EXCERPT FROM THE LONG NIGHT
Upon returning from an SS training camp in Sosnowitz, where Ernst and others had been arrested and taken to as guinea pigs for punishing exercises and beatings:
“We found terrible changes in our hometown. Suddenly we encountered such unaccustomed restrictions and limitations that the humiliations we had so recently endured paled into insignificance.
Jewish families who lived near public offices and officials had been forcibly resettled in other streets and parts of the town. These measures grew in scale until their true purpose could not be concealed from even the most well-meaning person. It emerged that the plan was for us to live in a ghetto in which we would soon be confined. As Jewish people continuously streamed in from outlying areas, pressure on living space constantly increased, not to mention the financial and social crisis. Educated and clerical workers in particular were forced out of their jobs and had no opportunity to build up a new existence or to establish a new livelihood.”
Jews gather straw in Zawiercie {United States Holocaust Memorial Museum]
