It is stated that at 5 o'clock in the
evening, long before the shooting, a citizen was warned by a friendly
German soldier not to go out that night.
Though the cause of the massacre is in dispute, the results are known
with certainty. The Rue des Pitteurs and houses in the Place de
l'Universite and the Quai des Pecheurs were systematically fired with
benzine, and many inhabitants were burned alive in their houses, their
efforts to escape being prevented by rifle fire. Twenty people were
shot, while trying to escape, before the eyes of one of the witnesses.
The Liege Fire Brigade turned out but was not allowed to extinguish the
fire. Its carts, however, were usefully employed in removing heaps of
civilian corpses to the Town Hall. The fire burned on through the night
and the murders continued on the following day, the 21st. Thirty-two
civilians were killed on that day in the Place de l'Universite alone,
and a witness states that this was followed by the rape in open day of
fifteen or twenty women on tables in the square itself.
No depositions are before us which deal with events in the City of Liege
after this date.
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