reading: “The Jews wanted the war so they need to pay dearly for it.” And
that was how he was photographed.¹¹⁰⁰ They then cut off half his beard and
surrounded him with four people with brooms.
Other esteemed people took his place then.
That lasted for several days.
In the end, a cunning Jew started laughing with the four other people
when he was seated there. Los shoyn zan di gilo,¹¹⁰¹ he said, and other similar
things, and the four men supported him. When that German saw that they
did not care about it, he stopped then.
In the meantime, the factory was taken over by the Commissioner. He
ordered all the tanners to declare how much hide they had in their possession.
He also promised to pay the prewar price, which the Jews were happy about (as
it was written in a newspaper that Jews were forbidden to trade leather). But
after several days the Commissioner visited all the tanneries, loaded all the
leather onto carts, and took it to the factory. Including the leather which
the Jews had managed to hide. Sheepskin coats for German soldiers were made
from that sheepskin, but the Jews were not reimbursed. One can imagine how
much hide there must have been, as the work commenced in November 1939
and finished as late as September 1940.
Finally, one morning German gendarmes came from all directions and
removed people from their flats, giving them five minutes’notice. We walked
along a road, across the border to the town of Głowno.¹¹⁰²
Only the factory workers and a few of the most essential craftsmen
remained. It was 29 December 1939.
1100 In addition to the inscription on the board held by the rabbi, painted on the cart was another inscription in German: “Die Juden sind unser Unglück” [Jews are our misfortune]. This photograph is often used in Holocaust historiography. Probably Yakov Itzhak Dan Landau, son of Elimelech Landau, the rabbi of Zgierz.
1101 (Yiddish) Let it be the salvation.
1102 At that time approx. 1,600 Jews from Stryków were deported to Głowno.
