Like Nomeny, the pretty town of Gerbéviller, on the banks of the Mortagne, fell a victim to the fury of the Germans under terrible circumstances. On the 24th August the enemy's troops hurled themselves against some sixty chasseurs à pied, who offered heroic resistance, and who inflicted heavy loss upon them. They took a drastic vengeance upon the civilian population. Indeed, from the moment of their entrance into the town, the Germans gave themselves up to the worst excesses, entering the houses, with savage yells, burning the buildings, killing or arresting the inhabitants, and sparing neither women nor old men. Out of 475 houses, 20 at most are still habitable. More than 100 persons have disappeared, 50 at least have been massacred. Some were led into the fields to be shot, others were murdered in their houses or struck down in passing through the streets as they were trying to escape from the conflagration. Up to now 36 bodies have been identified. They are those of MM. Barthélemy, Blosse (Senior), Robinet, Chrétien, Rémy, Bourguignon, Perrin, Guillaume, Bernasconi, Gauthier, Menu, Simon, Lingenheld (father and son), Benoit, Calais, Adam, Caille, Lhuillier, Regret, Plaid (aged 14), Leroi, Bazzolo, Gentil, Victor Dehan, Charles Dehan, Dehan the Younger, Brennevald, Parisse, Yong, François, Secretary of the Mairie; Mmes. Perrot, Courtois, Gauthier, and Guillaume, and Mlles. Perrin and Miquel.
Fifteen of these poor people were executed at a place called "La Prèle." They were buried by their fellow-citizens on Sept. 12 or 15. Almost all had their hands tied behind their backs; some were blindfolded; the trousers of the majority were unbuttoned and pushed down to their feet. This fact, as well as the appearance of the bodies, made the witnesses think that the victims had been mutilated. We did not think we ought to adopt this view, the bodies being in such an advanced state of decomposition that a mistake on the subject might be made. Besides, it is possible that the murderers unbuttoned the trousers of the prisoners so as to incumber their legs, and thus make it impossible for them to escape.
On Oct. 16, at a place called Le Haut-de-Vormont, buried under fifteen to twenty centimeters of earth, we found the bodies of ten civilians with the marks of bullets upon them. On one of them was found a laissez passer in the name of Edward Seyer, of Badonviller. The other nine victims are unknown. It is believed that they were inhabitants of Badonviller, who had been taken by the Germans into the neighborhood of Gerbéviller to be shot there.
In the streets and houses, during the day of the sacking, the most tragic scenes took place.
In the morning the enemy entered the house of M. and Mme. Lingenheld, seized the son, 36 years of age, who wore the brassard of the Red Cross, tied his hands behind his back, dragged him into the street, and shot him. They then returned to look for the father, an old man of 70. Mme. Lingenheld then took to flight. On her way she saw her son stretched on the ground, and as the unhappy man was still moving some Germans drenched him with petrol, to which they set fire in the presence of the terrified mother. In the meantime M. Lingenheld was led to La Prèle, where he was executed.
At the same time the soldiers knocked at the door of the house occupied by M. Dehan, his wife, and his mother-in-law, the widow Guillaume, aged 78. The latter, who opened the door, was shot point-blank, and fell into the arms of her son-in-law, who ran up behind her. "They have killed me!" she cried. "Carry me into the garden." Her children obeyed and laid her at the end of the garden with a pillow under her head and a blanket over her legs, and then stretched themselves at the foot of the wall to avoid shells. At the end of an hour the widow Guillaume was dead. Her daughter wrapped her in a blanket and placed a handkerchief over her face. Almost immediately the Germans broke into the garden. They carried off Dehan and shot him at La Prèle, and led his wife away on to the Fraimbois road, where she found about forty people, principally women and children, in the enemy's hands, and heard an officer of high rank say: "We must shoot these women and children. We must make an end of them." However, the threat was not carried into effect. Mme. Dehan was set at liberty next day, and was able to return twenty-one days later to Gerbéviller. She is convinced, and all those who saw the body share her opinion, that her mother's body had been violated. In fact, the body was found stretched on its back with the petticoats pushed up, the legs separated, and the stomach ripped open.
When the Germans arrived M. Perrin and his two daughters, Louise and Eugénie, had taken refuge in a stable. The soldiers entered, and one of them, seeing young Louise, fired a shot point-blank at her head. Eugénie succeeded in escaping, but her father was arrested as he fled, placed among the victims who were being taken to La Prèle and shot with them.
M. Yong, who was going out to exercise his horse, was struck down before his own house. The Germans in their fury killed the horse after the master, and set fire to the house. Some others raised the trap-door of a cellar in which several people were hidden and fired several shots at them. Mme. Denis Bernard and the boy, Parmentier, 7 years of age, were wounded.
At 5 in the evening Mme. Rozier heard an imploring voice crying, "Mercy! Mercy!" These cries came from one of two neighboring barns belonging to MM. Poinsard and Barbier. A man who was acting as interpreter to the Germans declared to a certain Mme. Thiébaut that the Germans boasted that they had burned alive in one of these barns, in spite of his entreaties and appeals to their pity, a man who was the father of five children. This declaration carries all the more conviction, since the remains of a burned human body have been found in the barn belonging to Poinsard.
Side by side with this carnage, innumerable acts of violence were committed. The wife of a soldier, Mme. X., was raped by a German soldier in the passage of the house of her parents, while her mother was obliged to flee at the bayonet's point.