crossed the bridge, the Jews were still [2] working. The officers egged the soldiers
on to even more brutal treatment. Talking among themselves without
minding me, they referred to the Jews by the vilest swear words, boasting
about the number of them they had shot with their own hands.
The very next morning, my home was searched for weapons. After the
search, they took me, my 80-year-old father, and my father-in-law, who was
in his seventies, to work in the street. After dealing out blows all round, they
led me and a couple of others to the Jewish cemetery. We felt certain that
they were going to shoot us, especially as they assured us by way of encouragement that we would soon be in heaven. Two Poles, sentenced to death, were sitting in the cemetery. We dug a grave for them and buried them as soon as
they were shot. What I had been through that day and the day before had such
a terrible effect on me that I suddenly broke down. Sobbing, I pleaded with
the officer to let me go as I had a heart condition. In response, he ordered me
to do the ‘up-and-down’ exercise and report to him myself that I was feeling
better. While I was doing the exercise, my companions dug a grave for me.
Then he led me to the grave and even pulled out his revolver, but apparently
changed his mind and let me be. We were all spattered with blood. An order
followed that in five minutes we were to be clean with no traces of blood.
In the end, we all rolled our trousers up to the knees and turned our jackets
inside out. Singing various songs, we went back to town and were dismissed.
An hour after my return home, another civilian came with two Germans,
cleared out my entire wardrobe, and announced that my home would be
searched for money in the evening. My father died that day (of angina pectoris).
Until the day I fled from Koło (at the beginning of November), the town
was inundated with anti-Jewish decrees concerning labour duty, levies, working
hours, Jewish badges, etc. Day after day, Jews were seized for various kinds
of labour, their treatment depending on the soldiers involved. In October I was
arrested as a hostage together with a Polish notary. We were both confined
in the same cell. On the very first night we were beaten, and the notary was
literally flogged (his political views, which he had imprudently expressed
to me, had been overheard). He died a couple of days later. I was released
after two weeks.
All the Jews sat in hiding places behind locked doors. The mood was low.
There was no leader to comfort us in our great misfortune. There was no productive activity. Everything stopped, both craft and trade.
