I have seen many other things. I have seen a man, Barthélemy of Chanteheux. I have seen that man spread out spitted on the ground by a bayonet.
Here is what they have done. It was half-past six in the evening. I heard their fifes. Our little chasseurs had retreated. The Germans had made fire and blood all the day long. I saw them and watched them well in this street. I was at the door. Yes, there were six of us at this door. They put fire to the houses, house by house, shouting as they burned them. Picture to yourself a human wave, where the bank has been broken down. They poured into the street precipitately, with their "lightning conductors," which shone brilliant in the sun (the point of their helmets). They sat down, seven and eight in front of a house. They kept going by in great numbers, but these who were ordered remained behind in front of each house. There these sat before the houses, while those others went past without a word. They put their knapsacks on the ground. They took out something that looked like macaroni. They hurled it into the house. There wasn't a pane of glass left in our windows, because of the pom-pom of cannon on the Fraimbois road. I saw them ordered to go on with their work of firing the houses, when they coolly stopped for a tiny minute to talk. Then, afresh, I saw them look in their knapsacks, and next I heard a detonation. But it was not a detonation like that of the report of a rifle or revolver. This was like the crackle of powder priming, of crackers, if you prefer. They were incendiary pastilles which they had thrown into the fire to hasten the destruction. At the end of a few minutes the fire picked up with greater intensity, and directly the roofs broke in one after the other with a crash. Many of our people did not see the burning, because they stayed in the cellars, lying hidden there, frightened, under the rubbish.
In one of the burning houses a woman was living in her room on the first floor. Two Germans came to our house and said:
"My sister, come quick and look for a woman who is in the fire."
The woman was Madame Zinius. It is our sisters who went there at their risk and peril.
The Germans had their destruction organized. In all the well-to-do houses they began by plundering. They did not burn these as they passed.
A few minutes later we saw five or six vehicles draw up, the "Guimbardes," vans, for plundering and carrying away the linen and the clothing. Women came with these vans, young women, well dressed, rich enough. They were not "bad."
[When the Germans captured a town, their organization of loot was sometimes carried out by women, who brought up motor lorries, which the soldiers filled with the plunder from the larger houses, and which the women then drove away. Sometimes these women were dressed as Red Cross nurses. I can continue the proof by other witnesses elsewhere than in Gerbéviller. The organization of murder, arson and pillage is participated in by German men and women.]
Monsieur Martin had at his place many sewing-machines, with the trade-mark Victoria. The Germans carried them away.
I have told you that they threw persons into the fire. Monsieur Pottier was forced back into the fire. His wife moaned and called for help.