucja, Wincenty and Katarzyna were posthumously awarded the medal “Righteous Among the Nations” by the Yad Vashem Institute. The same honour was bestowed on their sons Tadeusz and Henryk on 24 December 2012.