[1] Warsaw, 15 April 1942
At 10 o’clock I set out with a handcart to collect corpses. The handcart had already done one round that day, collecting 3 bodies. We are setting out for another round. We leave from the cemetery. The slip of paper has 6 addresses. Franciszkańska, Smocza, Stawki and Gęsia streets, Franciszkańska Street 21, Gęsia Street again ([a corpse] on the street), and Parysowski Square. In the second courtyard there is a synagogue housing a refugee centre, one of the worst I have seen.323 Below the synagogue is a spacious basement, completely open. We head down. A large basement, faintly lit by daylight falling in through 2 small windows. Several filthy bedrolls by the walls, most of them empty. Two human figures lie on one of them. The shreds of a human existence inform us that this is the deceased. His mother, still alive, lies on the bedroll next to the body of her son. The man, who was in his twenties, has been dead for three days. The gravediggers lift the corpse, light as a feather, and carry it to the cart. The mother does not even flinch. She does not even turn her head. She is totally numb, unresponsive to any stimulus. The gravediggers carry the corpse out to the cart, take a swing and toss the former human being as far back into the cart as possible so that it does not occupy much space. There will of course be no casket. The corpse rests with its head on the bottom of the cart and with its back touching the back wall of the cart in an acrobatic pose. We return to the basement. On a mattress in the corner of the basement are two totally naked
