a few firefighters) had left to ‘put out’ (an appropriate expression!) the synagogue
on Królewiecka Street, which was burning at the same time. First of
all, the residents began to carry out their things and bedding onto the street.
But it turned out that a valve in the form of a stout gendarme had been placed
in the gate. Even though he let everybody in, he did not let anybody out. Geht
alle in Flammen auf!¹⁰¹⁹ He shouted, threatening to fire his revolver. But there
was one more exit from the building, one that the German did not know
about. [It led] through a restaurant. Only a small number of people escaped
that way. Most lost their heads and orientation.
It turned out though that ‘our’ fire was not as dangerous as it had seemed
at first sight. We managed to put it out fairly quickly.
It was only then that a few Polish firefighters finally came to help us. But
their help only consisted of looting the Jewish flats and stealing [11] smaller
objects from them.
A small SS detachment came to our building, following the firefighters.
First of all, the SS ordered all the men to stand in a row in the centre
of the courtyard and began to pick out the Jews. Those who gave a positive
answer to the question: Bist du Jude?¹⁰²⁰ were kicked and hit hard a few times.
The Jews had to stand by a wall with their hands raised high up. Those who
bent their elbows even a little were beaten. The SS did not leave them (or actually,
us, as I was among the Jews) in peace. Some soldiers came up with an
excellent idea. They began to smash out window panes with our heads. After
less than a quarter of an hour there was not one whole pane in any of the
ground floor windows. The Germans then began to smash heads (not their
own, naturally) against something more solid, that is, a wall, and that gave
much better results.
The selection finally ended. The 23 of us were assembled by the wall.
We had to hold our hands up in the air until they became numb and painful.
A certain Kanał, who had a hernia and could not keep his arms stiffly outstretched,
was severely beaten up. These are the names of the men I knew:
Eljasz Florman, Kanał, Rathaus (the elder one), Sztywelman, Maks Choroński,
[12] the Lichtensztejns (father and son), the Zemelmans (father and son),
Paprotek, Spektor, and Lewczyński.
1019 (German) Everybody, go into the flames!
1020 (German) Are you a Jew?
