[Handwritten marginal note] Special Court Nuernberg. Sentence: 26 November 1942.
[Handwritten] Translation from the Polish language of a petition for clemency.
Stanislaus Bieniasz
Jan Lopata, born on 24 June 1916 in Kajscowka, district of Myslenice.
Petition for Clemency
In 1940, I stayed in Germany as an agricultural worker with the farmer Josef Schwenzl at Bodenhof, where I had my residence together with Angelike Murzyn until 1942. Later on, on Sunday 7 February, I went to another farmer whose name was Josef, I do not know his surname, but I know where he lives. He urged me continuously to come to him, and I went to see him on Sunday 7 February. On Monday 8 February, I went to the regional labor office together with the farmer’s wife and from there the policeman took me along to prison, for what reasons, I do not know. Maybe on the grounds that for 2 years I worked hard and well at the farmer’s; the Lord can see that from heaven how they treated me and such things. The Polish woman is my very best witness, because she has been working together with me and she knows everything, how the farmer beat me in the beginning, and how he did not want to pay me. The testimony given by the farmer’s wife during the proceedings is not absolutely true. She has not told what they had hidden in the corn on the second floor of the barn. Neither did she tell that they slaughtered a pig for New Year’s day. At that time they chased us out of the house, and we were supposed to go to Peihof? [sic] and have a glass of beer together with the Polish woman. I immediately refused to do that, and that is the reason why they urged us and said that they would also go and have a glass of beer and that we should not return home too early at least not before 8 o’clock. They themselves would not return so early either, at any rate not before late in the evening. When we then came back later—the sun had already set—they were already at home. I was just about to enter the room in order to cut a few slices of bread for myself, as I always did. When I came home Sunday night, and at that time cut bread for New Year’s Eve, the farmer was already at home and was doing something in the other room. He called to his wife to bring him some salt. She went upstairs to get the salt. When she came down with the salt she tried to hide it in a way that the Polish woman should not see it. The pig had been delivered only shortly before the New Year. On New Year’s day, in the morning, the pig was still there and on the other day, Friday morning, that pig was not there any longer. At the time mentioned in the evening, we were urged to go to bed and later on, they turned on the light and arranged something in the other room at night. The windows were screened. I do not know why. Because I was angry I left them. The farmer’s wife said that I did not want to get up in the morning, and that I did not want to work. All that was seen by the Polish woman. Now I would be deeply obliged if the death penalty could be commuted into a prison term. I beg you very much to do that, I forward my petition to the lawyer so that he may try to bring it about. If I had enough money, I would pay him, but what can I do, if I have not got any? Perhaps I might beg the defense counsel to do so without pay, and I beg him most humbly to have this petition carried through as soon as possible.
Munich, 22 November 1942
Signed: Jan Lopata
For the correctness of the translation:
Munich, 26 November 1942