In Poland
A circumstance quite as trivial as the disobedience of the Orchies peasant woman was the occasion for the monstrous acts of cruelty and extortion of which the Germans were guilty at Kalich, in Poland. In that place, because some one threw a stone at a patrol, Lieutenant-colonel Prenster, in command of the garrison, caused all the residents in one house to be shot, and then, thinking that that was not enough, he had all the people who lived in Rue Vroclavska brought out of their houses and riddled with grapeshot. About a hundred were killed. Another inhabitant of Kalich, Sokolof, the treasurer, was shot “for having burnt, the evening before the Germans entered, the banknotes in the departmental bank.” Another, named Dernbourg, was hanged on the mere charge of having “carried a lantern in his hand.” This fact proved him to have been a spy! The truth is that the unfortunate man had used the lantern only for the purpose of carrying out certain necessary repairs to his mill. Four workmen engaged in the mill were also put to death, after some forms of trial. Four hundred houses were destroyed in this town, representing a loss of sixty million roubles. The leader of the Germans in this performance was an individual of German extraction, Michel by name, the former head of a brothel at Kalich, whom the German Commandant appointed mayor of the town.