31.
Polish woman full of murder lust foams with rage
Murder of the 2 Rapps, father and son
Frau Helene Stein of
Bromberg, 79 Frankenstrasse, was summoned to appear
and stated:
On
The witness further stated:
Before the incident with Frau Reinhold, above described, Goralska told some women she knew that a minority German, Rapp, had shot the Polish baker named Vlatowski (Ulatowski is however still alive) and that the Rapps had then been taken away and she mentioned how she had enjoyed seeing the Rapps knocked down and shot, both the elder and the younger Rapp, and their wives and she had been amused over it all. During her recital of these happenings, Goralska literally foamed at the mouth. The witness added that Goralska had already betrayed many Germans.
Source: Sd. K. Ls. Bromberg 88/39.
32. "I die for my Country!"
The murder of Betitzer
In accordance with
the findings of the investigation, the witness Lassa stated on oath:
On
On the road there was a horde of Polish bandits, among them Max Ejankowski. He drew the attention of the Polish soldiers who were taking Lassa off to a house on the opposite side of the road, where a butcher named Bruno Belitzer, a minority German, aged 65, lived, and he shouted out to them: "There's another Hitlerite over there, you could take him with you at the same time." Max Ejankowski and his father went on to tell the soldiers that Belitzer and Lassa had fired on Polish soldiers. Then they both accompanied two soldiers across to Belitzer's house, fetched him out and took him off with Lassa. At their headquarters, they had to stand against the wall with their hands raised above their heads. Several dead minority Germans were already lying on the ground, shot. After Belitzer and Lassa had been standing about 5 minutes against the wall, a Polish soldier ordered Belitzer to repeat a Polish sentence after him. As Belitzer had no command of Polish he knew at once that he was going to be murdered, so he said to Lassa: "Goodbye Josef, my etid has come. I die for my country!" The soldier then shouted to him: "What is that you are saying, you pig?" Belitzer called once more to Lassa: "Goodbye! Heil Hitler!" Thereupon the soldier shot Belitzer, first in the arm, then in the head and then smashed his head in with the butt of his rifle. Lassa was released the same day through the intervention of two former school chums who at the moment happened to be in the Polish army.
Source: Sd. K. Ls. Bromberg 21/39
33. German mother with six young
children begs in vain for shelter
The following
experience, reported by Frau Amei Lassahn,
wife of a clergyman (Bromberg Schwedenhohe), relating
to her wanderings in quest of shelter for herself and her six
children,
is indicative of the deep hatred felt for the Germans, inspired and fostered by
Polish agitators (1).
. . . Suddenly the
thought came to me: "Quickly, to the House of the Catholic Sisters of
Mercy!" They have been having things from our garden for years. We rang
the bell. The door was opened. The nun in charge of the children, whom we knew
well, stood before us, an open prayer book in her hand. "Sister, do take
pity on us and take us in."
A torrent of abuse
broke from her. "Go back to the place you came from. We have no room here for
cursed Germans. Be off with you."
(1) Extract from the
detailed report in manuscript of the writer's experience concerning the
occurrences in and around the rectory and church of Bromberg-Schwedenhohe.
[p. 70]
Then I flung all my
pride away and entreated her once again in all meekness. "Sister, I
implore you, have pity on me. I don't ask for myself, I won't come in myself,
but save my children from the mad crowd."
To soften her heart,
I pushed my little boy forward. "Be off with you! There's no room here for
you cursed Germans." The door was slammed. We had not moved 4 paces from
the door when the mob tore the old sexton from my side. When I tried to hold
him, I received such a blow in the back that I stumbled forward. . .
34.
Father shot--Daughter outraged--Both robbed
The murder of Gannott.
Staff Field Court of the Air Force, Commander 3rd
District. Bromberg,
Present:
Dr. Waltzog, Military Judge
Advocate of the Air Force acting as judge.
In the case of the
inquiry into the International Law case Bromberg I, the witness, Frl. Vera Gannott of Bromberg,
125 Thorner Strasse,
appeared, and after being cautioned to tell the truth and reminded of the significance
of the oath made the following statement:
Re person: I am 19
years old, protestant, of no occupation.
Re matter: When it
was known in the town that German troops were marching in, the populace and the
Polish soldiers began committing acts of violence against us, too. On Sunday at
about
The Polish soldiers
robbed my father and me of our money, handbag, watches and rings. Our house was
completely wrecked. The furniture was smashed with axes. All the crockery as
well as the linen was stolen.
We had no weapons in
our house. We had already delivered them over to the police in accordance with
the general order.
Read, approved and
signed
Vera Gannott The witness took the oath.
Concluded:
(signed)
Dr. Waltzog (signed) Hanschke
Apart from Willi Gannott, six other persons in
the same house were murdered, namely: The son of Frau Emma Gannott,
the minority German Karl Kohn, his wife and their 3 children, aged from 16 to
24. Willi Gannott and Karl
Kohn were murdered on the "Blood Sunday" and the other five Germans
on Monday, Sept. 4th.
Source: WR I (1)
35.
Violation of German Schoolgirls
The witness, Hedwig Daase, teacher's wife of Slonsk,
makes the following statement on oath:
On
The inspection commission were greatly disappointed to find that my husband
had already been interned. I had the impression that the soldiers were looking
especially for German men.
(1) The record is reproduced in the original (see photostatic copy on page 272-273).
Towards the evening
of the same day two auxiliary policeman came in a waggon, drove up before our house and took away bread, hay
and honey. At about
Source: WR II
The witness Melitta Daase, schoolgirl, of Slonsk, deposed on oath as follows:
On Friday night,
three civilians with red and white armlets came into our home. One had a sabre, the second a rifle and the third a Browning. My
mother had to stay in the kitchen, with an armed civilian beside her. My
sister, two years younger than myself, and I were led into separate rooms each
one by another civilian. I was forced to sit on the sofa,
the civilian sat down beside me and began to make a physical examination. Then
he grasped under my skirt, tore my knickers and demanded that I should be
intimate with him. I defended myself frantically, even when, with the Browning
to my breast, he threatened me with death. Only after bringing over to his
assistance the second civilian, who in the meantime had raped my younger
sister, was he able to force me to sexual intercourse with him. The doctor,
whom I visited the next day, confirmed that sexual intercourse had taken place.
The same result was shown by the examination of my younger sister. They beat me
and tried to strangle me; I have not, however, sustained any considerable open
wounds.
Source: WR II
36. Her Daughters as Targets
The Witness Else
Siebert, nee Dey, of Rojewo,
in the Hohensalza district, deposed on oath as
follow.
On
I wish to add that Herr Trittel, when he resisted being taken to the spot where he
was later shot down, was struck by civilians in the most brutal manner with
whips and sticks.
Source W R II
37. Mass Murder in Jägerhof
The
murder of Pastor Kutzer -- Eighteen fettered Men shot
down one after another
Extract from records of the Reich Police
Headquarters - Special commission in Bromberg - Ref. No. Tgb.
V (RKPA) 1486/16.39.
With what cold-blooded deliberation the
murders of the Bromberg "Blood Sunday" were carried out has been
revealed with particular clarity by the investigations into the case of Kutzer, the Protestant pastor of Bromberg-Jägerhof, and into the other mast murders committed in that
part of the town. In Jägerhof alone, during the
course of
The mass murders of Jägerhof
were started with the murder of the 45-year-old Protestant pastor Kutzer, a married man and the father of four children, of
the ages of three to fourteen years. This German, imbued as he was with the
German tradition, was particularly hated by the Poles because he conducted a
parish consisting almost entirely of minority Germans in an exemplary manner,
urging them unceasingly to courage and tenacity in those difficult days before
the outbreak of war, so that, for instance, by the time the morning of
"Blood Sunday" arrived, fewer minority Germans had fled from
Bromberg-Jägerhof than from any other part of the
city. Pastor Kutzer went so far as to give the
shelter of his home, which until then had been used as a billet by Polish
officers of a regiment stationed in Jägerhof, to
German refugees from other parishes.
In the course of
These Germans, taken
at 3 p. m. from the Rectory. without any
justifiable reason, were, as is shown by the evidence of Polish and German
witnesses, led to an embankment in the neighbourhood
of the church grounds and there, with twelve other German men-and one German
woman, Frau Köbke-who had been likewise dragged from
their homes, they were stood, fettered, in a row. Then 12 Polish soldiers
standing at a distance of about 8 yards, shot them
down, one after another. After the first man had fallen, Frau Köbke, who was standing in the middle of the group of
unhappy victims and whose husband had been murdered earlier that day on their
property, Fell senseless to the ground. Heedless of
this, the remainder of the eighteen fettered men were shot down, and following
this, they released the hands of the witness Köbke
and forced her, after she had recovered her senses and before they allowed her
to go, to look once more at the murdered men, one by one. This
"entertainment" was watched by about 200 Polish soldiers and men and
women of the civilian population.
The corpse of Pastor Richard Kutzer was found, together with the bodies of the three
other murdered minority Germans, near the canal bridge in Jägerhof,
on
[p. 75]
38. Twenty Minority Germans shot at Jägerhof
The Murder of Köbke, Schröder and others
Present: Bromberg,
State Attorney Bengsch as examiner,
Court
official Kraus as court clerk.
In the inquiry into
the case of Gniewkowski, accused of murder, the
witness, Anna Kobke, widow, n6e Wietychowski,
of Jägerhof, 1 Okopowa,
born on
When my husband, my
daughter and son and myself heard on Sunday, Sept. 3, of this year, that all
Germans were to be killed, we went for refuge into the cellar of a friendly neighbour, Schroder, and locked
ourselves in there. At about
After about a quarter of an hour;
I went to the Polish family, Gorny (a shoe-maker),
that lived near by. I hoped perhaps to find protection with them. Gorny and his wife and some others who were there spat upon
me and insulted me, until soldiers appeared and led me away into a wood, where
I found about 20 other minority Germans. I was then fettered, and they began to
drive us to and fro, striking us with the butts of their rifles and kicking us.
They told us that we were to be shot in Schleusenau.
On the way to Schleusenau we were followed by a great
crowd of Polish civilians, women, men and even children, who were continually
cursing us, demanding our death and striking at us with axes and sticks. Among
this crowd were Gniewkowski, the butcher, whom I know
personally, and a certain Paschke, of Schleusenau. I quite definitely heard their voices among
the crowd, shouting that we should be shot down. Whether either Gniewkowski or Paschke were
carrying axes or sticks I do not know. We minority Germans-there were about 20
men, amongst whom I was the only woman were then halted at an embankment in Schleusenau and every one of the German-born men was shot
by the soldiers and railwaymen in the presence of the
Polish crowd. Gniewkowski and Paschke
were among this crowd. I became unconscious and fell to the ground, and, at the
command of an officer, I was set free. As I was about to leave; the Polish
crowd forced me to return to look at the bodies and to shout "hurrah for
Among the 20 persons shot were:
Artur
Gehrke, Hans Bolowski,
Horst Stuwe, a certain Goertz,
a man named Arndt, another named Stöckmann, another
called Redel, a Grammar School pupil, Mielwitz, and Trojahn, a house
owner, all of Jägerhof.
Of the people left behind in the cellar
the following were, as I afterwards learned, shot whilst attempting to escape:
My husband, Emil Köbke,
butcher; my son Arthur Kobke, butcher's journeyman; Schroder, owner of a market garden, and Hans Schrodei his son; Gerhard Vorkert,
market gardener's assistant; and a servant, girl employed by Schroder junior.
Read, approved and
signed
Anna Köbke.
The second witness, Fräulein
Elli Köbke, of Jägerhof, 1 Okopowa, born on
After my mother had fled from our neighbour Schroder's cellar on
a
certain Grabowski, who lived opposite us; a certain Klimczak,
others named Rynkowski, Szymanski, Lewandowski, Domzewski (about 16 years old), Mme. Wolnik,
Mme. Borek, all from our street.
I quite definitely saw and heard the
above-named persons shouting with the rest of the crowd that we were Germans
and must be killed. When I collapsed, and in this way escaped death, the crowd
screamed (and with it the above-named persons) that I also should be shot. A
Polish soldier, however, declared that the women should be spared. For several
hours I remained, exhausted, together with Frau Schroder,
lying near the bodies, whilst the crowd dispersed.
I also wish to state that Mme. Wolnik and Mme. Borek, Szymanski
and Rynkowski stole things from our home during the
events of
At Rynkowski's I found our wardrobe.
At
Szymanski's, our wash-basket with some linen.
Read, approved and
signed.
Concluded:
(signed)
Bengsch
(signed)
Kraus
Certified:
Kraus. court official.
Source: Sd. Is. Bromberg 95/39
39. Thirty-nine shot at Jesuitersee
Badly Wounded thrown
into the
Extract from the records of the Reich
Police Headquarters-Special Commission in Bromberg-Ref. No. Tgb.
V (RKPA) 1486/9.39.
I.
On the day after the
Bromberg "Blood Sunday," that is on
From the statements
of these witnesses, it appears that on the morning of
(1) The fact that a
regular army unit was concerned here is borne out by both the statements of
German and Polish witnesses, including Gruhl and Reinhard, and the discoveries made on the actual spot of
the crime; particularly those discoveries made in buildings used as shelters
and stables which stood in the neighbourhood of this
spot.
II.
Whilst the foregoing report is based
upon statements made by the witnesses Gruhl and Reinhard, which from the strictly legal standpoint it is
not possible to verify completely, the following details are based almost
exclusively upon objective and remarkably well-preserved evidence found on the
spot of the crime:
The 41 Germans--39 bodies from the
group in question were recovered--were lined up in a row, some still in their
fetters, with their faces to the lake and about 13 to 15 yards from its shore.
The soldiers then began to shoot wildly at the minority Germans with their
rifles and, as is revealed by the post-mortem results and by the bullets found
lodged in the victims' bodies, with highly effective automatic pistols. The
marksmen stood, as is shown by the spent cartridges and other objects which
have been found, in a half-circle behind their victims, standing at a distance
of sometimes less than five yards and sometimes more than 20 yards away from
them. After this shooting orgy had begun, a German aeroplane
appeared high above the lake, with the result that all the murderous marksmen
ran for cover. Six still unwounded, or only slightly
wounded Germans took advantage of this opportunity to flee towards, or along
the sides of the lake. The witness Reinhard, who had
freed himself from the loosened fetters, was able to escape by swimming and
wading, into a dense strip of reeds at the water's edge, whilst the witness Gruhl succeeded in hiding himself under a bathing but built
upon posts from 9" to 18" high. Two of the Germans attempted, with
the aid of a boat which had lain at the lake's edge, to reach the other shore:
a third of the witnesses attempted to swim across. This incident can have
lasted only a few moments, and in the meantime the German aeroplane
had passed, so that the Polish soldiers could continue their shooting orgy and
they succeeded in hitting the three fugitives last mentioned, who were not yet
far from the shore. Another wounded man obviously dragged himself to an old
boat lying in a shed near by and there succumbed to his wounds. And then--this
is the most monstrous part of the behaviour of the
Polish soldiers at the Jesuitersee--those of the
Germans who were not yet dead but in a badly wounded condition were dragged
along a landing stage built 60 yards out into the lake and thrown from there
into the water, and, as is again clearly proved by the post-mortem results,
fired upon from the landing stage. This fact is proved not only by the
statements of the two witnesses who escaped with their lives, in particular
that of Gruhl who was able to watch the incident from
his hiding-place, but also by the extensive traces of blood on the planks of
the landing stage and by objects dropped there and in the water and washed on
to the lakeshore. The findings of the medico-legal examination complete the picture.
It would take too long to enumerate here the wounds of the 39 victims (1) as
ascertained by the medico-legal experts, and to draw the conclusions therefrom. To show the nature of the "humane"
death which the Polish soldiery accorded to their victims, it will doubtless be
sufficient to say that one German, apart from a bullet wound, in itself
comparatively harmless, had received 33 bayonet-thrusts in the region of the
neck, of which only one was a fatal stab. Another victim was deliberately shot
(1) 38 unknown dead, of whom 28 could be
later identified, have been exhumed and subjected to post-mortem examinations.
in the anus, whereby
it must be remembered that, as is shown by the wound on the abdomen where the
bullet left the body, the German, although not in a lying position, must have
been in such a position that his face was to the ground. A number of victims
received up to 15 ricochet and grazing bullet-wounds, of which not one shot was
absolutely fatal. In the case of the last-named victims--and this will be
proved even more conclusively after completion of the examination of the parts
of the lungs taken from the bodies--death by drowning is to be assumed. Under
these circumstances, it hardly appears worth while to mention further that
almost all the victims show extensive wounds caused by blows, stabs or cuts--two
of the Germans showed clear traces of having been stabbed in the eyes.
Despite the brevity
of the above description, representing the copious results of the investigations
made by the police and medico-legal authorities, it is sufficient evidence of
the indisputable fact that, at Bromberg, a regular Polish Army unit murdered 39
German-born men, in a manner hard to describe and of almost unbelievable
brutality, not only by shooting but also with the aid of the bayonet and the
rifle butt, and throwing badly wounded men into the lake.
40.
A Murder in almost every Home!
The witness Dora K u
t z e r , of 14 Kroner Strasse, Bromberg, deposed on oath as follows:
In our Protestant
parish there is, so far as I know, hardly a single house which has not to mourn
the murder of one, two or even three minority Germans. Up to the present moment
59 dead are lying in our Protestant churchyard, and we are still far from having
found all the dead.
Source: WR I
41. "Put a Bullet In his Head!"
The
Murder of Gustav Fritz.
The witness, Walli Hammermeister, a
servant-girl in the employ of Erich Jahnke, Langenau near Bromberg, deposed on oath as follows:
. . . When the soldiers
discovered that Herr Fritz could not speak Polish, one of them told him that he
himself, although a young man, could speak both German and Polish, whereas
Fritz, despite the fact that the Polish State had been in existence for 20
years, could not yet speak Polish. Herr Fritz replied that he was 75 years old
and could not learn Polish at this age. To this, another Polish soldier said:
"Put a bullet in his head!" The first soldier then shot Herr Fritz in
the right side of his head. I saw this with my own eyes and I fled into the
hay-loft.
Source: WR I
[p. 80]
42. The Massacres of Eichdorf
38
Victims of Polish "Civilization" - Minority Germans aged from
Extract from the records
of the Reich Police -- Special Commission in Bromberg -- Ref. No. Tgb. V (RKPA) 1486/3.39.
I.
From the late
evening of
Eichdorf,
in the neighbourhood of the smaller parish of Netzheim, is a settlement established by German peasants
centuries ago, which contained until 1918 not a single resident of Polish race.
As a result of the fact that, up to the time of the Polish war, the population
was 80 per cent German, there was, even on the "Bromberg Blood
Sunday," comparatively speaking, a peaceful atmosphere in the parish, parti-
cularly
as no Polish military unit occupied the immediately surrounding area until that
date Baiting and threatening on the part of the Polish inhabitants of the
village, who were so much in a minority, were not taken seriously and it was
the first reports coming from Bromberg 10 miles away, about the massacre there,
which caused uneasiness among the Germans. This uneasiness, however, did not
bring with it any relaxation of discipline, and particularly the women and
children remained calm. Only the Eichdorf men fled on
the night of
Late in the evening of
II
Unimpeachable discoveries made at the
various places of murder, show quite clearly the positions in which the
murderers and their victims were standing when the crimes were committed,
whilst spent cartridges found lying about corresponded in some cases with shots
lodged in the bodies of the dead men, and a handkerchief stamped by the Polish
military authorities revealed the battalion involved. Also parts of letters and
cards, the senders of which were Polish soldiers.--All these facts help to
substantiate the following:.
On the road which branches off at Hopfengarten Station from the Bromberg-Hohensalza
road and leads to Gnesen, over Labischin,
lie a few houses of Hopfengarten and those of Netzheim and Eichdorf, all more
or less together on a strip of land just 2 miles long, so that there is hardly
any noticeable interstice between each of the three parishes. Among these
houses were 21 houses of German families, who, with 38 murder victims on one
single day, have been almost completely wiped out.
In this particular case, Polish "civilisation" was demonstrated, by 38 victims in eight
different spots, of which six are of the smallest possible area and none more
than 100 yards from the road and the houses of the bereaved families. Here, the
victims--as is proved beyond all question, even where there is insufficient evidence
of another nature, by the post-mortem examinations made on all the 38
bodies--were killed in the most incredibly bestial manner. Two of these places
lie at a little distance from the others and in one of these died Max Teske, aged 34, and Wilhelm Stolte,
aged 55, both of Eichdorf, together with the 13 year
old boy, Gerhard Pijan, whom the two men had found
wandering helplessly about in the woods. All three had attempted to find a
hiding-place in the meadows 2 miles north of Eichdorf,
but were
caught
by Polish soldiers and shot. In the other place, three children, Else, Gertrud
and Ernst Janot, of the ages of 12, 15 and 18
respectively, (whose 50 year old father was also found shot in yet another
spot) were murdered.
On the advice of the Polish village-elder,
the Janot children, together with their mother,
attempted to escape in the early morning of
Shocking even for experienced police
officials, hardened against sentimentality by constant investigation into daily
capital crimes, was the examination of two particular spots--two of five such
places all lying close to one another--where 80 year old Ottilie
Renz and her two grandchildren, Gisela and Günther, aged four and nine, were murdered. And equally
shocking to examine, another place where the Poles massacred 15 minority
Germans, among them 8 women, a seven year old child and a 3 year old child.
The house of the Leo Benz family lay
some distance from the road, and for this reason Erich Renz,
the brother, whose farm was near the road, sent his two small children and his
aged mother to Leo, whilst he himself; together with his wife, remained on his
own property. But on the morning of
Thrown into a
cattle-trough together with the body of a dog
Of a quite different nature were the
discoveries made at a place in the woods near Targowisko,
about 300 yards from the high-road at Eichdorf.
Soldiers, directed by officers, had led 46 Germans, aged from six months to 80
years, and of both sexes, to a small slope in the wood, forced 15 of them to
run up the slope and shot these 15 down after they reached the top. The names
of the 15 shot in this manner were:
Emma Hanke, 40 years Gustav
Schubert, 65 years
Walter Busse, 7 years Richard
Binder, 50 years
Erhard Prochnau, 3 years Emanuel
Hemmerling, 35 years
Johanna Schwarz, 45
years Erna Hemmerling, 30 years
Max Jeschke, 55 years Frieda
Ristau, 31 years
Hedwig Jeschke, 47 years Frau
Blum, 28 years
Else Dahms, 19 years Frau
Golz, 50 years
Kurt Kempf, 22 years
Of the 46, 23, i.e. 50%,
were women, only 5, that is 10.8%, men, and 18, i.e. 39.2%,
children, amongst them one infant.
The distance from the place where the
group of Germans stood herded together, to the top of the slope was a little
less than 20 yards, and to the place where the victims fell, between 30 and 36
yards. If one may mention special cases in a deed so uniformly horrible, then
one must mention the lame children's nurse Johanna Schwarz, who had to run up
the slope together with her little charge Erhard Prochnau
and Frau Hanke, who ran with her step-son Walter Busse--all four died together on the other side of the
slope. The most important witness here--though even without her the evidence of
31 other witnesses is overwhelming--is Frau Prochnau,
who, after her three-year old son had been led over the hill and murdered, had
also to go through the same ordeal, carrying her six-months-old infant in her
arms, and leading her little four-year-old daughter by the hand. According to
her statement-which is borne out completely by subsequent investigation-she
reached the top with the two children and saw there, grouped about the place
where the murders were carried out, hundreds of soldiers lying about, a field
kitchen with which soldiers were cooking, and a civilian
playing modern dance music on an accordion. This man, whom other witnesses also
heard playing, it was later possible to arrest. Frau Prochnau
added further details which made it possible to reconstruct, quite without any
doubt, the whole sequence of events.
[p. 85]
Examination of the other places in this
group yielded discoveries which, although in each case different in themselves, are yet not sufficiently different from those
described in the foregoing paragraph to merit a full description. It would mean
merely considerable repetition to go fully into murder-cases of Martha Tetzlaff, 45 years old, Heidelies
Tetzlaff, 11 years old, Else Behnke,
35 years old, Gustav Behnke, 82 years old (all
members of one family) or into any of the other cases.
Even in the form of extracts from
extensive records, the descriptions given make it impossible to doubt for a
moment that the Polish soldiers not only committed the murders on the commands
and before the eyes of their officers, but also gave expression to their
loathing for everything German, in every conceivable way. Apart from the fact,
ascertained by medico-legal experts at the post-mortem examinations of the
victims, that shots were fired from military rifles and highly effective firearms,
from all ranges and from all sides and angles, and at children carried in their
mothers' arms, and that the Germans were stabbed and slashed with the
bayonet--apart from all this, the treatment of the bodies merits special
mention. The brother and sister Janot were simply
left lying in the place where they had been murdered, so that animals had
already begun to feed on the bodies before the relatives, after the departure
of the troops, were able to bury them. The bodies of the Tetzlaff
family lay in a disorderly heap, covered with a layer of earth about 8 inches
deep, whilst parts of the bodies of the murdered Renz
children actually protruded from the earth and, in this way, were discovered by
the searching mother. Typical is the case of the murders in the Targowisko wood, where the 15 murdered men, women and
children were thrown, together with the body of a dog, into a cattle-trough.
IV
The foregoing report indicates clearly
in how great a measure this systematic murdering by the Polish military wiped
out the German population of the country, as for instance that of Eichdorf.
Of the 130 Germans of Eichdorf, up to
(1) 8 victims were natives of the
little parishes of Netzheim and Hopfengarten,
which also have to mourn others murdered at other spots.
say that 50% of the German families were bereaved,
some in so terrible a manner that, as in the case of the Jeschke
family, there was not one survival, whilst of the Janot
family, after the murder of the husband and the three children, only the wife
was left alive. Of the Renz family, Frau Renz was also the sole survivor after losing husband, her
two children, father and mother-in-law. To be emphasized is the fact that of the whole 38 families of Eichdorf
79% were purely German.
With reference to
sex and age, the, thirty dead of Eichdorf can be
classified as follows:
There were 15 men
murdered, that is 50% of the total of the dead, of which 46.6% were over 50
years old, 20% over 60 years and 2 only 17 and 18 years old. Of the others,
there were 8 women, i.e. 26.6% of the dead, aged 15 to 80 years, and 7 children
from
43.
Legs and hands broken, tongue, nose and ears cut off
Massacre in Schrimm
The witness Oskar Hartmann, brick-works manager, of Schrimm, deposed on oath as follows:
. . . Nine of these comrades were attacked, in Schrimm, by the populace and so maltreated in the open street that they died. My comrade Willi Mantei had the entire base of his skull smashed, Herbert Raabe had his eyes gouged out and his fingers cut off. Others also lost fingers, in some cases legs and hands were broken or dislocated. Still others had their faces completely mutilated by blows, their tongues, noses and ears cut off.
Source: W R II
44.
The arteries severed
Discovery of
hideously mutilated corpses in Schrimm
The witness Oskar Hartmann, brick-works manager, of Schrimm, deposed on oath as follows:
. . . In one grave
there was a person who could not be identified. Further, in the Protestant
graveyard of Schrimm, the bodies of the following
persons were found: Conrad Lange, Wilhelm Schulz, Heinrich Haussler, Wilhelm
John, Erich Gaumer, Richard Weibt,
Wilhelm Jeschke. All the
bodies were more or less mutilated. The heads were knocked in, tongues, noses
and ears cut away. Hermann Raabe had had his eyes
gouged out. There were arteries severed and the shin-bone of one body was
completely smashed.
Source: W R
II
45.
Father, husband and uncle murdered
The witness Gertrud
Lemke, of Hohensalza, deposed on oath as follows:
My name is Gertrud
Lemke, nee Kadolowski, born on
Re matter: On
I heard no more
about the fate of my father, husband, and uncle until
A short time later,
my father-in-law came back and confirmed my fears. Between two straw-ricks lay my husband, my father, my uncle, three men of the
Fuchs family and an assistant of Herr Fuchs. The eighth victim was unknown . .
. .
Source: W R II