My cousin finds me half an hour later. [26] Worried, he has gone to look
for my brother and me. I find out that I can return home because the town has
calmed down. On my way home, I find out what happened in the town after
I had left. The furious Głowno residents rushed to remove the non-Głowno
Jews from their hideouts. They knew their town like the back of their hand,
so they missed no hideout or hole. They dragged out both the living and dead,
both the children and the old, both the sick and the crippled.
There must be 2,000 people in the market square, was their motto.
– We won’t suffer for those damned aliens! – they roared.
The people standing by the wall were on the verge of madness. It is no
pleasure to wait for death for two hours.⁹³³
(9) [. . .] by the machine gun. They kept looking at the watch.
– Noch 20 Minut[en], noch 10 Minut[en], noch 5 Minut[en]!⁹³⁴
The fever peaked. The Community [office] was almost empty as everybody
had gone to (10) “fetch the people.” But in fact they all cut and ran.
The hostages were about to faint.
– 2 Uhr.⁹³⁵ Should I reload? – the gendarme with the machine gun asks.
The iron clangs… Suddenly, a Jewish militia man and a gendarme come running
They report: There are 2,000 people.
The hostages are released and their families grab them immediately
because they are unable to walk on their own.
The market square is full of people. Even though the required number of
people is there, the Głowno residents who had dispersed about the town are
still driving in more. The Głowno residents are looking for [. . .] resettled Jews.
They storm into Polish flats, and even into German homes. The field gendarmerie
put the people in line and they finally move on… The Głowno Jews sigh
with relief! What is going to happen to these people? Where are they going?
The Głowno Jews do not care about it. They have fulfilled their duty.
I reach the town. It is quiet. I can feel the calm in the air. A droshky
with the chairman passes by me. The Community has sent bread, lemons,
and beverages after the expelled. The droshky is moving very fast to catch
933 Here ends Notebook No. 1. The subsequent text follows the post-war copy, with its page numbers in parenthesis.
934 (German) Still 20 minutes left, still 10 minutes, still 5 minutes!
935 (German) Two o’clock.
