savagely the cultured soldiers beat the girls for wanting to give us a little
water, we were convinced that it was a reality, from which unfortunately we
were unable to benefit.
After that, it was announced again that all those who were older than 50
years of age and younger than 16 years of age were to stand aside, and a rather
large group of people separated itself. As soon as the group stood aside, a larger
group of military men approached them and started brutally beating them
with sticks, planks, cudgels and whips. Several Jews suffered haemorrhages
from the blows, but no one was freed.
The journey to Rawa [Mazowiecka] began. The group was escorted by
gendarmes [6] who were riding on horseback. It was the second day of Rosh
Hashanah; the day was very rainy as if it was weeping for our tragic fate.
The weeping of the day, however, was hardly a blessing for us. We received an
order to go into the ditches by the road: the Christians on the road and the Jews
in the ditches, which were full of water. We also received an order to run as
fast as the military guards rode. The Jews, drained and exhausted, could under
no circumstances run so fast. All the Jews who fell behind in running were
stabbed to death on the spot. In the group in which we ran, 14 Jews died in this
way. They remained lying dead on the road, without receiving a Jewish burial.
We were chased as far as Biała and there we were led into a park. Shortly
after arriving, Jews were separated from Christians. The Jews were arranged
in rows of 4, one right next to the other. They gave an order that no one must
move from the spot and [we] must sit down on the ground. It was impossible
not to move from the spot while sitting down. Therefore, we simply stayed
suspended in the air in a sitting position. Many military men and a group of
Volksdeutsche approached the Jews; some of them were scratched all over; the
Volksdeutsche pointed at the Jews [7] that it was they who had scratched and
beaten the Volksdeutsche and that the Jews had stolen their property. First of
all, they took from all the Jews all that was theirs, searched them and took all
the money that they had on them, leaving them with only 20 zlotys each. Then
other soldiers came, they took the 20 zlotys too, leaving only 10 groszes each.
Then they had the Jews take off their clothes and shoes, leaving them literally
in their underwear. Only then did the real execution begin. The military
men and the Volksdeutsche pounced on the Jews like true animals, beating
them brutally with spades, cudgels, whips, and rifles. For the entire journey
until this point, the Jews had not been beaten as much as now.
