The New York Times Current History, A Monthly Magazine: The European War, March 1915Various
History
The New York Times Current History, A Monthly Magazine: The European War, March 1915
Various
World War, 1914-1918
While the Mayor and the soldiers who accompanied him were pursuing
their investigation the fire broke out on different sides; the Hotel
de Ville was burned as well as the synagogue, and a number of houses
in the Rue Castara, and the Faubourg d'Einville was in flames. The
massacres, which were continued until the next day, began at the same
time. Without counting M. Crombez, the officiating minister, Weill,
and his daughter, whose deaths we have already mentioned, the victims
were MM. Hamman, Binder, Balastre, (father and son,) Vernier, Dujon,
M. Kahn and his mother, M. Steiner and his wife, M. Wingerstmann and
his grandson, and, finally, MM. Sibille, Monteils, and Colin.
The murders were committed in the following circumstances:--
On Aug. 25, after having fired two shots into the Worms Tannery to
create the belief that they were being attacked from there, the
Germans entered a workshop in this factory, in which the workman,
Goeury, was working, in company with M. Balastre, father and son.
Goeury was dragged into the street, robbed there and brutally
ill-treated, while his two companions, who were found trying to hide
themselves in a lavatory, were killed by rifle shots.
On the same day soldiers came to summon M. Steiner, who had hidden in
his cellar. His wife, fearing some misfortune, tried to keep him back.
As she held him in her arms she received a bullet in the neck. A few
moments after, Steiner, having obeyed the order which had been given
to him, fell mortally wounded in his garden. M. Kahn was also murdered
in his garden. His mother, aged 98, whose body was burned in the fire,
had first been killed in her bed by a bayonet thrust, according to the
account of an individual who acted as interpreter to the enemy. M.
Binder, who was coming out to escape the flames, was also struck down.
The German by whom he was killed realized that he had shot him without
any motive, at the moment when the unfortunate man was standing
quietly before a door. M. Vernier suffered the same fate as Binder.
Toward 3 o'clock the Germans broke into a house in which were Mme.
Dujon, her daughter aged 3, her two sons, and M. Gaumier, by breaking
the windows and firing shots. The little girl was nearly killed; her
face was burned by a shot. At this moment, Mme. Dujon, seeing her
youngest son, Lucien, 14 years old, stretched on the ground, asked him
to get up and escape with her. She then saw that his intestines were
protruding from a wound, and that he was holding them in. The house
was on fire; the poor boy was burned, as well as M. Gaumier, who had
not been able to escape.
M. Wingerstmann and his grandson, aged 12, who had gone to pull
potatoes a little way from Luneville, at the place called Les Mossus,
in the District of Chanteheux, were unfortunate enough to meet
Germans. The latter placed them both against a wall and shot them.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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