There was a noticeable increase in the number of NKVD troops towards the end of spring 1941. Their officers’ superior uniforms, short black leather coats and black riding boots, and the blue bands on their caps, made them easily recognisable. Around Easter, we began to hear of sporadic arrests. Mass arrests and deportations started in the middle of June. Very early one June morning, I was woken by the sound of truck engines. Trucks loaded with people, men, women, children and NKVD guards, came from two directions, passing under our windows. The trucks on Arsenal Street followed the same route as the Russian tanks in 1939. Others came down Mickiewicz Street. They merged on Cathedral Square and continued in the direction of the railway station. As the trucks went by, life in the city continued, just more subdued and quieter. Later that day we snuck out and followed the trucks to the railway station. The train yards were full with cattle cars loaded with people from the trucks. This mass deportation continued throughout the next couple of weeks. After a few days it became clear who was on the arrest list: prominent public figures; members of government, military and police; members of the judiciary; estate owners; professionals; factory and business owners; bankers; doctors; engineers; university professors and teachers; and refugees from German-occupied territories. They were mostly Poles, but Lithuanians, Belarusians and Jews were taken as well.
The trucks rumbled by in the daytime; arrests were made at night. Those arrested were given very little time to get ready. Mother laid out heavy winter clothing and backpacks for all of us, just in case. Twice over the following week, we heard cars stop in front of our building in the middle of the night, followed by shouts and heavy banging on the entry door. The first time the heavy boots continued up past our floor. People from the third floor were taken. A few nights later, the footsteps stopped on our floor. There was banging on the door opposite ours. Elderly Mrs Szymanska lived there with her son, his wife, and their son Tadek (two years older than Andrzej), refugees from Warsaw. That night Tadek’s parents were taken. In the winter of 1947 I bumped into Tadek at a Polish military hospital in England. His mother had survived and left Russia with the Polish Army, but his father had perished in Siberia.
One day a Polish railway worker brought mother a folded piece of paper that had been thrown from a train departing to Russia. It was a note from uncle Richard: he and his wife had been arrested and separated. We learned later that his train, loaded with men only, crossed into Russia and stopped at Novosibirsk in Siberia. They were transferred to a riverboat and taken north on the River Ob, past the Arctic Circle. After a journey of three weeks he arrived at a gulag. The men in the gulag were mostly Latvians and a few Poles, labouring cutting trees. Aunt Fela was taken to Kazakhstan, with other women and children, where she worked in a kolkhoz (farming co-operative). Luckily, they both survived. They left Russia separately with the Polish Army. In the spring of 1942 they were reunited in Iran. The army went to Iraq and Palestine and from there to Italy. They both went through the entire Italian campaign, aunt Fela as a nurse in a field hospital and uncle Richard in the anti-aircraft regiment. They immigrated to the United States from England.
At daybreak on Sunday 22 June 1941, Germany launched Operation Barbarossa, the invasion of the Soviet Union, attacking in full force along the border of occupied Poland. Later that day, one of the two Russian officers living in our apartment arrived in a very agitated state. He said the war had started. We already knew that. Their wives packed up very quickly and after a hurried goodbye they all left in an army truck.
PART 2
GERMAN OCCUPATION
5
German Arrival,
23 June 1941–June 1942
The next day, Monday 23rd, German bombers reached Wilno around midday. They concentrated their bombing around the railway station, just as they had in 1939. There was visible panic in the city as Russian families tried to escape. Throughout it all the trucks with deportees kept rumbling through the streets. Eventually the German air attack prevented the Russians from continuing their arrests. The lists, found after their departure, bore many more names, including ours. Polish railway workers sabotaging engines saved some of the last people arrested.
In the evening, shooting was heard from the direction of the military barracks, Lithuanians were attacking the remaining Russian soldiers. The next morning I woke up to the sight of the Lithuanian flag flying, once again, from the tower on Castle Hill. Smoke and the sound of explosions were coming from the direction of the barracks. German military vehicles were parked, by 10 o’clock, on Cathedral Square, the same place as the Russian tanks two years before. People slowly re-emerged onto the streets. The Lithuanians alone waved and greeted the German troops as saviours. Swastika flags appeared in the windows of a few Lithuanian households. The Poles were reserved but not hostile; after all, the Germans were supposed to be civilised people, not like the Bolsheviks. The border that divided the German and Russian occupation zones in Poland was very tight and news about German atrocities trickled only very slowly into Wilno.
The look of the German soldiers contrasted greatly with the Soviet troops. There was a notable difference in the quality of their armaments, uniforms, bearing and their general appearance. My brother and I went out to explore the city. A few blocks away on Wileńska Street, German tanks rolled towards Green Bridge on their way north. They were the biggest tanks I had ever seen. We crossed the street and continued past Łukiszki Square, packed with Soviet soldiers sitting on the ground under German guard. We continued towards the next bridge, where there were signs of the previous day’s bombing, destroyed buildings and craters in the street. In one of the craters we saw two bodies. They looked rather peaceful, as if asleep, with only a trickle of congealed blood on the ground beside them. These were the first war dead I saw.
For days thereafter, large columns of defeated Russian soldiers were marched through the streets of Wilno escorted by very small numbers of German soldiers. Their appearance was pitiful; many were walking wounded, with bloody bandages. They all begged for food and water. Whenever a local tried to give them some bread or water, the German guards prevented it, mercilessly kicking and rifle-butting any Russian trying to pick up the offered bread or water. They tried to prevent civilians taking pity on the prisoners.
A few days later, a school friend of mine told us that there were Russian rifles to be salvaged in the burned-out barracks. We picked up some old sacks from our cellar and joined him on this expedition. When we arrived at the barracks we found them unguarded and several people already scavenging. We found the armoury and in the smouldering rubble there was a large number of rifles with the wood stocks burned off. We each picked one up, wrapped it in our sacks and headed home. I also found a box of flares for a signalling pistol and added that and a bayonet to my hoard. When we got home, we secreted our ‘arsenal’ in the cellar.
Shortly after the Germans arrived, mother came to our room, sat down and told us she had very bad news that we would have to take bravely: uncle Karol was dead, murdered in his sleep by a Soviet deserter. I just stood there, biting my lip in silence. I did not cry. In bed later that night, I cried silently. Tears ran down my cheeks, tears of sadness at never being able to see him again and tears of frustration and disappointment: why was he just shot in his sleep, why didn’t he die fighting?
Later we learned what had transpired. Uncle Karol had been living in our summer home together with father. Under an assumed identity he worked as a labourer on a construction site a few miles away. When the mass arrests started a few weeks prior, they decided not to sleep in the house but in the nearby woods. On the evening of the 19th, as night was falling, father said it was time to leave the house. Uncle Karol replied that he was too tired to go and would sleep there. He did not respond to my father’s insistence that they go together into the woods. In the early morning, before sunrise, there was a single shot. When father returned he found uncle Karol dead in bed, shot in the head. A Russian Army rifle was lying on the floor and the house was ransac
ked. Through the serial number on the rifle it was determined that an NKVD deserter from the nearby post shot him in order to take his civilian clothes. His uniform was found abandoned in the house. The day before Germany invaded Russia, uncle Karol was buried under his assumed name.
In the middle of July, mother introduced us to Wiktor Rymszewicz. They had met recently through mutual friends and he had been coming to visit her. From the moment I met him I liked him. He had a military bearing. He was mobilised as a reserve cadet officer in the Polish Army Signal Corps. In the September 1939 campaign he was severely wounded and narrowly avoided being sent to a POW camp. While recuperating he was sheltered by a cobbler’s family and learned the trade. Later, he worked for a watchmaker and was living with his younger cousin, Zygmunt, who arrived from Warsaw at the beginning of the war.
Towards the end of July, mother told us to go and spend the rest of the summer with father in the country house. I did not look forward to it. I very much looked forward to Wiktor’s visits; he always took an interest in what I was doing. At that time I was involved in making airplane models. He was a great help, he had a knack for anything mechanical. He gave me a lot of pointers and help. The first week of August, father arrived and we again walked back to our summer house. It was no longer any fun; none of our old friends where there. The only pleasure was playing with father’s new dog, a mutt called Max. Two weeks later, we walked back to town.
Upon our return Wiktor took us aside, in mother’s absence, and said that he loved our mother and would like to marry her but she kept turning him down. He wanted to know how we felt about it. I was immediately enthusiastic; Andrzej was more reserved but did not object. Wiktor asked for our help to persuade her. Over the next month or so we wore down her objection about his being younger than her. They were quietly married in the middle of September 1941.
After our return I noticed that the office supply store on the ground floor had closed. Mother told us that the Germans had created a ghetto in the Jewish part of the city. Most of the Jewish population was locked up there, including the old lady who owned the store. I was saddened to learn this, she had always been very nice to us and we bought our school supplies from her. She had a large supply of 2 x 3ft sheets of light cardboard printed with cut-outs that one could make into castles, buildings, etc. What interested me most were the sheets with soldiers from different armies and periods. They were printed facing right on the left half of the sheet and facing left on the right half. Thus they could be cut out and glued together to make a cheaper version of lead soldiers. I would spend a long time going through all the sheets before spending my pocket money on one. She was always indulgent, rewarding my small purchase with a candy.
The Jews had been in Wilno for over 600 years and they represented a third of the population. Most of them lived in a Jewish area set within three streets, Dominican, German and Grand. There the Germans established the first ghetto. Through the centre of this area ran Jewish Street, where the Great Synagogue, dating from 1572 with a capacity of over 5,000, was located. In the oldest part of this area the cobbled streets were narrow and winding with deep gutters. The interconnecting alleyways and passages were even narrower. There were shops and workshops everywhere. I had been to that part of town several times as most of our clothes were made there. Practically everything, from underwear to overcoats, was custom-made. Only the owners of the stores and workshops who served mother spoke Polish. It felt like being in a foreign country, teeming with people speaking only Yiddish and wearing different clothing.
At the beginning of September, a huge column of men, women and children moved slowly beneath our windows escorted by Lithuanian paramilitary and a sprinkling of German SS. They carried suitcases and bundles, pushing and pulling baby carriages and carts loaded with personal belongings. The second ghetto was created on the other side of German Street. Both ghettos were surrounded by a brick wall. German Street, running between them, was open to traffic. The rest of Wilno’s Jews, mostly professional and assimilated, were being moved there. My mother was very upset; she knew several of them and some were good friends. We learned that the Lithuanians and Germans had been executing large numbers of Jews and some Poles in Ponary Forest.
The school reopened and I started Year 5. As soon as the Germans arrived, the Lithuanians aggressively restarted the Lithuanianisation of the city: street names were changed, and Lithuanian and German were made the only official languages. They tried, unsuccessfully, to reintroduce Lithuanian as the language of instruction in all schools. The Lithuanians’ hopes for the rebirth of an independent Lithuanian state were quashed by the Germans. The whole area, including the pre-war Lithuanian state, was made part of Reichskommissariat Ostland, one of the two German administrative districts created by Hitler for the administration of conquered parts of Russia (the other was Ukraine). The Germans were in charge, with Lithuanian advisors. Nevertheless, it was Lithuanians who administrated and controlled the police. The German Gestapo took over the old NKVD building. The same Lithuanian security police, previously helping Russians, were now working for the Germans.
My school friends showed me a gadget that made a sound just like a pistol shot. It was very easy to make from an old-fashioned key that had a hole at the inserting end and a large nail that fit tightly into the hole. The nail’s end was cut square and a string, about 3 or 4ft long, was tied from the key handle to the nail’s head. The hole in the key was filled with scrapings from match heads, lightly thumbed towards the end, and the nail inserted. The key-nail combo was swung so that the head of the nail hit a wall. The explosion sounded just like a pistol shot and, if made in the entrance to a building or hallway, it sounded much louder. It was fun to annoy the Lithuanian police and gun-shy German soldiers … I spent a lot of money on matches.
The German administration imposed the same draconian rules, regulations and penalties against the Polish population as it had occupied in 1939. All Polish secondary schools and universities were closed and only Lithuanian ones were allowed. Ownership of cars and motorcycles was forbidden. All radios were confiscated and a severe penalty imposed for owning or listening to one. Food rationing was introduced. A new currency, the Ostmark, was introduced. It was the third change of currency since the beginning of the war, each one limiting the exchange amount and all at confiscatory rates of exchange, resulting in the pauperisation of the population. Another item requisitioned by the Germans was men’s bicycles, but not ladies’. All the ‘male’ bicycles disappeared from the streets and a new type of ‘ladies’ bicycle appeared. It was made by cutting the top bar of the frame next to the seat and welding it much lower. Wiktor’s cousin’s bicycle was one of those that changed sex.
Wiktor found a great hiding place for our radio in the cellar. It was brought up almost every night and we all listened to the BBC’s Polish programme from London. Bedsprings were used for an antenna and the reception was very clear. Wiktor started to teach us Morse code. First we memorised all the letters and then we would practise on the set he produced. One of us would be in one room tapping on a key. The wires led to another room, where the other one would listen to the battery-powered buzzer and transcribe the message. It was great fun and we both became quite proficient.
I decided to show Wiktor our ‘armoury’ hidden in the cellar, containing the two Russian rifles salvaged from the fire, a couple of bayonets and several leather holsters for Polish Army pistols. We had salvaged those holsters after the Lithuanians took over Wilno. My school friend’s father was a janitor in an office building of the pre-war government, where they also lived. We would go and play with him there and my friend showed us an underground air shelter where Polish Army military equipment had been stored. We smuggled out about ten holsters in our school bags. Wiktor said that the rifles were useless and he would get rid of them. However, the holsters were made from good leather. He traded them with his shoemaker friend for skiing boots for us, which he helped to make. This was the same shoemaker who had sheltered him while
he was recuperating from the wounds he received in the September 1939 campaign.
In the middle of the November, shortly after he proudly gave us our new boots, Wiktor was arrested by the Gestapo. There was a wave of arrests of Polish reserve officers and young men from academic circles. Apparently the Gestapo, with help from the Lithuanian secret police, had managed to penetrate some underground organisations. Fortunately, some members of the Gestapo were bribable, unlike the NKVD, which was incorruptible. Mother found the necessary channel and, in exchange for a large emerald ring and a pair of matching earrings set in diamonds, Wiktor was released after a couple of weeks. This jewellery was a wedding gift from her mother, the only items left from her pre-First World War jewels. Wiktor returned, late in the evening, emaciated, unshaven and dirty, with signs of severe beatings. The first order of business was delousing. As he soaked in the bathtub, his linens were boiled and all the seams of his suit were pressed with a hot iron. Next morning, clean and shaven, in fresh clothing, he looked much better, even if the bruises were still visible on his face and he smelled faintly of creosote from the anti-lice soap.
As the snow fell we started skiing again. We both outgrew our skis. I took over Andrzej’s skis and he, mother’s. The Germans requisitioned all skis above a certain length for their army. My mother’s skis, like many others, had been shortened to avoid confiscation. As the winter progressed and the temperature fell, we noticed how woefully unprepared for winter the German Army was. Their soldiers were shivering in their thin overcoats. One day, as I was walking from school, a German officer riding in a motorcycle sidecar suddenly stopped and got out. He grabbed a passing Polish woman wearing a Persian lamb fur coat. He made her take the coat off and cut off the sleeves with his penknife. He took off his thin army overcoat, put on the sleeveless fur coat, replaced his overcoat and drove off leaving the unfortunate woman shivering in -20°C.
My Boyhood War Page 4