Germans’ plan, because they sent out approximately a dozen soldiers who
within half an hour managed to assemble a few hundred people at the execution
site. An SS officer then stepped out, a list in hand. He started reading
out the surnames of the arrested plus the number of blows each person was
supposed to receive (from 40 to 70). Each man called out had to take off his
trousers, bare the lower part of his body, and lie on his stomach on the said
chest. Two soldiers then approached him and delivered the ‘due’ number of
blows to the poor individual. The soldiers beat the men with special clubs [3]
made ad hoc from grips of wagoners’⁶⁹² whips by cutting off the thinner ends.
Moreover, they hit them with the end that is normally the grip. Some of the
‘hostages’ claimed later that the clubs had been dipped in water.
Having received his quota, the Jew Jagoda asked the officer a Tolstoyan⁶⁹³
question: “Why? What have I done to you that you are beating me?”
The German did not answer. He only looked at the chest and when he saw that
another victim was lying on it, he began to beat Jagoda on the head with
a rubber club. And when the spot was vacant again, he ordered 60 more
blows to Jagoda. Another person was then laid on the chest. And then it was
Jagoda’s turn again. And then another person, and then Jagoda again. In the
end, everybody was released and the miserable ‘inquirer’ was carried back
to prison. Despite the Jews’ intervention, several days later Jagoda was shot
with two Poles caught red-handed during a robbery (so he died like Christ).
Events then took the ‘usual’ turn: requisitions of Jewish shops, property
and real estate, searches for weapons and in late October [. . .].⁶⁹⁴
ARG I 934 (Ring. I/871)
Description: original [?], handwritten (FLIG*), ink, Polish, 203×296 mm, 2 sheets,
3 pages.
692 A wagoner is the driver of a horse-drawn cart.
693 Adjective derived from the Russian writer Leo Tolstoy.
694 The document breaks off here.
