Testimony of Sophie Karczmar

This testimony was sent to the World Jewish Congress as part of a search to locate witnesses to war crimes committed in the Lida area, so that the perpetrators could be brought to trial in Germany. The records of this search are now preserved at theJacob Rader Marcus Center of the American Jewish Archives in Cincinnati OH in File C210, boxes 3, 4 & 5. Translation by Irene Newhouse
This letter is box C210, file 3, page 203. There is no year given & it's headed "Translation"

"...the entire Regional Commissariat participated in mass murder. Werner was a murder & sadist. When Jews saw him, they hid. He had a wolfhound & set him to bite Jews. He, Werner, derived enjoyment from his dog biting Jews & tearing their trousers. Participants in the great mass murder of 8 May 1941 [sic] were all the Regional Commissariat, the Polish police, Litwiners (Lithuanians), & primarily the field gendarmerie. Commandant was Lt. or Sr. Lt. Ick (Maybe it's spelled differently). He knew exactly what was to be done to us. When a Christian woman asked him where he was leading the Jews, he replied, laughing, "Tomorrow they'll be sausage". I don't know which individuals carried out the murders of the Judenrat, but I'm more than certain it was done by the field gendarmerie & the police. I saw the bodies - they had been destroyed. Some had broken fingers and you could see by their faces, how they had been tortured. A member of the Commissariat was an interpreter, an ethnic German, Wassinkiewitsch, who deserved the most terrible punishment possible. ...it's hard for me to write & relive those terrible times".

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