ldest ninety-two), one
priest and one Red Cross ambulance driver. Even the little boys and men
under seventy had gone to the front to dig ditches and carry water to
the French.

It took the Germans only two and one-half hours to loot all the houses
and load upon their trucks the rugs, carpets, chairs, pictures, bedding,
with every knife and fork and plate. At half-past eleven General Clauss
was in the Mayor's house, when the German colonel came in and reported
that everything in the houses had been stripped and that they were ready
to begin the firing of the buildings.

The aged wife of the secretary to the Mayor told me this incident:

"We find no weapons in the houses, and we find only these fifteen old
men, one Red Cross boy, and this priest," said the colonel.

"Line up the old men then and shoot them," shouted General Clauss. "Take
the priest as a prisoner to do work in the trenches."

The old men were lined up on the grass. General Clauss himself gave the
signal to fire. Two German soldiers fired bullets into each one of the
old men.

One of the heart-broken onlookers was the village priest. The Germans
carried him away as prisoner and made him work as a common labourer;
through rain and sun, through heat and snow, he toiled on, digging
ditches, carrying burdens, working eighteen hours a day, eating spoiled
food that the German soldiers would not touch, until finally
tuberculosis developed and he was sick unto death. Then the Germans
released him as a refugee, so the priest returned to Gerbeviller to die.

Then came the anniversary of the murder of the fifteen old men and of
the one hundred and two women, girls and children. On the anniversary
day of the martyrdom the noble Governor of the province assembled the
few survivors for a memorial service about the graves of the martyrs.

Knowing that the priest would never see another anniversary of that day
the Prefect asked the priest to give the address at the memorial
service. No more dramatic scene ever occurred in history. At the
beginning the priest told the story of the coming of the Germans, the
looting of the houses, the violation of the little girls, the collecting
of the dead bodies. Suddenly the priest closed his eyes, and all
unconsciously he lived the scene of those three and a half hours.

"I see our fifteen heroes standing on the grass. I see the German
soldiers lifting up their rifles. I hear General Clauss cursing and
shouting the command to