On this same day the village of Surice was occupied by the German troops. At about 11 p. m. they set fire to some of the houses. Next morning, about 6 o’clock, the soldiers broke open doors and windows with the butts of their rifles, and forced all the inhabitants to come out. They were led off in the direction of the church. On the way several most inoffensive people were fired upon. For example, the old choirman, Charles Colot, aged 88, was shot as he came out of his door; the soldiers rolled his body in a blanket, and set fire to it.
A man named Elie Pierrot was seized by the Germans as he was coming out of his burning house, carrying his aged and impotent step-mother (she was over 80 years of age), and was shot at short range. The clerk, Leopold Burniaux, his son Armand, who had been recently ordained priest, and another of his sons were shot before the eyes of Madame Burniaux. She, with her last surviving son, a professor at the College of Malonne, were marched off with the surviving inhabitants on the road to Romedenne. In a garden below the road there was a dead woman lying, with two small children crying over her.
On arriving at Fosses the party were led to a piece of fallow ground--they numbered between 50 and 60 persons of both sexes. “It was about 7.15 a. m. when the men and the women were separated. An officer came up who said to us in French with a strong German accent, ‘You all deserve to be shot: a young girl of 15 has just fired on one of our Commanders. But the Court-martial has decided that only the men shall be executed: the women will be kept prisoners.’
“The scene that followed passes all description: there were eighteen men standing in a row: besides the parish priests of Anthee and Onhaye, and the Abbe Gaspiard, there was our own priest, Mons. Poskin, and his brother-in-law, Mons. Schmidt, then Doctor Jacques and his son Henri, aged just 16, then Gaston Burniaux, the clerk’s son, and Leonard Soumoy: next them two men named Balbeur and Billy, with the 17-year-old son of the latter: last two men from Onhaye and Dinant who had taken refuge in Surice, and two people more whom I did not know. Mons. Schmidt’s little boy of 14 was nearly put into the line--the soldiers hesitated, but finally shoved him away in a brutal fashion. At this moment I saw a young German soldier--this I vouch for--who was so horror-struck that great tears were dropping onto his tunic: he did not wipe his eyes for fear of being seen by his officer, but kept his head turned away.