immediately and the infuriated Gestapo functionaries rushed in, beating
everybody without exception — even women — so brutally that the next
day huge blood stains were found [7] in almost all the beds. In addition, one of
the Gestapo functionaries slipped on one of the floors, fell, and started shouting
that “the Jews had beaten him up and thrown him down the stairs.” That
was not the end though: a few Jews fled through the roof and, not realising
that it was the Gestapo, they reported to the German Criminal Police that they
had fallen victim to an assault. The situation became even worse when the
police arrived to arrest the intruders, for having clarified the misunderstanding,
the policemen also started to beat the Jews, furious that they had been
misled and bothered at night. As for the Gestapo functionaries… they flew
into a terrible rage: after several hours of torture they gathered all 30 men
who lived in that building and took them with them. Do you think that this
was the end of it? No, another qui pro quo¹⁶⁹⁹ was needed as a supplement: the
following day, still not realising that they had been involuntarily been dealing
with Gestapo functionaries, the beaten women, with blood-stained bandages
and rags, went to the chairman of the Judenrat to inform him about the
events of that night. The chairman immediately turned to Borg with a request
to intervene and prevent such attacks from happening in the future; he also
advised the women to go and complain to the Gestapo. And go they did. They
went to the Gestapo to complain about… the Gestapo, to hell to complain
about Beelzebub. Naturally the result was that the Germans returned to that
unfortunate building, led out all the women and also many people who did
not live there and only came to inquire about “the shouting they heard last
night.” They also arrested a few people who happened to be walking along that
street. The whole group, some 150 people, was escorted to prison. They stayed
there until the resettlement when that matter was settled: [8] the men were
shot and the women were deported to a concentration camp. The Judenrat took
care of the children who had not been taken to prison; due to Borg’s efforts,
the Germans gave them some bedclothes and rags; the remaining things were
sequestered and taken away with the furniture.
After two weeks, something new happened. Out of the blue, the Germans
demanded that the Community give them a list of former Zionist activists.
It was, indeed, a strange demand. The Community members debated
1699 (Latin) misunderstanding.
