carried out with a truncheon – the death truncheon.⁶⁰¹ Some of the 500 Jews
seized were sent to a labour camp for some type of work. 12 Jews were murdered
at the time in Otwock itself for crossing the boundary of the ghetto without
a permit or for evading work. The first category of “offenders” were killed by
the [. . .]; the others, by the head of the labour office [. . .].⁶⁰²
Tłuszcz⁶⁰³ – On Tuesday, in the night of 25 to 26 May, at 4 o’clock in
the morning, the shtetl was surrounded by gendarmes, and they began to
drive all the Jews, young and old, into the marketplace. When the entire
Jewish population – 600 people – was assembled in the marketplace, the gendarmes
ordered all the Jews to hand over all their money, jewellery and various
valuables; each Jew was allowed to keep only one zloty. If any Jew was
found with money on him, he would be shot on the spot. Gold, silver, diamonds,
wads of banknotes began pouring onto the square. Everybody tried to
get rid of their money as quickly as possible to save themselves from death.
The murderers immediately carried out a body search of the Jews, and one
Jew was killed on the spot because he was allegedly found with . . . 2 zlotys!
After that, the Germans shot old people over age 60 and children under
10 years of age, as well as all the sick and some of the women. The rest of the
women were loaded onto carts and sent away from the shtetl in the direction
of Radzymin. An hour after the carts left the shtetl, the Germans began,
savagely and with colossal brutality, [2] to drive the remaining Jews along
the highway to Radzymin in order to catch up with the carts that had set
off. It is about 20 km from Tłuszcz to Radzymin. On both sides of the road
stood Poles with red armbands, ready to dig graves right away for Jews who,
because of their weakness, were to be shot by the German murderers. And that
is exactly what happened: due to weakness, illness, or other causes, a large
number of the forced marchers lagged behind and were shot on the spot.
The Poles immediately buried them by the roadside. Only a fraction of the
601 It seems that by the “death camp” in Treblinka the author meant the construction site of the Treblinka II death camp, which began to be built in May 1942. That site was notorious for numerous instances of Jewish labourers having been tortured to death by the German guards. See Jacek Andrzej Młynarczyk, “Treblinka – obóz śmierci ‘akcji Reinhard” in Akcja Reinhardt, p. 219.
602 See Sylwia Szymańska, Ludność żydowska w Otwocku podczas drugiej wojny światowej (Warsaw, 2002).
603 Tłuszcz (Warsaw County).
