A second group of Germans arrives at that moment, but these are handcuffed together in groups of two. The machine gunners pause, and a long debate begins with the new arrivals. The German women stare numbly at the quarreling group - will their escorts get their way or will the newcomers? But in the end the new ones prevail, the machine gun is loaded back onto the truck, the new prisoners are merged into the first group, and all of them are marched off again, eastwards. Only the women and children must remain behind. They follow the procession with their eyes as long as they can but soon all that's left for them to watch is a tall dust cloud that hovers ominously over their men like a moving column.

The long line marches silently. No one is allowed to speak to another, else the guards quickly descend on them with their cudgels. Their guards are members of the military police, already infamous for their brutality. They cannot go more than ten steps without kicking someone or hitting them in the kidney area. Most of the prisoners' wrists are bloody from all this sudden yanking - since the sharp-edged handcuffs join them together without any room between, when one man is hit the other almost always suffers the blows as well. And so blood runs from almost everyone's hands, and also from many faces grown puffy and swollen from the many blows.

As they pass Jesuit Lake, which at one point comes within a hundred meters of the road, they encounter a military formation camping there. A new discussion ensues; it seems the military police do not want to go further but would rather remain in their home jurisdiction, and so they hand the prisoners over to the new military group and drive their truck back to the city. Hardly have they moved out of sight before an officer again orders the prisoners to line up in a long row, facing the lake.

There are now forty-one men in all. They stand in the white sand some ten meters from the shore. In front of them the water splashes in gentle waves, the warm wind whispers faintly through the nearby rushes, the sun glints off the wide watery expanse with summery brightness, and the sky is an unbroken holiday blue. Most of the men have come to this lake countless times to go swimming; wasn't it the most popular destination for an outing for all the townspeople? How many of their best holidays did they spend here, playing merry beach games with their wives and children from dawn to dusk! And now they are to die here, here of all places, where they spent so many happy hours? They see before them the long boat dock, reaching some sixty meters into the water, from which they launched countless times, in groups of four in one of the light paddle boats, or even in a larger group in a sleek sailboat. They know that behind them there stand the many little pavilions where the vacationers could buy coffee, or lemonade for the children, and where bands would play in the evening to accompany carefree dancing. And now they are to die here, in their favorite place...?

They are not allowed to look around, and so the minutes turn to hours for them. They also cannot see what's going on behind them, but they certainly can hear the clanking sound of repeating rifles. It's over, they all think - farewell, you beautiful lake and blue water... Never again will I swim here, never again cross your mirror surface with light paddle strokes or glide across you with white sails... And yet not a single cry rings out, not one plea for mercy is to be heard, no matter how long the line of the doomed and no matter how many young people it includes. One of them sees his wife's reflection in the water one last time, another recalls his children playing in the sand before him, and another young fellow, strangely enough, suddenly sees again in his mind's eye a painting which he has loved for many years like no other: the execution of eleven of Schill's officers! In that painting they too stood handcuffed in groups of two, just like he and his fellow prisoners stand here today - and so he resolves to die like those officers; does he not die for Germany, just as they did? For that great Germany that he loves so ardently, for which he has worked his entire youth - now he will not see that beloved country again, now he can do only one more thing for his ancestral land, he can die an honorable death...

He has just arrived at that thought, just to die an honorable death, he keeps saying to himself, honorably like they did, like my beloved Schill officers - when a dreadful sound of firing breaks out behind his back, descends upon them from a dozen roaring guns and a hail of lead pours out at them from a dozen pistols. Half the victims collapse at once, but off to the right the boy still stands, alone, his comrade lies dead at his side, only his arm still reaches up to him, tied forever to his wrist by the handcuff. And then that young man tears open his shirt with his left hand, pounds himself on the chest with his fist, and in the pose of the famous Lieutenant von Wedell, cries until he too is mowed down by gunfire: "Heil Hitler... Heil Hitler... Heil Hitler..."

Unknown man, approx. 40 years old, one of the group murdered on Jesuit Lake. Explosive nature of bullet exit wound in face proves the weapon used was a rifle. The murdered man was one of a sub-group of Jesuit Lake victims, 12 men who were tied together with livestock ropes. Sekt.-Nr. - Br. 21 (OKW./H.S.In.) Enlarge

At his last cry the gunfire unexpectedly ceases. Did someone come along after all to bid the shooters stop? Did a savior turn up after all, at the last moment? Some of the dying now turn their heads, and in baffled amazement they see the soldiers flee. Most of them run in long leaps behind the pavilions, but many of them just leap in panic into the rushes. And in the sudden silence the dying men see the reason - high above them a German plane roars across the sky. The soldiers around them took cover out of fear of the German bombs.

"Can you see us up there," the prisoners' voiceless inner cry rises into the sky, "can you see what is happening to your brothers down here? Oh, drop your bombs, even if you hit us with them - give us the final triumph of letting them end in your fire..."

But a few of the victims have suddenly regained perfect clarity. In mad desperation they yank at the handcuffs that chain them inexorably to the heavy bodies of their fallen comrades. If they cannot use this moment to get away... But all in all only six men succeed in using these few seconds to flee. One of them even manages with the strength of despair to pull the handcuff off his dead comrade's wrist. The other five were unfettered, and luckily only slightly injured. The one who freed himself of the handcuff, an older man named Reinhardt, instantly runs down to the water and swims unseen to a reed isle that hides him, and another man named Gruhl reaches one of the pavilions, among whose pile supports he vanishes. Fate catches up with the remaining four nonetheless. One of them is already so badly wounded that he dies soon afterwards in one of the boats that he just managed to reach undetected; the others are shot down like rabbits in their flight along the lake...

Willi Heller, 19 years old, one of the group murdered on Jesuit Lake. 33 stab wounds from daggers or bayonets; the arrow indicates the fatal blow which damaged the spinal cord in the neck. Sekt.-Nr. - Br. 23 (OKW./H.S.In.) Enlarge

The German plane, however, continues on its roaring course across the sky. The pilot didn't see the massacre from his great height; and how could he guess that such things were going on! And so the Poles soon emerge again from their hiding places and descend like berserkers on the last of their victims - has the fear they just went through robbed them of their senses, has the escape of some few of their victims enraged them to the boiling point? Now some of them beat the last few dying Germans with their rifle butts, while others stab their bayonets into the falling bodies until some of them are covered in up to thirty stab wounds. Then they drag all thirty-eight people up to the dock, drag them by their arms or legs the sixty meters across the planks to the outer edge, and throw them from there into the deep lake.

But since barely half of them are dead, while most are "only" severely injured and still try to save themselves by swimming away, a renewed spate of gunfire ensues in their direction from the bridge. Some clutch the posts of the dock - blows from rifle butts smash their fingers, bayonets are stabbed into their arms - while others use the last of their strength to swim to boats nearby, where they cling to the sides with bullet-riddled hands. Their pale faces, which barely even still seem human for all the mad horror they have seen, serve as target practice until these unfortunates also let go of their last anchor and are jerked into the water by the impact. For a long time, bloody heads still surface among the waves here and there in their battle against the water, and pleading looks are directed towards the bridge, but the soldiers' fire does not cease until even the last of them sinks helplessly into the depths...

Death in Poland
The Fate of the Ethnic Germans