the first floor onto the street. While I had been unconscious the soldiers must
have kicked me from one to another, not letting me fall down. When I stood
up, I saw that that narrow street (Piekarska Street) was literally swarming
with people, pardon, Jews. Many of them were wearing talesim. Apparently,
they had been dragged straight from minyanim and prayer houses. But they
did not let me look around for long. The surrounding soldiers arranged us
into threes, counted us (there were 58 threes, I remember it clearly) and then
the whole procession started walking along the dark streets, surrounded by
SA-men armed to the teeth.
Initially, they were escorting us peacefully and even urging us to remain
quiet, but as soon as we passed the town centre they gave an order:
‘Hands up!’ And then:
‘Double!’
When the column gained some momentum the SA-men who were running
at the head suddenly turned round and pointed their bayonets at the
first rows, which naturally caused them to stop and even instinctively back
up. The men behind them then bumped into the retreating ones. Either they
could not see what was happening in the dark or they could not stop because
they had their hands up. In consequence, there was a commotion and huddle
in the centre of the column. Of course, many collapsed, particularly those in
talesim. And those who collapsed never got up, trampled down by their fellow
Jews’ feet or finished off with the bayonets of the surrounding SA-men. For
when the SA-men saw that the commotion in the centre of the column had
reached a certain culminating point they gave an order: ‘Double!’ and we
had to run, even if it meant trampling on our companions’ bodies. We ran
several steps and the head of the column was halted again, and the whole procedure repeated da capo al fine.⁷⁰⁶
This was how we reached (I say ‘reached’ even though I was actually
half-conscious and I owe my survival entirely to my two companions walking
on either side, [3] holding me by the arms that whole time and literally
dragging me) the Długosz middle school building.⁷⁰⁷ Our column was rearranged
there and we had to form ‘threes’ again (That time there were only
706 (Italian) from beginning to end.
707 Reference to the middle school in Włocławek established in 1916. In 1927 the school moved into a new building at Łęgska Street 26.
