Schlema (Aue - Bad Schlema)
The mass murder
In the afternoon of April 14, 1945, the commando leader ordered the weak and sick prisoners to meet the other prisoners on the sports field in Niederschlema. They were to be left there and handed over to the approaching Americans. The rest of the prisoners set off for Burkhardtsgrün.
About 90 completely exhausted men were left behind under the supervision of the deputy commanding officer.
He had been ordered to kill them, organize the transport of their bodies, and follow the column the next day. After the first fifteen or so prisoners were taken to the edge of the nearby forest and shot, the remaining seventy-five or so prisoners refused to get on the wagon. They were then shot on the spot, on the sports field.
The next morning, members of the Volkssturm, Soviet prisoners of war from Niederschlema, and the local NSDAP leadership gave the 83 or so corpses a makeshift burial in the pit area of the Osterlamm tunnel. Four or five prisoners crawled out of the pile of corpses during the night. One escaped, but one was caught and killed. The fate of the others remains unknown.
More information about the murder in Schlema
Marian Jedrys, a former prisoner from Mülsen, drew this card. He participated in the death march and testified against Georg Degner at the 1947 trial. The drawing was also presented in court. Jedrys created it to illustrate the events that occurred in Schlema for the court. Jedrys was not present at the mass shooting, but he was in the column that continued on its way.
One special story is that of Jerzy Cygowski. He was a prisoner in Mülsen who stayed behind on the sports field in Niederschlema. He was one of the first prisoners driven into the forest to be killed. Incredibly, he survived the shooting despite having multiple bullet holes in his body. He also survived the night and crawled out of the forest. He ended up in the garden of a former Social Democrat, who helped him escape. Other prisoners also survived the shooting and crawled out of the forest overnight, severely wounded. The next morning, an unknown prisoner was found in the garden of another Schlema citizen. However, that citizen took the wounded prisoner to the local NSDAP functionaries. On April 15, 1945, the wounded prisoner was shot and buried with the other murdered prisoners in the Osterlammstolln. (Titzmann 2024)
All of the witnesses at Degner's trial recounted Jerzy Cygowski's story. After the war, they visited him in the hospital in Zwickau. Cygowski did not appear as a witness himself. In court, Władysław Klak expressed regret that Cygowski was unable to testify due to the political situation. With Cygowski's testimony, the Degner case could have been resolved in two minutes (NARA, S. 86).
Jerzy Cygowski was born 08/01925 geboren und died 10/28/1978.