compensate for that departure from the rule. For after the Germans’ arrival,
both the Jewish and Polish inhabitants of Konin suffered so much that their
martyrdom would be sufficient for three towns, on average.
One of the first things the Germans did after their entry (22 September)
was to arrest a large number of hostages of both denominations (that is,
Jews and Poles, the expression being analogous to the expression ‘of both
sexes’) and to put them in prison. Two men were selected there: a Jew and
a Pole. They were executed publicly for no reason at all and without any motivation. There was an enormous crowd of onlookers on the former Wolności
Square.⁸⁶⁹ The Jew’s surname was Słodki and he was a 70-year-old esteemed
tradesman and real estate owner.
On 23 September (Yom Kippur) the Germans with machine guns stormed
into the synagogue, where the Jews had gathered to pray. The Germans threw
the Jews out of there in the death shirts⁸⁷⁰ they were wearing and escorted
them to the prison, threatening to execute them. That threat was not carried
out, though (I still do not understand why) [2] and after several days everybody
was released.
In the meantime all the books (including very precious old editions) were
removed from the bet hamidrash and placed together with the synagogue furniture
chopped into pieces. Everything was then set ablaze in grand style.
Moreover, the 72-year-old rabbi Lipszyc⁸⁷¹ had to stand all night long with
bare head by this auto-da-fé. Making matters worse, he was beaten up, too.
Furthermore, the synagogue was transformed into a stable.
All these were, if I can say so, introductory activities. The actual anti-Jewish
campaign began several days later. It was a three-track campaign, in a way,
[as it involved]: 1. forced labour, 2. robberies, and 3. the Gestapo activity.
Every day, all men up to the age of 60 were dragged to perform forced
labour. (Each man had his own Arbeitskarte,⁸⁷² in which he had to have daily
entries.) The Jews had to perform the heaviest labour (e.g. they crushed stones,
869 Aleksander Kurowski and Mordechaj Słodki were the two victims of that public execution.
870 Long, loose, white robe, suggestive of a shroud, a kittel.
871 Rabbi Jakub Lipszyc (Liebschutz) was from the Kovno gubernia. His father was the famous Talmudist Halel. He settled in Konin in 1906. He was educated in Germany and Russia. In 1927 he became the chairman of the Jewish community board. In 1940 he was deported to Józefów near Lublin and murdered there in July 1942.
872 (German) work record.
