Such a center of resistance in an army accommodation office had to be attacked as early as the second
day of the action by an engineer's unit equipped with flame throwers and by artillery. The Jews were so
firmly established in this shop that it proved to be impossible to induce them to leave it voluntarily; I therefore
resolved to destroy this shop the next day by fire.
The managers of these enterprises, which were generally also supervised by an officer of the armed forces,
could in most cases make no specified statements on their stocks and the whereabouts of these stocks.
The statements which they made on the number of Jews employed by them were in every case incorrect.
Over and over again we discovered that these labyrinths of edifices belonging to the armament concerns
as residential blocks, contained rich Jews who had succeeded in finding accommodations for themselves
and their families under the name of "armament workers" and were leading marvellous lives there.
Despite all our orders to the managers to make the Jews leave those enterprises, we found out in several
cases that managers simply concealed the Jews by shutting them in, because they expected that the action
would be finished within a few days and that they then would be able to continue working with the remaining
Jews. According to the statements of arrested Jews, women also seem to have played a prominent part.
The Jews are said to have endeavored to keep up good relations with officers and men of the armed forces.
Carousing is said to have been frequent, during the course of which business deals are said to have been
concluded between Jews and Germans.
The number of Jews forcibly taken out of the buildings and arrested was relatively small during the first few
days. It transpired that the Jews had taken to hiding in the sewers and in specially erected dug-outs.
Whereas we had assumed during the first days that there were only scattered dug-outs, ...