they succeed) to leave and reach the General Government, where they expectto find respite and a freer and a more peaceful life. (31 October 1941)
ARG I 749 (Ring. I/934)
Description: duplicate (3 copies), handwritten, pencil, Polish, 148x210 mm, minor damage and losses of text (second copy), 24 sheets, 24 pages. In the margins (first and third copies) a symbol (ink): “+”. Attached is a note by Hersh Wasser in Polish: “Grodno. Wilno. Białystok 1939– 1941. Handful of news gathered by Khil Górny (anonymous female informant)”. Edition based on a duplicate, 8 sheets, 8 pages.
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1941/1942, Warsaw, ghetto. Anonymous testimony concerning the first months of the German occupation and anti-Jewish persecutions in Grodno
[1] Grodno. The outbreak of war
The hands of the clock of history have met. The twelfth hour has struck! The first German aircraft appeared over Grodno, on the night of 22 June, with the first bombs falling on the city, first pillars of fire and smoke rising up to the clouds. Wave after wave, the sinister machines returned, and a hail of steel rained incessantly on paved streets, rooftops, and people’s heads.
In the course of the terrible bombing, half of the residential buildings succumbed to flames. Residential buildings – not hangars, garages, or barracks! The army did not suffer in the raids, as not a single Red Army soldier was left in Grodno over the past two days. They fled, abandoning the residents to their fate. The day before the war started, they had only taken away those who, [2] from their point of view, were disloyal.175 Shortly after leaving
