The young man relates the following about the life of the Żychlin Jews:
On the one hand, the economic situation was good. There was a ghetto,
but its supervision was entirely in the hands of the Jewish police. It was easy to
go out of the ghetto and the Jews were able to trade almost without hindrance.
Smuggling was non-existent because there was no need for it. Produce was
plentiful and cheap. In a word, it was bearable. The Jews of Żychlin also helped
refugees and ordinary travellers who came during the summer from various
places in Poland in the so-called Wartheland. There were cases that seem like
oddities, but are nonetheless facts, where German gendarmes brought to the
Judenrat vagrant Jews who had been seized on the roads, and the Judenrat
had to sign that it had received such and such a number of Jews. The Żychlin
Judenrat was, in my informant’s judgement, corrupt and rotten. It engaged in
all kinds of machinations and dealings at the expense of the Jewish population.
For example, the Germans allocated the Jews a daily ration of 250 grams
of bread per person, but the kehillah only distributed 130 grams and appropriated
the rest. The Germans distributed potatoes at the price of 3 marks
a hundredweight,⁹⁸⁹ but they charged 14 marks. If, on the one hand, the Jews
lived not badly economically, on the other hand, they, especially the youth,
suffered savage persecution and torture in the course of the various forms of
forced labour to which they were mercilessly subjected. It happened once that
several 15or 16-year-old boys ran away from the workplace because they were
very cold. Then the whole group, around 100 men, was harried and beaten
to make them reveal the names of those who had run away. When this had
no effect, the whole group, in the clothes they stood up in, was driven into
the water up to their necks and kept in the water for some time. After they
came out, they were again summoned to reveal the names of those who had
absconded. When that did not help either, they were driven into the water
again, further in, until their mouths were covered and they were about to
drown. Only then did they give away the names of those who had run off.
They were warned that if there was another case of people running away, the
whole group would be kept in the water all day long.
The chief Haman in Żychlin was a horrible sadist by the name of Modes.⁹⁹⁰
Some of those who were driven into the water are lying sick to this day, a year later.
989 Approximately 50 kg.
990 Reading uncertain.
