In the town of Striegau, where only about half the German inhabitants had managed to flee, the remaining 15,000 were left to face the fury of the Red Army. According to the later account of a Polish forced labourer:
Dreadful news increased the fear. There were reports about murders of old people and of men that made the blood curdle in one’s veins. It was reported that women of all ages were raped, that the breasts of nursing mothers were cut off, that the bellies of pregnant women were cut open and the unborn ripped out of their bodies. There were stories that deep wells were filled with the bodies of living people, that people had their eyes gouged out with bayonets or had their tongues cut out, that Germans were herded in their droves into barns or houses and there were burned alive, that militia [Landsturm] men who were captured were driven into captivity with heavy tanks or lorries, and people spoke of many other things that made one shudder.
Source:
Bessel, Richard. “Fleeing for Their Lives.” Germany 1945: From War to Peace. New York, NY, HarperCollins, 2009. 77-8. Print.
Original Source Listed:
Z. Dulczewski and A. Kwilecki (eds.), Pamietniki osadników Ziem Odzyskanzch (Poznań, 1970), p. 30.
Quoted in Nitschke, Vertreibung und Aussiedlung, p. 73.
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