As a result of the intervention of Colonel Bouty on behalf of a German officer, Father Espinasse was authorized to offer his ministry to those who would die. He attended the first executions. During that of the first group, "in one case [...], the victim, badly hung without a doubt, was wracked by spasms; then I saw the soldier who had removed his ladder used it to hit the tortured man until he stopped moving completely". After that, he noted that "the execution squad forced the condemned to walk, and not without violence; I can still see the soldier, in a fit of rage, breaking the butt of his rifle on the back of a victim who had frozen in horror at the sight of the noose". "Can we imagine the scene? Of men assembled under duress, of soldiers below the gallows, of groups of hostages led to their deaths, and the silence". Throughout the operation, Paula Geissler and a group of SS watched the hangings while downing bottles of good wine on the terrace of the Café Tivoli, listening to music on a gramophone.