Stands Among The World's Most Stands Among The ... - Index of

the Elbe River."
"A massacre followed. Women and children were thrown from the bridge into the river. Germans
were shot down in the streets. It is estimated that 2,000 or 3,000 people were killed."
F.A Voigt, Berlin correspondent, Manchester Guardian, Nineteenth Century
EXCERPTS RECOUNTED IN 'LAST DAYS OF THE REICH'
"Groups of partisans started to shepherd our people towards the cross-roads and eventually we were
all gathered in a jostling mass. Everybody had to go to the cross-roads, even the children and the sick.
The German soldiers were marched away - eastwards, towards the Soviet Union and Siberia and that
left only us civilians, defenseless and frightened.
From somewhere close at hand there was a burst of firing and this seemed to be the signal for the
Czechs to plunder our unguarded carts. Some of men started to run towards the carts intending to
stop the looting, but the partisans shot them down as they ran. This caused our women to scream and
cry. And that caused one particular partisan, a bald man of about forty years of age, to lose control.
He had a dog lead in his hand and he rushed into the screaming women lashing at them and flogging
them with the steel end of the lead. His action started the real terror as other partisans followed his
example.
What happened then is so terrible that I do not like to even think about it. Men who tried to protect
their womenfolk were shot as they knelt or crouched over the bodies of the women. Then came the
robbing of the women. Those with gold chains around their necks had them stolen. Wedding rings
were taken. In fact, anything of value was torn off."
"We all had to stand in ranks (men separated from the women and children) and we had been standing
there for some time when the partisans walked through our ranks and selected men at random and led
them away behind some carts. There were shots heard and the Czechs came back and laughed at our
fear. Then they picked out fresh victims. There were about twenty in number. This group was
ordered to kneel down in front of the rest of us - about 50 yards in front of us. There was a clicking of
bolts and then one of the partisans swung the barrel of his rifle along the line of kneeling men. He
fired. One of the men fell forward. Another partisan stepped forward and traversed his rifle along the
line on men now shaking with fear. There was another shot but this time nobody fell. The partisan
had deliberately fired wide of his target. A third Czech pointed his rifle and pulled the trigger. There
was no explosion. He roared with laughter. He had not loaded the gun. It was a huge joke. Then a
fourth partisan fired and killed a man from my own village. So it went on. How long we stood there
while they slowly selected their victims in that line and tormented them before murdering them I do
not know. Eventually, all twenty or so were dead.
If we moved while standing in line we were beaten with sticks or gun butts. Sometimes we were
beaten for no reason at all. It was well past midday when a group of partisans rushed into the crowd
of women and there was a lot of screaming. We could all guess what was happening. The Czechs
were dragging out the young women to rape them. The older ones tried to form a circle so as to
protect the girls, but against an enemy who is willing to kill you all the passive resistance in the world
is no use. The girls were taken and then stripped. Then the rapes began. Not just by one man of one
girl but the multiple rape of one girl by a whole group of men. There were also some of the rapists
who had abnormal desires. When the attacks began we rushed forward to show the partisans that we
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