beyond her age. The following morning she was found dead outside town,
in a field, with a bullet in her head. The sekcja⁷⁴⁹ established that an act of
Rassenschande had taken place, and the heartbroken mother, who had turned
grey from her suffering, was told that the soldiers had been transferred.
The Jewish population, deeply affected by the incident, lived in constant
insecurity, having nearby the students of the newly created SS-Schule,⁷⁵⁰ whose
expenses they themselves had to cover.
The start of the curfew for Jews was set at 5 p.m. It was forbidden to
shop in Pieracki Square (previously a market). On 10 May 1940, a levy of
20,000 RM was imposed on the Jewish population. The method of collecting
the money was left to the Judenrat. Despite [3] that, it did not take place without
the active intervention of the storm troopers, who endeavoured to speed
up the process by mercilessly beating those who were slow to pay up, and the
poor. Members of the Judenrat were also beaten as responsible for this or that
Jewish family’s failure to pay the imposed amount.
In this way, the Jewish population of the town was stripped of everything
they had, and the famine and typhus epidemics, in the absence of any medical
help (Aryan paragraph),⁷⁵¹ enabled death to reap a great harvest.
(b)
[1] Gąbin
Gąbin lies on the left bank of the Vistula and is famous for its forests. Every
summer, thousands of people used to come on holiday. The town is quiet and
unflurried, and lies off the beaten track. It has no rail or water connections,
and no factories. The Jews, who numbered three thousand, earned their living
from trade with the countryside, orchard keeping, the grain trade, handicraft,
and visitors during the summer season. The town had mostly wooden
buildings, the foremost being its historic wooden synagogue, which, according
to the inscription on it, had existed since the year 5407⁷⁵² (for 230 years).
749 (Polish) post-mortem examination.
750 (German) SS school.
751 Legal act or statement in bylaws of an organisation, university etc., excluding Jews (usually called non-Aryans) or limiting their number in certain professions, organisations, military service, etc.
752 It should be 5470, i.e. 1710 C.E. Perhaps somebody who recorded the testimony put the Hebrew letter “zayin” instead of “ayin.”
