a day. So they began carrying off the Lublin Jews in stages, “in an unknown
direction”, to their deaths.⁵⁴⁶
The next day, the Jews themselves began rushing to two streets, Grodzka
and Kowalska, which together hold about 50 small houses. With a great deal
of string-pulling it was possible to get into a room already [3] containing
70–80 people. The Jews who were still in hiding could not get out by themselves
and must have died of hunger and lack of air. And even if a Jew got out
onto the deserted streets, he was immediately shot by the Germans.
On Wednesday 18 March, i.e. on the third day, the Aktion (this is
how the massacre of the Jews was labelled) was taken over by the Jewish
police (the Jewish Ordnungsdienst, the Jewish Arbeitsamtsdienst,⁵⁴⁷ and the
SK – Sanitätskommando⁵⁴⁸ – a total of 300 men). The Jewish police treated
the Jews very badly.
On Saturday 21 March, the news that Jews in possession of work books
were also being deported began to be confirmed. The panic was indescribable.
People sought various expedients to avoid being deported from Lublin.
Jews attempted to save themselves in two ways: either by hiding in carts carrying
corpses out of town or by getting accepted as residents in the old people’s
home or as patients in the hospital.
On the morning of Monday 23 March, an order came from the German
authorities to expel all the orphans, a total of 105, from the orphanage in the
kehilla building and assemble them down in the courtyard. The order was
carried out with the utmost severity. The sound of screaming, wailing and
convulsions rose to high heaven. The orphans knew what such an expulsion
meant! Half an hour later, they were driven back to their rooms, but they
did not escape their bitter fate. The next day, Tuesday 24 March, the orphans
were again forced onto German lorries, taken out of town, and were shot and
buried in a common grave.
That same day, the Germans liquidated the old people’s home [4] – 70 residents
were shot in the courtyard – as well as the provisional hospital (after
546 For more on the number of victims of that Aktion, see Doc. 47.
547 (Ger.) Labour Department Service.
548 (Ger.) Sanitary Squad; or Sanitary Commission. According to another testimony it was a subsidiary body of the German Disinfection and Delousing agency headed by Bolesław Tenenbaum. See ARG II 351 (Ring. II/305).
