So there
was added to the conflict in language conflict in religious creed, and
to race hatred a religious frenzy. In this century of enlightenment
the persecution of Germans in these districts became fanatical. One
church after another was torn down, the wooden ones set on fire, and
after the church was burned the village had lost its right to a
parish: German preachers and school teachers were driven out and
disgracefully maltreated. "_Vexa Lutheranum dabit thalerum_" ("harry a
Lutheran and he will give up a thaler") was the usual motto of the
Poles against the Germans. One of the greatest landowners in the
country, a certain Unruh of the Birnbaum family, the starost of
Gnesen, was sentenced to die, after having his tongue pulled out and
his hands chopped off, because he had copied from German books into a
notebook sarcastic remarks about the Jesuits. There was no more
justice, no more safety. The national party of the Polish nobility, in
alliance with fanatic priests, persecuted most passionately those whom
they hated as Germans and Protestants. All sorts of plunder-loving
rabble collected on the side of the "patriots" or "confederates." They
collected into bands, overran the country in search of plunder, and
fell upon the smaller towns and German villages, not only from
religious zeal, but still more from the greed of booty. The Polish
nobleman Roskowsky wore boots of different colors, a red one to
indicate fire, and a black one for death.
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