15 men in all. [2] The officer ordered the 15 men to kneel by the graves. Not
everyone grasped the situation: some thought it was all being done only to
scare them, and they would get off with a fright. Others reacted very differently,
weeping bitterly and saying viduy. One of the kneeling men, Moyshe
Szałdajewski, gave vent to such terrible screams that the whole wood was filled
with his weeping. He asked the officer what he had done to deserve this, pleading
that he had a wife and young children. The officer said he had no choice in the
matter: tho se were his orders. Then he went up to each of them from behind and
shot them. All the kneeling men fell straight into the graves. Only one survived.
He had appealed to one of the Volksdeutsche present, who had interceded on his
behalf and saved him.¹⁷⁵ Then the six men were ordered to fill in the graves, and
they all went back, including the survivor. When they returned, the remaining
80 or so Jews were lined up, and the officer asked the survivor what impression
it had made on him. The man was afraid to say anything. The Volksdeutsche
who had saved him said that the Jew understood no German and asked him in
Polish, Jakie wrażenie odniosłeś — dobre?¹⁷⁶ The Jew understood that he had to
reply dobre.¹⁷⁷ And so he was saved once again. The officer who had carried out
the execution declared to all the Jews that he would not wish to live through
such a thing again, but he had been obliged to carry out the order. He added
straightaway that anyone who said a word about what had happened would share
the same fate, but he said it in such a tone of voice that everyone understood
that they should indeed tell about it. The whole group was then released,
after each had paid a levy of 150 to 300 zlotys, as much as one was able. Thus
ended an incident that weighed on Jewish life in Łódź like a heavy nightmare.
ARG I 900 (Ring. I/962)
Description: original, handwritten, pencil, Yiddish, 148×210 mm, minor damage
and fragments missing, 1 sheet, 2 pages. In the margins, the Hebrew letter
ל“ ” (red pencil). The document was kept in a binder. Attached is a note by Hersh
Wasser in Yiddish: “The November 1939 murder (Astoria Café). Description by
Mordkhe Schwartzbard.” See also Docs. 2, 17, 26.
175 It was probably Henryk Auerbach. After the war he described his experiences after being arrested in Astoria, many of which match the information contained in this testimony. Cf. H. Auerbach, “15-stu z ‘Astorii’. Przyczynek do dziejów martyrologii Żydów łódzkich,” Nasze Słowo 11 (1946): 6.
176 (Polish) What impression did it make on you? A good one?
177 (Polish) good.
