with light and heavy machine guns, light guns, or at least semi-automatic rifles, all aimed at us, at the houses, are driven through the entire city. They open fire for any reason, causing panic amongst themselves. Every rustle or trifle triggers a hurricane of salvos. Every now and then they fire a light gun only to incite fear. That fire destroyed towers of Orthodox churches, shattered thousands of window panes, and wounded or killed hundreds of totally innocent, random people. But a war is a war. The thing is that the Soviet troops caused panic among themselves. They shot at one another, because every louder sound, bombardment, or anti-aircraft gunfire spread panic among those who were to stop the panic created by the Ukrainians. The Ukrainians disappeared, hid underground. Many fled, very many died in the prison cells having been sentenced by courts-martial, and many others hid with Poles, Jews, Soviet Ukrainians, or in Saint George’s Cathedral, nervously awaiting the Germans and spreading rumours that the Germans had already seized the suburbs.
[18] 28 June. Where are the Germans? This is the only question everybody keeps asking themselves, but for different reasons. Total confusion. We have not been out since yesterday. At night we were visited twice by komandirs who suspected that our flat (occupied exclusively by Jews) was sending out light signals. But it was only an old, confused lady who went twice into the kitchen with a kerosene lamp and then back to her room. We got away with it. On the street one can only see terrified individuals quickly sneaking by the tenement walls, because the Bolsheviks have begun shooting at pedestrians. The uprising in the city has been suppressed. The revolution has subsided, but terror is still rampant. We no longer know what the shots mean. Is it the Germans or the Bolsheviks? Are the Ukrainians firing or being fired at? We know nothing. The troops are marching back and forth, perhaps on purpose. Could it be the same troops leaving through one gate and returning through another? We do not know. The English radio station makes us aware of the situation. Kovel, Brześć, Grodno, Białystok, Chernovitz,625 Stanisławów,626
