Standing in endless rows, they took their
turn at the steaming pots. In the main hall many fugitives were
crouching on the floor, some on mattresses, and piled about them were
little mounds of household effects that they had succeeded in saving
from their wrecked and ruined homes. It was truly a picture of direst
misery, and in the faces of young and old one could read calamity.
Kalisch is probably a heap of ruins, these recent arrivals tell me, and
of the usual population of 65,000 barely 2,000 are left. German soldiers
have abandoned the city, but are quartered three or four miles away, in
the village of Oputook. Kalisch is only a fortified camp, visited daily,
however, by German cavalry, who use it as a reconnoitring base. All
gardens have been destroyed and trees cut up for barricades, and even
crosses from the cemetery have been displaced and used in fortification
work.
Refugees tell dreadful stories of what they saw on their flight through
this unfortunate part of Poland. Everywhere are burned and pillaged
villages, towns destroyed, and gardens that are heaps of ashes and
ruins.
One old man, formerly a country school teacher, saw three peasants
hanging from a tree, with all the signs of having been frightfully
tortured, as their arms and legs were broken in several places. They
evidently had been accused of espionage and summarily executed.
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