In the spring of 1944 mother finally relented to our request for a dog and we got a female Fox Terrier puppy. We named her Zabcia, meaning ‘little frog’. She was a very lovely, active dog, but also very mischievous. She was great company, and we tried to take her with us everywhere.
The weather was unusually warm that summer. By the end of May we had already started to swim in the Vistula, about a month earlier than usual. In just a few months Andrzej had shot up and was now taller than mother, standing about 5ft 7in. He had also filled out and now weighed almost 110lb. I was about half a head shorter.
We continued with our clandestine lessons. My group of eight 13-year-olds, a so-called komplet, met at the homes of two different parents. Because my mother ran her business from our apartment, it was not considered advisable to meet there. One of the apartments used was on Królewska Street overlooking the Saxon Gardens. The father of our classmates was a doctor. In his bookcase, his son found a copy of The Ideal Marriage by Van de Velde, which we all paged through with great interest. The last chapter was a description of sexual positions … in Latin! We spent a considerable amount of time with a Polish-Latin dictionary trying to translate it – it was definitely more fun than translating Cicero.
Our Boy Scout squad started its field exercises. Every other weekend we took a train to a forest in one of the suburbs. We always dispersed into small groups of two or three, never travelling in a pack. We would go to a secluded area and start our exercises: compass training, estimating distances and heights, finding north without a compass and so on. We would go to the edge of the forest and make a topographical sketch, noting any important features of the surrounding area. We trained in signalling with flags. The other boys were also learning Morse code, which Andrzej and I had already learned from Wiktor in Wilno. We practised first aid, improvising and applying tourniquets and splints, immobilising injured limbs and carrying the wounded. We practised reconnoitring, walking point and hand signals.
During one of these exercises in the middle of May, while walking stealthily through a pine forest near Swider, we came across two Hitlerjugend boys a couple of years older than us. They were in their uniforms: black short trousers and brown shirts with black kerchiefs. They had black belts with knives that were small replicas of an army bayonet. We surrounded them so they couldn’t escape, ripped off all their insignias, badges and buttons from their trousers and took their belts and knives. They tried to resist but soon gave up. With a few well-placed kicks we sent them on their way holding their trousers up. We separated into smaller groups and dispersed, making our way towards two different railway stations. Shortly thereafter we heard whistles blowing, shouts in German and the noise of a large group running through the forest behind us. As Andrzej, one other boy and I reached the outskirts of Swider, we spotted a large group of about twenty Hitlerjugend boys emerge from the woods behind us with several SA men brandishing pistols. Luckily, a train was starting to move out just as we reached the station and we managed to jump on. The rest of our group also got away safely.
After we moved to Warsaw, the Russians bombed the city only once, in May 1943, causing considerable damage. By the beginning of 1944 the Germans had improved the anti-aircraft defences in Warsaw: AA guns were placed on bridges and other strategic locations, open water reservoirs were built on large squares and a blackout was enforced. Every building had buckets of sand in the stairwells and all bathtubs had to be filled with water at all times. In June 1944, Russian planes started to appear over Warsaw at night. Air raid sirens would wail and we would take the kitchen stairway down to the shelter in the basement. The planes would drop flares, German AA guns would fire and then the all-clear would sound. In the last week of June, we again made our way to the basement. This time the sirens were not a false alarm, the bombardment was real and the city was bombed, once again suffering considerable damage.
As June ended we completed our studies and graduated to the next class, Andrzej with all As and I with Cs. In our Boy Scout squad we all completed and passed the requirements for the Młodzik rank, the first of five. We were now qualified to take the wartime Boy Scouts oath:
I vow to serve in the Grey Ranks, to safeguard the organisation’s secrets, to obey service orders and to never retreat before the sacrifice of my life.
The oath ceremony was scheduled for early August.
Towards the end of July 1944 there was a different feeling in Warsaw. German patrols on the streets where less frequent. There was excitement in the air as people gathered under the ‘barkers’, the megaphones of the German public address system. They smiled and chuckled hearing pronouncements of ‘a planned retreat to prepared positions’ or ‘shortening of the front lines’. There were no more announcements of public executions.
On Sunday 23 July, the Germans started openly evacuating their families as well as their offices, warehouses and factories. The atmosphere bordered on panic. As Andrzej and I walked through the streets in the centre of Warsaw we saw trucks being loaded in front of German offices. There was much activity around the German offices in Piłsudski and Theatre squares, and at the headquarters of German Governor Fischer in the Brühl Palace courtyard. The entire area was jammed with heavily loaded trucks. Passenger cars full of families, departing in haste, streamed out of the German sector of town.
The most amazing sight of all, which everyone enjoyed watching, was the withdrawal from the Praga district on the eastern side of the Vistula, across the Poniatowski Bridge, heading westward along Jerusalem Avenue. There was a never-ending flow of the most incongruous assortment of vehicles: there where horse-drawn carts, large army horse wagons and little farm carts pulled by small, shaggy tired horses, some loaded with army supplies and others with household goods. On the carts sat women and children driven by Cossacks, Ukrainians and other collaborators. Domestic animals, cows and horses were tied to the carts. There were flocks of sheep and herds of cows. They all looked tired and dejected, in sharp contrast to the Warsovian bystanders, who openly smiled and joked about the motley spectacle. In amongst the human flow were German Army vehicles withdrawing in good order.
Columns of German Army units made up of kalmuks, collaborating nationalities such as Azeris, Cossacks and others, marched through the streets. The Hungarian division was withdrawing from the front and moving to the south of Warsaw. Hungarians and Poles had always been friendly with each other and there was friendly contact between their troops and the Warsovians.
A Hungarian cavalry unit was riding down our street. I stood in front of our building watching them as an officer dismounted in front of the ice cream parlour. When he emerged from the shop, his orderly held his horse and stirrup while he remounted; however, the horse shied away, causing the officer’s foot to slip and he lost his balance. When the officer remounted he hit his orderly across the face with his crop. Onlookers started to boo as he cantered off. I was stunned as I could never imagine such behaviour in the Polish Army.
After a few days the exodus subsided. Heavily armed German units once again started patrolling the streets. Large open police cars, with submachine guns pointing in all directions, roamed the streets. They started to fortify their offices and facilities, military and security stations, and the entrances to their sector. There were concrete bunkers and a lot of movable barbed wire barricades known as ‘Spanish Riders’.
Hitler issued an order demanding that Warsaw become a Festung Warschau, a fortress to be defended to the last man. On the afternoon of 27 July, the ‘barkers’ demanded that 100,000 men present themselves for the construction of a fortification in front of Warsaw. This order was also plastered on walls around the city but was completely ignored as no one showed up. Over the next few days shops and places of business started to close. Russian planes flew overhead and the faint sound of artillery was audible to the east.
On Saturday 29th, Wiktor came out of the master bedroom wearing his Polish officer’s riding boots, breeches and a windbreaker rather than his customary suit. Mothe
r stood behind him with a sombre face as he told us he would be ‘going away for a few days’. Wiktor gave us each a hug, put on his raincoat and beret, and gave us a wink as he walked out the door. We knew what was coming.
A few days before, we had what turned out to be the last meeting of our Boy Scout squad. The same assembly point in case of an Uprising was reconfirmed. On Sunday 30th, Polish Underground publications were openly distributed. I watched an aerial fight between Russian and German planes in the skies over Warsaw. A Russian plane was shot down and a parachute floated down in the distance. On Monday 31st, most businesses did not open. Young people dressed like Wiktor moved briskly about the streets. German patrols were less frequent but larger; instead of the customary two soldiers, there were four to eight. I didn’t see anyone confronted or stopped.
The grumble of artillery fire from beyond the Vistula was quite audible. It sounded as though the Russians would soon be in Warsaw.
PART 3
BATTLE FOR WARSAW GLORIA VICTIS (GLORY TO THE VANQUISHED)
‘… Polish pride and German shame … We bow today before the sacrifice and the pride of the men and women of the Polish Home Army’
German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder, on the sixtieth anniversary of the Warsaw Uprising, Warsaw, 1 August 2004
10
Centre of Town, 1–5 August 1944
On 1 August 1944 I woke up to an overcast morning. It had rained all night. At breakfast mother reiterated the same orders that she had issued since Wiktor left: you may go out but stay close to the apartment and come back to check with me every hour or hour and a half.
There were noticeably more young people moving purposefully about the streets of Warsaw on foot, carrying packages, bags and knapsacks. They tried to look military; some of them were wearing oficerki, the black riding boots of Polish officers, windbreakers and raincoats with military-type belts. Young girls carried bags that we recognised as first aid kits. There were young people with packages travelling fast on rickshaws. German patrols walked the streets pretending not to see them. Likewise, open German police cars, bristling with the barrels of Bergman submachine guns, sped through the streets without stopping.
At noon the air raid sirens sounded an all-clear that lasted for a very long time. This was unusual as there was no preceding air raid warning siren and I had not seen any Russian planes that day.
We returned to mother’s empty beauty salon for lunch around two o’clock. Ever since the Germans had started evacuating Warsaw her business had dropped off drastically and her two employees had stopped coming to work. After lunch we washed the dishes. Again, we were allowed to venture out but no further than a few blocks in either direction, and only on our street. We noticed a large decrease in foot traffic and the passing trams were only half-full. A large German patrol passed by but they didn’t attempt to stop anyone. The soldiers were in Air Force uniforms, most likely from the AA batteries protecting the nearby Poniatowski Bridge. A large open-topped police car carrying about ten policeman holding their Bergmans at the ready drove by a few times. An open-topped Mercedes touring car carrying Gestapo officers clutching MP40s also sped by.
Around 4 p.m. we heard the first shots: single shots followed by the staccato of submachine guns punctured by grenade explosions. The street started to empty. We returned to our apartment and told mother that it had started and that we must go to our assembly point on Saviour Square. She replied that we couldn’t go anywhere until the situation became clearer, but allowed us to watch events on our street from the entrance to our building. We ran downstairs and joined a small group that had already gathered there. The street appeared empty in both directions but the sound of firing and explosions came from all over.
After 5 p.m. everything intensified greatly. The sound of very heavy fighting came from the direction of Napoleon Square. The large post office building there was protected by concrete bunkers. We heard more machine gun fire punctuated by explosions. No fighting was visible on our street; it was completely deserted except for a few small groups like ours standing in doorways.
Two teenage girls ran by carrying medical bags, hugging the wall, and stopped in our entranceway. They wore red and white armbands on their right arm. Polish red and white flags started to appear on buildings. We ran back across our courtyard to our staircase, then up the stairs to the top landing. I opened the window and listened to the fighting from the direction of the post office. From the window we could clearly see the Prudential building on the other side of Napoleon Square. With its sixteen floors it was the tallest building in the city. From its radio-TV tower flew a large red and white Polish flag. We were very excited, and ran down to our apartment to tell mother. She smiled and hugged us but looked very sad.
As night approached, the intensity of the fighting decreased. We could see the distant glow of fires as it started to drizzle. Again we went upstairs to look out over the city. Several big fires were clearly visible in all directions, including a large one in the direction of the central railway station. When we returned to the apartment we were ordered to go to bed. I lay in bed very excited, I was sure that in a few days all of Warsaw would be liberated. I hoped that in the morning we would be able to join our squad. As I drifted to sleep I heard the rain becoming heavier.
On 2 August, the second day of the Uprising, I woke to the sound of heavy fighting from Napoleon Square. I quickly ran up the stairs to make sure the Polish flag was still flying from the Prudential building. It was.
Again Andrzej and I hung around the entrance to our building. The street was still empty. From time to time, someone would run down our side of the street staying close to the wall. Any attempt to cross the street was met with machine gun fire from the BGK bank, about two blocks away at the intersection with Jerusalem Avenue. From the other end of the street we heard machine gun fire. It was impossible to move around the street or to start building barricades. We saw sporadic German military traffic on the avenue. We realised it would be impossible for us to cross the avenue in order to reach our assembly point.
We went back to the apartment and established a position at our ‘observation point’, next to the highest window in our stairwell. Behind our building was the Blikle coffee house garden, a very popular place that had entertainment in the summer. In the afternoons Mieczysław Fogg, a very famous Warsovian singer, would sing his latest hits accompanied by an orchestra. The stage was directly opposite our apartment so we could hear and see the concerts from our balcony. On the other side of the coffee house gardens was the four-storey W. Górski Gimnazium, which organised the clandestine secondary school programme we had been accepted into a year before. The building was under attack by the insurgents. There were shots, grenade explosions, machine gun and submachine pistol fire. There were shouts and then the fighting stopped. The building was captured.
I realised that if we broke through the wall between our backyard and Blikle’s gardens we could establish a connection to W. Górski Street and into the centre of town. I raced to find the gatekeeper who was standing by the entrance with a couple of men. I told them of my plan and the gatekeeper took charge, procuring a sledgehammer and pickaxe. It did not take long to make an opening in the brick wall. On the other side of the gardens we made another opening into the small square at the end of Górski Street.
We found ourselves in front of the gimnazium that had just been captured. There were many insurgents in a variety of dress, mostly civilian with a sprinkling of different uniforms, all wearing red and white armbands. There were a variety of head coverings: civilian caps, old Polish Army caps and helmets, mostly German with some Polish. All headgear had Polish eagles or red and white markings. Many people were armed, but not everybody, there were rifles, submachine guns, revolvers and Molotov cocktails. There was excitement, so much excitement after five years of occupation.
Heavy fighting continued at the post office building. That afternoon, the sound of shooting and explosions from Napoleon Square subsided and eventually
stopped altogether. Word soon got out that the post office had also been captured and was now in Polish hands. People started to emerge from their buildings and we went to have a look. There were signs of heavy fighting everywhere, walls pockmarked by bullets, broken windows and big holes from tank shells. There was a destroyed German tank and a burned-out truck. There were also very frightened looking German prisoners. The insurgents and population were in great spirits. Later we watched as the soldiers of Kiliński Battalion, who had captured the post office, marched down Szpitalna Street. They were there to secure the nearby area, including our building.
When Andrzej and I returned home, I was afraid that we would be scolded for being gone such a long time. Mother just listened sadly as we told her, with great excitement, about everything we had seen. As I fell asleep a red glow from the fires reflected on our ceiling. I wondered where Wiktor and Zygmunt were fighting.
The next morning, 3 August, began with a light drizzle. There were no changes on our street; machine gun fire still made it impossible to build barricades. We went to the Górski Gimnazium, where the units of Kiliński Battalion had camped. We spoke with a few of the officers, asking them to take us on as runners, but they already had enough. Again we tried to cross the avenue but the heavy fighting continued and there was no way to get across.
We returned to Napoleon Square to take another look at the destroyed tank, a turretless assault gun. It was used as a centre point of the barricade on Szpitalna Street blocking the entrance to Napoleon Square. On the square there was a large open water reservoir built at the beginning of the year as part of the air raid defences. It made a perfect swimming pool. Several soldiers were swimming and washing themselves in it. Again we approached some officers and, again, had no luck as they were only taking fighters with weapons.
My Boyhood War Page 8