The Marian Martyrs of Rosica

111 Eyewitness Accounts It must have been the will of God. I bade farewell and went to the opposite bank of the Dvina by boat, continuing in a small cart to Druja. It had been burned down. During my absence, the Germans had murdered the Jews and torched part of the town. Unfortunately, a handful of local riff-raff helped the Germans in this crime. Many inhabitants had left and sought refuge in the nearby villages. At the Drujka River by the bridge, I was shown some common graves where Jewish people had even been buried alive. In Druja, the work with children had been interrupted and had to be resumed, so I drove around the neighborhood parishes. We learned from the radio newscasts that the Germans had had to withdraw, which meant the front was coming closer again. The Latvians were complaining that Soviet partisans were attacking and stealing their possessions, so the Germans mobi- lized the Latvians, issued them German uniforms, and prepared them to perform a criminal action of which nobody had any idea. The Latvian military crossed the Dvina River in winter and stationed itself in Druja and the vicinity. They installed their command post on the upper floor of the monastery. After the New Year in 1943, carts were rounded up from villages in the neighborhood and an expedition set out beyond the Dvina into our missionary territory. Aircraft were setting villages on fire, and the people who ran away were shot, while the others were rounded up and herded to certain holding sites. The church in Rosica was turned into a large concentration site. People were brought together, not knowing what would become of them, but expecting the worst. Father Leszczewicz and Fr. Kaszyra listened to confessions and administered the Sacraments all day and all night. They prayed and prepared themselves for martyrdom. This lasted for three days. In Fr. Kaszyra’s place, they found a map of the local terrain, and so he was assumed to be a partisan. Some young people were