World War, 1914-1918 -- Atrocities; World War, 1914-1918 -- Hospitals; World War, 1914-1918 -- Personal narratives
She went with the tiny grand-girl, who was three years old, her son,
Lucien, fourteen years old, and another son, sixteen. The Germans came
here too, breaking in the windows, and firing their rifles. The house
was by this time on fire. The face of the little girl was burned.
"My poor boys wished to make their escape, but the fourteen-year-old
was more slow than the other, because the little fellow was a bit
paralyzed, and he already had his hands and body burned. He tried to
come out as far as the pantry. I saw the poor little thing stretched on
the ground, dying.
"'My God,' he said, 'leave me. I am done for. Mamma, see my bowels.'
"I saw his bowels. They were hanging like two pears from the sides of
his stomach. Just then the Germans came, shooting. I said to them:
"'He has had enough.'
"The little one turned over and tried to get the strength to cry out to
them:
"'Gang of dirty----' ("Bande de sal----")
"Every one called to us to come out of the fire. The fire was spreading
all over the house. I did not want to understand what they were saying.
I went upstairs again where the little girl was, to try to save her
(see still the marks which she received). I succeeded, not without
hurt, in carrying away the little girl out of the flames.
"I had to leave my boy in the flames, and, like a mad person, save
myself with the little girl.
"I have two sons-in-law, of whom one is the father of this little girl
here. Look at her face marked with scars."
"Yes. They burned me," said the tiny girl. She held up her hand to the
scars on her face.
"My other little boy escaped from the fire. He was hidden all one day
in a heap of manure. He did not wish to make me sad by telling how his
brother had cried out to die."
Madame Dujon sobbed quietly and could not go on for a moment. The
little girl put her chin on her little umbrella, and her eyes filled
with tears. The Mayor of Lunéville, Monsieur Keller, said to us:
"Madame has not told you--the Germans finished off the poor child.
Seeing that he was nearly dead, they threw him into the fire and closed
the door."
VIII
MIRMAN AND "MES ENFANTS"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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