a Polish lieutenant. “Gentlemen, you will witness the punishment of a local
secretary who is a German spy.” We cared little about that spectacle, but we
alighted, willy-nilly. One of the soldiers shows us a body lying in a ditch.
“One has already been punished,” he says with satisfaction. We did not wait
long. A taxi with a few policemen and the accused in a scout uniform arrived
half an hour later. The interrogation of the culprit was simple and uncomplicated.
As he did not want to confess to any of the accusations, he was severely
beaten, and when that did not work either, one of the soldiers put a revolver
to his temple and fired.
I returned to Kutno around 11 September. The town was bombed the
next day (there was no longer any anti-aircraft defence) more cruelly and
mercilessly than ever before. [3] That day the number of Jewish victims alone
was approximately 18. Whole districts burst into flames, which could be seen
from the distance of even a few dozen kilometres. Not only hospitals, but
also synagogues, bet hamidrash, and even many private houses were simply
strewn with the wounded, both military men and civilians, who were lying
about and dying without assistance, food or drugs. But it was the last day of
Kutno being bombed from the air. The entire town sighed with relief, thanking
God for salvation. But it was too soon! Nobody, particularly God, should
be thanked too early, as the cannons sounded non-stop near the town from
11 to 16 September. Try to imagine our situation at that time. The town was
overcrowded with refugees from Pomerania (approximately 4,000 people),
which contributed to the worsening of the already existing food shortage.
It was impossible to try to obtain any because leaving the cellars, where everybody
was hiding, was tantamount to risking [death ?] everybody was praying
even for the Germans to march in already — as long as it meant the end of
the Gehenna. We had gone mad! We did not know what we were wishing for!
The future was about to show it to us explicitly.
On 16 September in the morning, the German army advance units
marched into Kutno. It should be said that on the first day, but only then,
the Germans behaved perfectly appropriately. All men, both Jews and
Poles, were assembled on the market square, where a German officer gave
a speech to us: “Do not fear! You will not be hurt. Just stay calm, abide by
our ordinances, and, above all, surrender your weapons.” Those were his
major guidelines. In the executive ordinance to that announcement, that
officer ordered his men to take away from us everything that could be called
