In the evening of Bloody Sunday the furniture manufacturer Mathes is among those being herded into the barracks. He is accompanied by his two sons, one fifteen years of age, the other only thirteen. In the middle of the riding hall they see a waist-high podium beside which stands a young officer holding a riding whip and making sure that each new arrival jumps onto this podium with a single leap. Anyone who can't do it on the first try and attempts instead to climb up is beaten mercilessly for his efforts. The hall grows more and more crowded with each passing minute; most of the arrivals are fathers with their sons, and the majority of them already have blood running down their faces, some have crushed lips, and most have had their noses broken by blows from truncheons. Finally, four hundred men are crowded together on the podium. Even though the soldiers standing guard over them behave like a horde of devils, the captured men uniformly maintain their firm and calm composure.

This composure is shaken only once, around midnight, when a young man about twenty years of age suddenly steps to the edge of the podium, raises his arm and cries down at the soldiers: "Heil Hitler!" He cannot even finish his cry, for already in the middle of the Führer's name a bullet tears into his body, and with arms outstretched he falls into the sand of the arena below. A gurney is dragged in and the man is rushed out of the arena. "We'll teach him to give your salute..." the soldiers rant, and entire groups of them follow the gurney out.

After a while, the officer calls, "Anyone who has military papers, report down here!" A number of men climb down from the podium. Their papers are simply taken from them, and they are told to pick them up again from the Commissar tomorrow. Some time later about half of them are chosen to unload ammunition from the trains in the yard. How could these men have guessed that they would get off with their lives, as almost the only ones among all those in the barracks? About two hundred men are selected for this work, the other two hundred are marched off. They are led onto Kujawier Street and herded off into the direction of Brzoza. Already outside the barracks gate a wild mob awaits them, armed with all sorts of murderous implements. Some are swinging ancient sabers, others hold daggers, many clutch wooden axes in their tense hands. These civilians lose no time beating down on the captive Germans from all sides. The guard soldiers do not try to stop them, they only see to their own protection so that none of the blows land on them - but when some of the older men cannot keep up for lack of oxygen, the soldiers themselves urge these men on with stabs from their bayonets, so that even after the first hundred meters many of them collapse, and the mob descends upon them like a black swarm of crows.

Just outside the town they are suddenly told to "Stop!", an officer gives a brief speech and closes with the order to give three cheers for holy Poland. "If you do it loudly enough, you can go home right away..."

The prisoners comply raggedly, but their cheers can barely be heard over the raging mob. Then, oddly enough, they really are permitted to go. The entire group turns back to the town. But hardly have they made it back to Kujawier Street No. 50 before suddenly gunfire rips into the group from all sides. "Didn't I know it!" cries the furniture manufacturer Mathes, covers his two sons with his body with the experience of an old front-line soldier and pulls them down onto the pavement.

After the gunfire has ceased, the survivors are again herded together and marched off in the same direction as before. Only some one hundred and fifty people are left now. Those that remained on the pavement, injured, were killed by the surging mob. For two hours the survivors are marched quickly towards Brzoza. At first everyone who cannot stand up to this forced march is shot, but soon the officer gives the order not to shoot any more because of the noise the shooting makes. And so the soldiers now use their rifle butts to beat to death anyone whose age proves to be too much for them. Time and again the prisoners hear the dull blows, which resound through the night despite the sound of the many marching feet and are usually accompanied by another sound, that of something shattering and bursting.

At Milestone 10 the vanguard turns left into the woods, and from here the column is led three kilometers to Piecky, where the remaining survivors are penned into a rickety cattle shed that threatens to collapse at any moment. It's about five o'clock in the morning and growing light enough to see again. Mathes does a head count and is horrified to find that there are only forty-four of them left now, that more than a hundred had lost their lives on that last short stretch of road. After the forced march everyone is beginning to suffer from thirst - the dusty road has parched them all. But they cannot even lie down, since there is not nearly enough room for them; and so they fall asleep still standing crowded together.

Around six o'clock a Corporal enters and asks if anyone present can speak Polish well. Little Heinz Mathes, the younger of the two sons, such a cheerful-natured lad that no-one can help but like him, immediately goes outside with the Corporal. A short interrogation ensues, during which the soldiers doggedly try to find out whether there are not some among their prisoners who had shot at Polish soldiers from ambush. The lad manages to talk them out of this notion, and cleverly hints that his father is a wealthy man who has many valuables with him. "If you take us three home alive," he finally says, "we'll give you all our money at home." They laugh at his boldness and send him back into the shed...

A quarter of an hour later they call him out again and resume their interrogation. When he returns into the shed this time, his face is pale. "I happened to hear that they've sent for gasoline, to burn us up right along with this shed!" he whispers in his father's ear. "We children are to be sent home, but that's all I could achieve..."

Another hour passes - what an hour of torment! Will they really be burned to death? Can no-one save them from this at least - do they really have to beg for a bullet to ease their end? The prisoners wilt visibly at this thought, and after learning of their intended fate many of them no longer have the strength to remain on their feet and to repress the tears.

But suddenly, at six o'clock, they are all called outside and are given a cup of coffee and a piece of rusk at a Polish field kitchen standing outside the shed. Hope rises in them: "We're going to live!" Only the lathe operator Döring says, with tears in his eyes: "But what if it's our last supper..." Young Heinz as well is hopeful again, especially since he just overheard that there was no gasoline to be found anywhere.

But poor Döring was right. The group had barely finished their coffee and returned to the shed before the soldateska suddenly surrounds the old hut and begins to yell, over and over again: "Out with you, three at a time..."

The three standing closest to the door go out. Hardly have they taken a few steps outside before there is a crack of shots. The soldiers roar: "The next three..." And another three go out. What else should they do? And they are all so tired, so inhumanly worn out, so unbearably tormented, in their spirits as well as their bodies, that most of them even long for death and see it as a blessed release...

Another three, and another three. Gradually there is more room to move in the shed, and some of the prisoners quickly drop to the ground to feel one last time the bliss of rest, no matter how brief. Finally, even though it's not his turn yet because he happened to be right at the back with his father when the execution of threesomes began, little Heinz courageously approaches the door once more, and asks the soldiers to at least spare him and his brother, as they had promised him before... Now the reply is a stab from a bayonet that pierces his tender shoulder - and at that, even this brave young boy loses his courage and he throws himself sobbing into his father's arms.

Another three, and another three. Suddenly they hear the Corporal saying cynically: "We're almost out of bullets - the last are too good for these dog-bloods - stab them with the bayonets from now on..."

And another three, and another three. But since they know about their new fate, they no longer go out so calmly - not even a bullet will release them quickly - they can no longer even hope for that! And now there are also no more shots to be heard, instead they hear choking cries through the wooden wall - "My God... Oh heavens... Oh Jesus!" - and then, usually, a few more muffled sounds of blows, and that bursting sound they already know so well...

Now it's Mathes' and his sons' turn. Together they are three, isn't that a great comfort in this terrible hour? Only five more stand behind them, clutching the wall like madmen. They won't be going on their own... Mathes takes his sons by their hands, walks out the door between them - the thought pounds in his head: if only I had gone right at the start, then at least my boys would have been shot, not killed in such a horrible way...

But as they step outside, no bayonets are lifted against them. The two Corporals who repeatedly interrogated Heinz rush towards them and push them a few steps away from the pile of corpses. "Now give us what the little one promised!" one of the Corporals says greedily. And so the three of them awkwardly empty their pockets, give one of their captors this and the other one that valuable piece. But they just can't please the two, each of them glances suspiciously at what the other is being given - and finally they erupt in a sudden quarrel, both reach for the golden watch being handed over, tug at it like a pair of dogs at a bone.

The old soldier Mathes seizes the moment, briefly looks each of his sons in the eyes, and with the very next breath they are running with long strides into the woods. For all their greed, the two Corporals can't even shoot at the three - by the time they have found their rifles, the refugees have already vanished among the trees...

For four days they wander through the woods without even a bite to eat or any water at all. They pick berries in the forest, lick the dew off the grass, and on the third day they catch and eat frogs so as not to collapse from hunger. But their tongues grow thicker and thicker, their lips are swollen, and on top of everything else it's bitterly cold at night and they are in shirt-sleeves. At night they sleep in thickets, making nests for themselves like deer, but in time their feet also split, since their shoes were already lost on the first march. Little Heinz holds out most valiantly here as well, even though his pierced shoulder hurts and a strip of his father's shirt is his only bandage. During the night from Wednesday to Thursday no dew forms, and despite everything they now feel their end is near. Also, they have gradually drifted into the war zone, scattered soldiers roam the woods everywhere and the fear of being captured again drains their strength. When brother Horst collapses for what is evidently the last time, little Heinz pulls a piece of bread from his pocket and holds it out to him mischievously: "I've been saving this until now - see, we're going to live at least another few hours!" he says triumphantly. Isn't he a real hero, this young German boy - secretly saving an iron ration, not touching it for four full days! And despite being only thirteen years old, he was right - this piece of bread brings even Horst back to his feet once more, and with renewed strength they walk on, farther westward...

At two o'clock in the afternoon, after a four-day march, almost without anything at all to eat, and no water except dew, they reach the German troops - the only three survivors of that death march that numbered two hundred people as it left Bromberg but which is known as the Death March of Piecky, for the place where it ended.

Death in Poland
The Fate of the Ethnic Germans