"A few days later a poor woman came along the road, asking every one she met if anybody had seen her boys. They were among the nine that had been shot.
"A sous-officer, a Jew named Goldstein, a second lieutenant, came to our hospital. While our French doctor was held downstairs Lieutenant Goldstein took out the medical notes about the cases from the pocket of the doctor's military coat. I protested. I said that it was not permitted by international law.
"'What do you make of the convention of Geneva?' I asked him.
"'Ah, I laugh at it" he answered. "He was a professor of philosophy at Darmstadt."
With all the methodical work of murder and destruction the figure of the officer in command is always in the foreground.
The Curé of Gerbéviller said to me:
"They ordered me to go on my knees before the major. As I did not go down on the ground, an officer, who was there, quickly gave me a blow with the bayonet in the groin.
"'Your parishioners are the traitors, the assassins; they have fired on our soldiers with rifles; they are going to get fire, all of your people,' the major said to me.
"I replied, No, that was not possible, that at Gerbéviller there were only old men, women, and children.