Ernst Heinrich Schulz, an ordinary executioner
at Komarów Osada and Tyszowce,
as revealed by the German archives
and the testimonies collected by Yahad – In Unum
By Fanny Chassain-Pichon
[A photograph from file B162-1628 of the Bundesarchiv in Ludwigsburg]
1
Last August 6-20th, 2012 a Yahad – In Unum team went to Poland in the region of Lublin to
investigate the crimes committed by the German military police during World War II. Research was
conducted especially in the village of Komarów Osada and in the town of Tyszowce. During
interviews the name of a German policeman was mentioned several times by witnesses. The goal
here is to retrace this policeman’s story by confronting the German archives gathered in Ludwigsburg
for the prosecution and trial of war criminals after 1945 with the testimonies recorded on the field,
on the assumption that these two kinds of sources are indispensable to confirm one another.
1. Biographical data1
According to the Ludwigsburg2 German archives, Ernst Heinrich Schulz was born January 13, 1907 at
Woycin, in the district of Knin, in the former province of Posen. He was tried at Ellwangen on March
21, 1964 and sentenced to life imprisonment.
The defendant, Ernst Heinrich Schulz, was born a German citizen. He was brought up with 9 brothers
and sisters at Woycin, where his father was a farmer. He went to the Volksschule and earned good
marks. When Germany lost the province of Posen in 1921, young Schulz left the town where he had
been born and went to Pomerania, first Stettin, then Labenz, where he helped his father who had
been entrusted with managing a big farm. In 1925 Schulz, who had no professional skills, joined the
Reichswehr as a horseman and served in the second squadron of the Sixth Cavalry Regiment at
Schwedt on Oder. In 1934, he was promoted to Oberfeldwebel in the Luftwaffe. From October 1936
to the summer of 1938, he attended the Luftwaffe school in Berlin. It was then that he joined the
Nazi party but was given no particular assignment. After graduation, he joined the military police as a
Hauptwachtmeister at Gersdorf. He was stationed at Hildeseheim from April to September 1939. He
left Gersdorf early in 1940, and from Christmas 1940 until 1943, he was with the military police in
Tyszowce, then in Wisnice until the summer of 1944. As the Soviet troops drew closer, Schulz was
arrested before Easter 1945 at Glogau and jailed in Silesia. Early in 1952, for obvious political
reasons, he managed to escape from the Soviet-occupied zone of Germany and reached West Berlin,
then Hamburg during the summer of 1953. He then lived in Soest, Westphalia. For a while he worked
as a construction worker, before succeeding in joining the police in July 1954. He was appointed as
1
All the documents from the prosecution and trial files of Ernst Schulz have been translated by the author of
this article personally.
2
File B162-1638 (AR-Z 80/60, vol. XII) of the German Ludwigsburg archives.
2
temporary Hauptwachtmeister in the Dortmund Schupo. From 1955 to 1961, he was a policeman in
Eickelborn, then in Soest from October 1st to November 14th, when he was arrested.
[A list from file B162-1628 where Schulz’s name is mentioned among policemen stationed in Zamosc.]
3
2. Charges brought against Schulz3.
Before going into the details and showing how important the confrontation is between the German
archives and the testimonies recorded by Yahad on the field, we are going first to recall the charges
brought against Schulz at his trial. As commander of the military police in Tyszowce, was accused of
killing many Jews and Poles in the towns of Komarów Osada and Tyszowce:
A. In Komarów Osada, the charges are :
a. In 1941, the murder of a 20-year-old youth named FURER in a street.
b. In late 1941 or early 1942, the murder of Israel GOLDHABER in a street, as the latter had
his prayer book under his arm.
c. On March 16th, 1942, the murder of Motel TEMKIN at his parents’ house.
d. Early in the summer of 1942, several Jewish men and women were sent outside of the
ghetto to clean up the streets, monitored by a Volksdeutsche. Two young Jewish women
walked by without wearing distinctive signs, so that no one could guess they were
Jewish. Schulz stopped them and asked for their Ausweis. Their yellow stars were in their
bags, which also contained food. They had to throw the food away in the gutter and
Schulz shot them dead as everybody watched.
e. During Christmas time 1941, the Jews were to remove the snow. When they saw Schulz,
two young men toiled harder. He shot them dead. They were Poles.
f.
The murder of Sindel GITER, father of Malka TEMKIN, on September 18, 1942.
g. The murder of Benjamin GLEICHER.
h. The murder of Jankel SCHMUTZ.
i.
The murder of Judenrat’s president Daniel SCHWARZ and vice-president Leiber
FRUCHTKAUFER.
j.
After the deportation of the Komarów Osada Jews, Schulz arrested 46 more Jews,
including Leib FINGER, Jakob and Michael FURER. They were all shot dead.
k. In early 1942 at Sniatycze, Schulz murdered the whole SCHMENTA Jewish family
consisting of 12 persons.
l.
At Janowka, Schulz threw a grenade into a bunker where 45 Jew were detained. They all
died.
On top of this, Schulz would regularly kill Jews at the cemetery of Komarów Osada. He also had nonJewish Poles jailed and sent to concentration camps.
3
At his trial in Ellwangen, July 13, 1962, file B162-1633 (AR-Z 80/60, pp.1368-1371).
4
B.
In Tyszowce, the charges are :
a. Jakob GITER, brother of Malka TEMKIN, was arrested by policemen.
b. In 1941, Schulz had several citizens of Tyszowce shot dead, including Jankiel REICHENBERG,
Jankiel VASISTA’s wife, Moshe VASISTA, Rachel VASISTA, Mendel CWILACH, Eleik KOPEL,
Berko GELBER, Abraham STRICKENDREHER’s son.
c. During the winter of 1942, Schulz shot dead Malka BERMANN, Shloma KRAIHER, Pischel
SPIESS, Jents SILBERMANN, Moshe ADLER, Moshe et Sonia FRIEDER, Johanna HUDES, Perec
GOLDSTEIN, and Haja SCHLIT as they were shoveling snow.
d. In May 1942, Schulz is said to have organized the deportation of Jews. 96 of them were shot
dead immediately and Schulz himself killed eight members of the Judenrat.
e. After this deportation the only persons allowed to stay were the ones who had an Ausweis
and 500 slotys. Schulz shot dead the people he found without both: David et Pinchas ZWEIG,
Abraham et Rachel FINGER, Moshe STEINSCHREIBER, Esriel HOCHGELERNTER.
f.
At the Jewish New Year festival of Rosh Hashanah 1942, Schulz broke into the apartment of
the PIETRUSZKI family during a religious service and shot dead Liebel PIETRUSZKO and his
wife, Schmuel FERSCHT, Jecheskiel SINGER, Yehuda STRUSA, Eli Ruwen FUCHS, and Aron
EISMER.
g. At Yom Kippur 1942, Schulz and other policemen executed 49 Jews of the Tyszowce ghetto.
h. On November 25th, 1942, some Jews were sent by Schulz and his men to the camp of Belzec.
200 Jews were executed at Tyszowce.
i.
On December 25th, 1942, Schulz found a few Jews in a Polish farm and executed Ester and
Mordko FINGER and the SCHEK family: Jenta, Mayer, Sonia, Gitla, Brana and Mendel.
We are now going to examine the details of these executions, after studying the files concerning the
shootings of Jews by policemen from Tyszowce at Komarów-Osada in the district of Lublin in the
spring and summer of 1942 and used for Schulz’s prosecution and trial. In this purpose, we will focus
on the executions carried out in the towns of Komarów Osada then Tyszowce, adding the testimonies
collected on the field last August.
5
C. Executions at Komarów Osada: the importance of the testimonies collected by Yahad – In
Unum.
The town of Komarów-Osada on the road from Zamosc to Tyszowce had a population of 8,000 as of
March 1st, 1943. It was connected to several hamlets where some 1,200-1,800 people lived, including
Poles and Jews. After the German troops arrived in September 1939, the Jews of Komarów Osada
were sent to forced labor and a camp was set up on October 8, 1939. Some 500-800 Jews of
Komarów Osada had followed the Soviet troops, to the other side of the Bug. The Germans quickly
appointed a wjot who was responsible for local administration. The Tyszowce police brigade, which
meant Schulz, was in charge of security in the town. There were several transfers of the Jewish
population into or out of the ghetto, often on Schulz’s order. For example, in 1940 200 Jews were
expelled from the villages of Wloclawek, Kolo and Czestochowa and sent to the Komarów Osada
ghetto. Other Jews from neighboring Krasnobrod, Laczczow, and Tyszowce were expropriated and
accommodated in the ghetto. In early April 1941, the ghetto population lost 400 people who were
sent to the ghetto of Zamosc, but in early May the SS sent back to the ghetto of Komarów Osada 250
Jews who had refused to go to Zamosc. In September 1941 there were 3,000 Jews in the ghetto. 729
deported persons arrived on May 2nd from Terezin, most of them Jews from Prague and Vienne. 4
Indeed, Leszek K., when interviewed at Komarów Osada August 9, 2012, did mention Czech Jews.
According to the witness, those Jews were well dressed and lived with other Jews from the
neighborhood inside the ghetto. The witness said: “The Jews who were murdered were the local
Jews. There also were Czech Jews here. But they were killed in a different way. They were goodlooking Jews. They were clean and wore elegant clothes. They smelled nice. They were different from
our poor Jews. They were shot at the same time as our Jews. They hoped they were going to receive
parcels. The Germans loaded their parcels on train carriages going to Germany. They divided those
Jews between several towns: Zamosc, Tyszowce and others. Those Jews were quite wealthy.” The
witness remembered seeing a shooting at Labunie when he was working to build an airport runway.
“I could see this more than once. At Labunie they were building an airport, four miles or so from here,
so as to send planes on the East front. They took Jews to work there. I was 17 at that time. I worked
at the airport with the Jews. When they did away with the Jews, definitively… One evening, a truck
came to pick them up. Another truck came for us. The truck stopped near the Jewish cemetery. Pits
had already been dug out there. That was where they were killed.” The witness recalled seeing
Schulz: “At Tyszowce there was a policeman named Schulz. It was a small town. He hated Jew. He
was a sergeant and rode a motorbike. When the Jews head a motorbike at Komarów Osada, they
4
Martin C. Dean (ed.), Encyclopedia of Camps and Ghettos 1939-1945, vol. II: Ghettos in German-occupied
Eastern Europe, USHMM, Washington, 2012, pp.851-852.
6
knew who was coming. It was the beginning of the Shabbat. All the gates and doors were closed
immediately. He had come to shoot at Jews. But the Jews did not show up. So he shot at windows.
Later he rode on a horse-drawn light carriage, so as to make no noise. He did not make noise when he
came up in this horse-drawn carriage, that son of a bitch.” 5
On May 20th or 23rd, 1942, policemen and SS surrounded the ghetto and ordered the Jews to gather
on the market square. The ones who could not work, such as women and children, were sent to
Zamosc, escorted by the police. Many others were gassed at Sobibor. At Komarów Osada the
policemen under Schulz’s commandment executed all the Jews who had no Ausweis and also the
Judenrat’s members.6
The executions of Jews began in early 1942. They were principally individual executions. A selection
was made, and one third of the Jewish population was deported to Belzec on May 20th, 1942. Leszek
K. and Jozef B.7 have detailed recollections of the mass shooting and especially of the ghetto’s
annihilation.
[Below: the Yahad team with Leszek K. explaining the selection for the ghetto’s annihilation.
Photograph by Rita Villanueva, Yahad – In Unum].
5
Leszek K. , 122P, Yahad – In Unum archives.
Personal translation from the Yahad Vashem Encyclopedia of the Ghettos during the Holocaust, YV
Publications, 2010, pp.452-453.
7
He is witness 123P.
6
7
In the summer of 1942, under Schulz’s supervision, the Jewish people who helped the partisans were
eliminated. The last major operation took place in October 1942. On October 15th, the Tyszowce
policemen and others from Zamosc surrounded the ghetto. They executed 2,500 Jews in large pits
just outside of Komarów Osada. Other Jews were sent to Sobibor or Belzec to be gassed. The Polish
archives provide more details, especially thanks to the testimony of Komarów Osada’s mayor Antoni
Jachynik.8 He tells about an operation that took place October 15-31st, in which 2,500 victims (Poles,
Jews, Jewish Poles or foreigners, especially Czechs) were killed. Everyone was shot, from babies to
old people. The executions were carried out by Schulz’s policemen with the help of the Gestapo and
SS. The bodies were buried in mass graves at one end of the town of Komarów Osada. The pits could
be 25 feet long, 10 feet wide and 12 feet deep, and could contain 200 to 600 persons. No
exhumation has been recorded.
The German archives add that on Schulz’s order the ghetto was surrounded at sunrise by the
commando most of whose members had come from Zamosc. There were several executions. As the
Jews were led in monitored columns to Belzec, some of them tried to escape, but they were caught
back and executed. Komarów Osada was officially declared judenfrei in October 1942. 9
Leszek K. also told us about a shooting which is not reported in the archives. The witness’s neighbor
had a cart and said that there were pits in the forest. A rabbi asked people to give their money. A
Jewish woman pulled out a few dollar bills, tore them up and spit at the policeman’s face. Her 8-yearold son cried, and they shot him slowly, in the knee, then his sexual parts, etc. before they killed his
mother. Leszek’s neighbor told him this story. 30 people were shot that day. Two men managed to
escape. The bodies are still there. The policemen led by Schulz caught other people and shot them
dead on the spot. If anyone hid a Jew, he was shot with the Jew, but was spared if the denounced
him. Some Jews showed up spontaneously to be shot.
Leszek K. also took the Yahad team to the site of the shooting of 11 Jewish shopkeepers. There again
the killing was carried out under Schulz’s commandment.
8
9
GK163/18, p.1089, statement of Komarów Osada mayor Antoni Jachynik, aged 51, living at Komarów Osada.
B162-1632, pp.1544-1545.
8
[Above: the site of the shooting reported above by Leszek K. and Jozef B. Photograph by Rita Villanueva, Yahad – In Unum.]
[Above: some members of the Yahad team with Leszek K. showing the site of the execution of 11 Jewish shopkeepers.
Photograph by Rita Villanueva, Yahad –In Unum.]
9
In the case of the town of Komarów Osada, one can see that, if the German archives provide plenty
of details, the testimony of an eye-witness add a number of significant precisions not reported in the
archives documents. The contribution of these testimonies is essential: the witnesses may only
exceptionally remember the exact dates, and rather the season when the events occurred, but they
will recall the names of the executioners or of the latter’s victims. Also, some witnesses will provide
information on some relevant aspects of the operations. This can help us reconstitute accurately
what happened, thanks to the dates and the succession of events recorded in the archives, which can
then be confronted to the testimonies recorded on the field, providing confirmation of certain scenes
or adding precisions.
D. Executions carried out at Tyszowce.
Tyszowce is located some 80 miles from Lublin. The population numbered 7,548 habitants, including
3,311 Jews. The bombs dropped by the Luftwaffe September 12th and 13th destroyed 60% of the
town. As soon as it was occupied, the Germans set up a local collaborationist police force headed by
Jozef Zarebksi, the town wjot. A Polish police squadron was also organized. Schulz took command of
the Tyszowce military police at Christmas 1940.10 Marianna G.,11 when interviewed at Tyszowce,
remembered Schulz vividly: “The town’s military police commander’s name was Heinrich Schulz. He
had to kill a Jew before having his breakfast. He went about riding a horse or a motorbike. He would
look for young Polish women to take care of his house and enjoyed seducing them. He was a goodlooking man, approximately 45 years old. He could speak Polish.”12 Jozef K.13 also remembered Schulz
accurately. He recalled that the latter had served in the Polish army in the town of Wlocziniec in High
Silesia. Like other witnesses, he mentions the fact that Schulz was nice with Poles. The military police
of Tyszowce was also in charge of civil administration, the Wehrmacht, the SS and the supervision of
economic goods. The squadron had 8 to 10 men. Generally, three men were on permanent duty and
the others were constantly renewed, coming from the Volksdeutsche or the Hiwis (auxiliaries).
Belzec, the first concentration camp set up in March 1942, was 12 miles from Tyszowce.
In the spring of 1940, hundreds of Tyszowce Jews went to the labor camps of Belzec or its satellites
for forced labor. The Jews were detained in the satellite camp located near Lubycza Krolewska.
Another 120 Jews were sent to the camp of Zamosc, and others went to work on draining in the
neighboring province, at Mikulin, which was to be turned into a camp for Soviet war prisoners in June
1941. Always in the spring of 1940, German officials ordered the Judenrat to provide funds to set up
10
Martin C. Dean, op. cit., pp.1254.
Marianna G., witness 140P.
12
Ibid.
13
Jozef K., witness 141P.
11
10
a forced labor camp at Tyszowce. That camp was located at a large mill. The Jews there worked on
the regulation of the river Huczwa. At midnight on May 22nd or 23rd, 1942, German policemen led by
Schulz informed the Judenrat that the Jews were going to be expelled. The Schupos and Ukrainian
Hiwis came up to monitor the operation. Between 800 and 1,000 Tyszowce Jews were taken to a
train station and sent to Sobibor. 200 Jews who were too old or too weak were killed on the spot.
500 Jews remained for forced labor. A ghetto was set up not far from the river, probably near the
former labor camp. It was an open ghetto.
[Jozef K. pointing to the site of the Tyszowce ghetto. Photograph by Rita Villanueva – Yahad –In Unum.]
When interviewed at Zamlynie, a borough of Tyszowce, Jozef K.14 recalled: “The Jews could still walk
about in Tyszowce. They had no right to go out wearing furs or leather coats. They could not leave the
town.” In the ghetto, there were a dozen Czech Jews, and also German and Tyszowce Jews.
Jozef K. 15 remembered the ghetto because his father had been requisitioned to bring Jews there. He
especially recalled a German standing on a wooden plank across the river and shooting the people
who did not work hard enough. He only caught a glimpse of this, because he was frightened and he
stole away to hide. Inside the ghetto, he could see that a pit had been dug out. It was 15 feet wide
and even longer. He could see this from his home, because the ghetto was a hundred or so yards
14
15
Witness 141P.
Ibid.
11
away. That pit had been dug out by Jews. It was first empty, but then the policemen started filling it
with groups of 10 or 15 Jews. The latter were to stand on the edge of the pit and fell down into it
after being shot in the head. This went on for several days. To begin with, that pit served for the mass
shooting, then the Jews who had been killed individually were also thrown down into it. The Schupo
from Rachanie gave a hand for the executions and did the shooting. The day when the Zamosc ghetto
was annihilated, October 16th, 1942, the policemen, SS and auxiliaries from Rachanie also annihilated
the Tyszowce ghetto. They marshaled local Poles and Ukrainians to prevent the Jews from running
away. A hundred Jews were killed. Between Jun 16th, 1942 and the end of the year 1943, the military
policemen led by Schulz and Schupo members from Rachanie commanded by two SS named Rogalski
and Olszewski killed 1,000 Jews of Tyszowce and the neighborhood. Witness 140 also remembered
several individual executions of which she was en eye-witness. For example, she recalled that Schulz
and another German shot two Jewish grandfathers dead after forcing them to dig out their own
graves. This execution is reported also in the Polish archives,16 in the statement of Bronislawa
Barjrwluka, who lived in Tyszowce and was interviewed just after the war. She answered questions
and reported the shooting of the Jewish population of Tyszowce between November 16th, 1942 and
the end of 1943. She recalled that the victims were whole families and also people living in the
vicinity, that the executions were carried out by military policemen with the help of the Gestapo, the
SS, the Rachanie Schupo led by the same Rogalski and Olszewski, and that it was Schulz who
supervised the operation. The bodies of the victims were buried on the execution site and other nonspecified locations. According to her, no exhumation of the bodies has taken place. 17
Although they are often rather exhaustive, the German archives mention no major shooting at
Mikulin. Josef K. (again) told us that 63 Jews were shot there. The witness was requisitioned against
his will by the soltys to bring Germans to the site with his cart. The Jews were hiding in small holes.
He recalled that three Jews were killed immediately in their holes and that 60 others were shot. He
even remembered a 10-year-old child who kept standing up after he had been received 10 bullets.
The same witness reported another shooting, in which ten Jews or so were killed near the river by
the Schupo and Schulz’s military police.
Here again the contribution of testimonies is essential: they allow to identify the execution sites that
the archives would not have permitted to localize, and also to gather information on unreported
crimes.
16
Archives of the Commission for the Prosecution of the Authors of Crimes Committed against the Polish
Nation.
17
GK 163/18, pp.11717-1172, statement Bronislawa Bajrwluka, 38 years old, living at the village of Tyszowce,
occupation unknown, dated 11.10.1945, concerning the execution of the Jewish population in the town of
Tyszowce between November 1942 and the end of 1943.
12
[Kalikst B., showing the site where 63 Jews were executed. Photograph by Rita Villanueva – Yahad – In Unum.]
E. Individual executions carried out by Schulz
The Ludwigsburg archives concerning Schulz’s trial mention several individual murders among the
charges brought against him. Let us confront these documents to the testimonies.
Motel Temkin, born 1923, had been ordered by the Germans to clean up the roads. As he was
working close to his house one day, he came back home when his job was done. Then Schulz broke
into the house waving a pistol. Temkin was frightened and tried to sneak away into another room,
but Schulz fired at him twice as the young man’s mother was watching. Temkin did not die
immediately but managed to crawl outside, crying out to this mother, “Mummy, Schulz shot me!” His
mother quickly called a Polish doctor, who could only say when he came up that young Temkin had
passed.18 Jozef K., whom we interviewed, remembered a Jewish boy (called Mordka or Motel), trying
to escape but chased, caught back and executed by Schulz, which confirms the archives’ report.
A week after Motel Temkin’s death, on March 22nd or 23rd, 1942, Schulz came back to Komarów
Osada with other policemen from Tyszowce. Furer, aged 21, was walking along with a comrade on
18
B162-1638 (AR-Z 80/60, vol. XII), pp.22-24.
13
the road from Tyszowce to Zamosc. As Schulz came out of a bar, he saw the two young men hurrying
away. He fired at them as they were approximately 10 yards away and hit the upper parts of their
bodies. Furer’s companion was killed at once; Furer was mortally wounded and died a little later. 19
The same evening, three more Jews of Komarów Osada were shot dead. This may be the execution
mentioned by Marianna G., but she could not remember those Jews’ names. And yet, her story
corroborates the one mentioned at Schulz’s trial.
Around Easter 1942, the defendant executed Lea, aged 27, in front of Mrs Sara Ben David.20 Lea was
a barber’s wife. He had been a Germans’ V-Mann agent, but had given up his job and run away.
When Schulz and his men went to his place, Lea tried to escape, but Schulz caught up with her, shot
her and went away without paying attention to his victim. He had done this on his own initiative
without having received any order.21 There is no story similar to this one in the testimonies collected
by Yahad – In Unum.
Shortly after Lea’s murder, Schulz killed Benjamin Gleicher, aged 50. As the latter was walking out of
his house, Schulz happened to come up very close. He had arrived from Tyszowce a few hours earlier
in order to patrol the streets. Gleicher’s armband revealed that he was a Jew. Schulz shot him at
point blank and went to a bar after making sure that Gleicher was dead.22 This story has not been
confirmed by the witnesses interviewed by Yahad.
F. Ernst Schulz’s statement at his trial
At his trial23 Schulz claimed that he had always been fair with the local population and made no
difference between Poles and Jews. He said he had never been aware of being disliked and feared,
that he had used the permission to kill only when necessary, as authorized by the General
Government, and that his tendency was rather to abstain from pulling out his gun. The testimonies
recorded on the field confirmed that Schulz treated Poles well. Some witnesses at his trial said that
he was of Polish origin. On the other hand, his hatred of and attacks on Jews are reported in the
testimonies of witnesses 140, 141 and 144. He also declared that he had had no information about
the “Final Solution” and had learned of it only after the war. He said he had heard about
deportations, but thought those people were sent to forced labor camps. He added that he had
never taken part in the transfer of Jews.
19
B162-1638 (AR-Z 80/60, vol. XII), pp.24-25.
His statement can be found in file B162-1630 (AR-Z 80/60, vol. IV), of the Ludwigsburg Bundesarchiv.
21
B162-1638 (AR-Z 80/60, vol. XII), pp.25-27.
22
B162-1638 (AR-Z 80/60, vol. XII), p.27.
20
14
He denied killing Gleicher, Furer and Lea X. He granted that he did know Lea but asserted that her
execution had been ordered by a Gestapo member of Zamosc. Concerning Temkin’s death, he did
recall entering a house with a Polish policeman and shooting at a man who was trying to sneak away,
but without hitting him, he said. He did not know whether this man was Temkin. Concerning this
murder, the defendant mentioned a homonym, Hans Jürgen Schulz, who was a member of the
Zamosc Schupo.
G. Eye-witnesses quoted in the German archives
Zwi Naor watched as Benjamin Gleicher was murdered and unambiguously identified the
defendant24. Sara Ben David was present when Lea X. died. Hanna Roth saw young Furer being killed.
The court was convinced that Schulz was guilty of Temkin’s murder. At the trial, Donate Hirsch’s
testimony was especially important.25 She is Jewish and was then 16, the daughter of Tyszowce’s
pharmacist. Her mother was of German origin. Because she could speak German, Donata worked as a
translator for German officials. Although she was not there when Schulz committed crimes, he had
known him well and remembered how cruel he was against Jews. He could not recall seeing him
displaying any humane feelings. He had shown no compassion or mercy. In written correspondence
with people living in Tyszowce after the war, she realized that Schulz’s name always inspired terror.
Former associates of Schulz’s testified how brutal he had been with Jews. Wenzel26 was a reservist
officer at Tyszowce police station from the summer of 1942 to the summer of 1943 and accompanied
the defendant to Komarów Osada several times. He recalled seeing him shoot Jews arbitrarily. A
Robert Golka, Tyszowce military police commander before Schulz, also testified against him.
In addition, numerous witnesses at the trial remembered distinctive feature, such as Schulz’s hooked
nose and red hair. Indeed, some of the witnesses interviewed last August often mentioned a German
officer nicknamed “the Red Hair” in the area. These witnesses could not recall this man’s name, or
were not sure whether it was Schulz or another German. These persons are often over 80 years old,
so that it is understandable that their recollections of certain facts should be incomplete. Anyway, it
was most likely Schulz, for it is established that this German was seen in Zamosc (the German
archives report that he went to Tyszowce and Komarów Osadaregularly.27
24
B162-1633 (AR-Z 80/60, vol. VII), pp.1238-1244.
His statement can be found in file B162-1633 (AR-Z 80/60, vol. VII), pp. 1245-1249 of the Ludwigsburg
Bundesarchiv.
26
B162-1634 (AR-Z 80/60, vol. VIII), pp.88-92.
27
Witnesses 137, 138, 140, 141, 144 P spoke of this “Red Hair.”
25
15
H. Other atrocities committed by Schulz: the contribution of the testimonies collected by Yahad –
In Unum.
What the German archives do not tell about is a number of killings organized in the villages around
Tyszowce. Thanks to the tips provided by Marianna G., the Yahad team went to the village of
Siemnice for investigations. Witnesses 147-151 all mentioned Schulz and his men. One witness
interviewed at Michalow during the researches at Siemnice remembered seeing Schulz walk by
smoking his pipe after an execution near a fence. One point, however, remains doubtful: some
witnesses mentioned a “red hair” who shot whole families (among others) in a Follwark,28 but two
witnesses think this was a member of the Rachanie Schupo. However, according to the German
archives, this man was Schulz. In the village of Laczczow, we learned through various testimonies that
80 Jews were shot dead in a Follwark near a barn. On the other hand, two witnesses interviewed
during this investigation provided many details on the execution techniques. One witness showed us
the site where 30 and then 7 Jews were shot dead.
While reenacting the scene emotionally, Adolf S. told us how parents and children holding hands had
to kneel down on the edge of the pit, turning their backs to the executioners, and how the children,
at the fatal moment, looked round to stare straight into the Nazis’ faces. One of the shooters was
reported to be sick and vomit after the execution. Behind the site, where a green house now stands,
was the Follwark where the Jews worked before they were killed. The pits had already been dug out.
They were used to store beetroot peelings after the slaughter. The witness who saw the killing
remembered that after the pit had been filled up (his father and brother were requisitioned for this),
blood was still filtering up. The pit was 25 feet long, 7 feet wide and 5 feet deep. The Schutzmann
fired rounds of ammunition, and then finished off the Jews one by one, and the Follwark people had
to throw the bodies down into the pit. The Jews were killed with their clothes on. An exhumation
funded by an Israeli organization was reported to have been performed in 2005, and we were told
that the remains found had been buried at the Jewish cemetery of Komarów Osada.
28
The estate of a Polish duke which was requisitioned after the latter had gone, and where Jews were used for
farming chores.
16
[Adolf S. on the site of the Follwark where Jews were shot at Siemnice. Rita Villanueva – Yahad – In Unum.]
Even though they provide answers to a number of questions concerning Schulz‘s career and also on
the shootings, especially the killing techniques and the squadrons stationed locally at the time of the
executions, these two investigations at Komarów Osada and Tyszowce leave a few issues unclarified:
one may wonder why, for example, in spite of the proximity of numerous camps in the region
(Belzec, Treblinka, Sobibor and Majdanek), so many shootings were carried out in neighboring towns
and villages, while simultaneously some groups of Jews were sent precisely to those camps. Was this
because there were times when the camps were crammed? Because of epidemics? Or was it Schulz’s
personal initiative to keep on killing although the camps were within easy reach?
As concerns Ernst Schulz, one wonders why, in spite of the numerous charges brought against him,
he was found guilty only of the murders of 12 persons at Komarów Osada. One explanation could be
that Schulz, as evidenced in the German archives and in the testimonies recorded on the field, was
comparatively fair with Poles. One is led to assume that some Tyszowce inhabitants might have
sought to defend him at his trial. This, however, remains a mystery, since no mention of such
favorable statements can be found to have been made either at the prosecution stage or during the
trial.
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