by Jana Petken
“It’s been confirmed, then? We’re really going to take Warsaw?” Paul asked, unhappy with the slight tremble in his voice.
Wójcik’s humorous eyes sparkled. “I like your optimism, Lekarz Paul. Yes, we are going to take Warsaw. It’s as simple as that.”
Kurt, wearing a deep frown as he often did when worried, said, “It is not simple at all. I’m not happy about the timing. We were supposed to start the uprising at dawn and take the Germans by surprise.”
Bogdan concurred. “It’s ridiculous to ask Warsaw’s civilian population to go through today pretending they know nothing about the uprising. And what if the Germans decide to round-up people, as they did yesterday?”
“What’s going on?” Paul asked, still not up to speed on the ongoing mobilisation plans.
Romek answered. “Four days ago, the governor of the Warsaw District called for one hundred thousand Polish men and women to report for work as part of his plan to construct various fortifications around the city. The people of Warsaw declined the invitation, and their refusal has opened them up to reprisals. If the Germans make mass arrests today, it will diminish our ability to mobilise. Kurt and Bogdan are right … we should be starting the uprising at dawn with the Soviets coming in at our backs.”
“Where are the Soviet forces now?” Paul asked Romek, who had just returned from a meeting in Warsaw with Home Army commanders.
“Their armoured units reached Warsaw’s eastern suburbs two days ago. The Germans counterattacked with two Panzer Corps, but the Soviets have held,” Romek answered.
Bogdan glared at the ashes in the campfire and declared, “They say they will come to our aid, but I think they will watch and wait in their positions and then try to take the city when we’ve thrown the Germans out. No one in their right mind should believe a word from that Stalin’s mouth. They’re a deceitful lot.”
Romek shook his head. “You’re wrong, Bogdan. I was in Warsaw and heard that radio station based in Moscow – Kosciuszko, it’s called – emit an appeal. They were asking the people of Warsaw to fight the Germans. They said a Polish Army, trained in the Soviet Union, was preparing to enter Polish territory to help us. Do you think these Poles will betray us?”
“If they’re under Soviet command, they will do as their Russian masters order them to do. You seem to forget the massacre in Katyn forest, Romek. The Russian NKVD, their Secret Police, killed those Polish officers. I know it. You mark my words, the truth of it will come out one day.”
“Cut it out, Bogdan. This sort of talk is not helpful,” Wójcik said, narrowing his eyes in warning.
“He’s right,” Kurt joined in. “We should be focusing on how we’re going to wipe out the Hitlerite vermin from Warsaw today instead of second-guessing the Russians.”
Bogdan insisted, “I’m telling you the Soviets want Warsaw for themselves…”
“And that’s precisely why we must take the city before the Soviet-backed Polish Committee of National Liberation can assume control,” Romek finally snapped.
Bogdan rose to his feet, rifle slung over his shoulder and a metal flask in his hand. “You don’t want to hear what I have to say, so I will leave you to your optimism. My unit is moving out. We’re going to get into the city early to take up our positions. Good luck, all of you,” he flung over his shoulder as he walked away in a huff.
Wójcik and Kacper, who had said very little during the discussion, also stood.
“We’ll meet you back here in thirty minutes. Be ready to move,” Wójcik said, picking up his gear.
Romek, Kurt, and Paul remained behind. Paul, studying Romek, noted the deep lines in his furrowed forehead and said, “You’re worried, Romek. We all are, but what’s bothering you the most?”
“You know me too well, Paul,” Romek responded with a deep sigh. “Half these men have not been to Warsaw in years. Apart from the shock of seeing the destruction of the city’s buildings and infrastructure, they will confront a German army. There are over eleven thousand troops stationed at the city’s garrison alone, including Waffen-SS volunteers, and they have been preparing for an attack for months.”
Romek spread his arms, gesturing to the mass of Poles getting ready to depart the forest and head to the city. “They don’t have the full picture. Their commanders have skimmed over the full extent of German defences, but I’ve seen the hundreds of concrete bunkers and barbed wire lines protecting the buildings and areas occupied by the Wehrmacht. They’ve got army units made up of Schutzpolizei and Waffen-SS, and auxiliary detachments of the rail guard, factory guard, ethnic Germans and paramilitary units stationed on both banks of the Vistula and in the city. You heard the singing last night, the victory cries, the belief that we will throw the Germans out within days? I worry this is not going to be the short, successful offensive the men are hoping for.”
“Should we postpone the uprising?” Kurt asked Romek.
“No. We had to make a decision … either initiate the uprising now in this difficult political situation where we risk a lack of Soviet support, or face Soviet propaganda describing the Home Army as impotent or worse, Nazi collaborators. Our commanders feel that if Poland is liberated by the Red Army, the Allies will ignore our London-based Polish government in the aftermath of the war, whenever that may be. Bogdan was right on everything he said. We can’t trust the Soviets, but we cannot back down either…”
Romek hesitated, as though dreading his next words. He stared at Paul, finally saying, “If the Soviets don’t come to our aid, I don’t believe we will take the city.”
Paul, as a doctor first and foremost, very rarely sat in on strategy meetings. He did as he was ordered, went where his unit went, and usually didn’t know about missions until the last minute. This was different, however. This was not a stealth-like mission to hijack German supply lorries or weapons on convoys and trains; this was going to be an open battle with Poland’s capital being the prize. Romek should be nervous but also optimistic. It seemed, however, that he was neither.
Kurt, also concerned, said, “You’ve met with our Allies in London, Romek. You know the way they think better than any man here. Will they help us?”
Romek shrugged, “My government-in-exile have been trying diplomacy to gain support from the Western Allies, but the British and Americans say they will not act without Soviet approval. Royal Air Force flights have been dropping Polish personnel trained in Britain … money and supplies, but in answer to your question … no, I think we will have to stand alone.”
“Then that’s what we’ll do,” Paul said with blazing optimism.
Romek straightened his stooped shoulders. “No more talk of defeat. You two and Amelia will be with me. Wójcik’s unit will also join us. We will be positioned in Area I, in the Warszawa-Śródmieście … that’s the city centre and Old Town. Paul, after we take it, you and Amelia will be based with the medical teams in the Wola district.”
Romek leant in closer to Paul and Kurt, who were sitting opposite him. “From now on, the two of you will speak only Polish. I know you, and Bogdan, Wójcik and Kacper know you, but thousands of Poles will be out for German blood, so don’t get yourselves shot for speaking German and being mistaken for spies. Paul, you can tell the medical team you’re working with that you are a German Jew, but no more.” Romek bent down, picked up a pile of clothing, and handed it to Paul. “It will be confusing in the streets. Wear this Polish army jacket along with the medical armband. All doctors, Red Cross, and medical teams will be wearing the armbands.”
Romek seemed to relax. He lit a cigarette and sighed as he blew out the smoke. “No more talking or planning. No more hiding in forests for weeks and months. Now, we fight together. Now we take our capital back, and we’re going to do it with over forty thousand men in our first strike force.”
Kurt smiled. “If I had a drink, I’d drink to that.”
Chapter Fifty-Two
The Warsaw Uprising
5 August, Warsaw, Poland
“Get out!�
�� Kurt’s loud, guttural order startled the doctors and patients in the basement, which was already noisy with the unceasing cries and moans of the wounded. Paul, who was treating a man’s open fracture of the tibia bone in his shin, whipped his hand away from the wound, turned, and blazed at Kurt, “There are over sixty patients in here, Kurt…”
“You must evacuate now, Paul. Right now.”
This was the third basement Paul and his team had been forced to leave in a hurry. The medics had learnt the drill and standing orders that should not be broken; patients too ill to walk were to be left behind. Paul cursed under his breath and threw a sheet over his patient’s open wound revealing the shattered bone, muscle and tissue. “I’m sorry,” he said, in a subdued voice.
“Kill me, Doctor. I don’t want the Germans to finish me off…”
“Move, now!” Kurt’s booming shout alarmed Paul again.
Paul glanced around the long, narrow basement. The walking wounded were already being ushered up the stairs by the Red Cross volunteers. The two other doctors working with him began to refill their medical bags and boxes with sterilised surgical instruments, medicines, drugs and anaesthetics, surgical equipment, bandages, and anything else they could get their hands on. Nothing was to be left behind for the enemy or wasted on those who were probably going to die at the hands of the Germans.
Women, including Amelia, left their traumatised patients begging for merciful deaths and followed the evacuees and Kurt’s men, who were carrying the physicians’ precious equipment out. Paul stiffened his back and hardened his expression. He had discussed this scenario with the other doctors and had timidly suggested that they should find a way to give the dying mercy before the Germans got to them. He was, however, overruled on the two occasions he’d brought the subject up.
“I’m sorry, I have nothing to give you. God bless you,” he said to the young man he’d been trying to save.
Paul, the last man to leave the basement, met Kurt at the building’s exit. Bullets were flying in both directions, forcing the men to stay put in the doorway. Paul shoved aside thoughts of the wounded downstairs being executed when the Germans came upon them, and instead, focused on Kurt. It had been a week since the two men had spoken together, and Kurt was showing signs of battle fatigue.
“Kurt, your head is bleeding.”
“Forget it, Paul. Three German attack groups are advancing westward along Wolska Street. That’s only two streets from here. They’ve got Einsatzgruppen, SS death squads, police, and Wehrmacht troops going house to house, room to room, shooting every person they find, regardless of age or gender. I’m sick with the smell of dead bodies, blood, shit, and burning flesh. They’re burning bodies inside the buildings and out in the streets. It’s a slaughter. The men in our battalion are trying to hold them back so we can evacuate this district up to our main communication lines on Jerusalem Avenue. We’re going to regroup before they wipe out our pockets of resistance – if we can get out of this doorway.”
“Where did the people from the basement go?” Paul asked, in a calm voice that belied his fear.
“My men are leading them to our lines. I’m taking you to Romek.”
Finally, a lull in the firing. “Stay close, Paul,” Kurt said, then made a run for it.
Whilst in the basement, Paul had heard the bomb blasts, the racket of sub-machine gun fire, the incessant whistling of shells dropping from the dreaded German Stuka Junkers 87 bombers, and the terrible rumble of concrete buildings crashing down. But what he’d heard a floor underground had been like a whisper compared to the deafening turbulence of war in the street.
The two men crouched as they ran behind a barricade that stretched the width of Górczewska Street. Halfway across, a German tank shell blew apart much of the protective wall. Paul and Kurt flew backwards in the blast wave, then thudded against the ground. Most of the Poles who had been manning the barricade were either dead or in the same state as Paul and Kurt, lying on the ground some metres from the blockade.
Paul, winded, deaf, and confused, observed obscure figures and shapes doing a strangely slow jig. He rolled over and tried to rise to his knees…
Kurt, swaying as he tugged Paul’s arm, mouthed, “Get up, Paul. Stand up.”
Unsteady on his feet, Paul followed Kurt’s lips moving again; this time mouthing, “Run.” The ground vibrated. Paul turned his head and gasped as the tank’s gun turret, barrel, and then its body, in an almost vertical position, breached the blockade and crushed the remaining household furniture, planks of wood, stoves, sinks, and everything else that had been used to build it.
“Run … can you run, Paul?” Kurt shouted, pulling a stunned Paul behind him.
When they reached the junction of a street five hundred metres from the destroyed barricade, the men halted. Paul bent double to catch his breath. At some point during the frantic dash to safety, he had regained his senses and much of his hearing, but now he was in pain. He gingerly touched the bleeding gash on the back of his head with his fingers. It wasn’t a shrapnel wound; he had banged it on the ground when he’d fallen from what had seemed like a great height. But it was still dripping blood. In shock and shivering as if he were being hit by a blast of arctic air, he stayed in his bent over position to try to settle his nerves.
“Romek’s over there,” Kurt eventually said, gesturing to a building on the other side of the street.
Paul zigzagged through the crowd of Polish fighters behind Kurt. The men had sub-machine guns, ammunition crates with grenades, garden hose flamethrowers, mortars plus boxes full of bullets on a truck.
“Gifts from the Germans,” Kurt said, following Paul’s gaze.
Paul raised his eyes to the rooftops where men were manning sub-machine guns trained down the length of Jerusalem Avenue. Paul wondered how many other transport vehicles and weapons the Poles had managed to acquire. Being under-equipped, the Home Army’s policy was to scavenge for every bullet, flask of water, or piece of bread from dead, captured, or wounded Germans as they went through the city’s streets. He’d seen Poles fighting with rocks and stones, knives and hammers.
Having come to, Paul observed his surroundings more clearly. A hundred or more Poles were crowded into this narrow street stinking of gun powder, cordite, and diesel fumes. Some were helping load injured men and equipment onto a second German truck while other insurgents sat against a partly destroyed building taking a breather. Pushing through his recent trauma, Paul caught up with Kurt and said, “I think you were right about the retreat.”
“I didn’t say it was a retreat,” Kurt snapped back and then apologised in the same breath. “Sorry, Paul. That tank shook me. It was too damn close.”
“It’s good to see we have trucks,” Paul said, changing the subject.
“Thanks to our earlier gains, we’ve got transport in a lot of districts. We haven’t met our objectives yet, but we’ve done well. We took a major German arsenal, the main post office, the power station, and the skyscraper, Prudential Building. We have most of the Old Town and the city centre. Come on, we’ll find coffee and Romek. He’ll know more about the current situation than I do.”
In the basement of a partly destroyed building that they would have been forbidden to enter in peacetime, Paul and Kurt found Romek, Wójcik, and other commanders. They were in deep conversation in what had once been a storeroom connected to the main space where medical teams were treating the wounded.
“It’s good to see you, Paul,” Romek said.
Paul responded, “You, too … you as well, Wójcik. I’ll go make myself useful.”
Back in the main basement area, Paul saw Amelia and the rest of his medical team, who were already organising the wounded for another evacuation. Paul waved to Amelia, his relief at seeing her in his wide, cheesy grin. She rushed to him, concern on her face as she examined his head wound.
He kissed her, then said, “I’m all right. Go back to work.”
Paul’s eyes swept the room. Numerous injured patients lay
on the floor being treated by men and women wearing their Red Cross armbands. His eyes caught a man bending over an injured woman and he smiled again. Despite the dire situation, he couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt this much pleasure.
“Anatol,” he uttered softly as he reached his old friend.
Anatol craned his neck, his exhausted face brightening when he saw Paul, “My God, Paul, I hoped I’d see your ugly face.”
“Can I help here?”
“No,” Anatol said, helping his patient to her feet. “We’re clearing out. You can see to the wounded evacuees upstairs, and I’ll join you in a few minutes.”
When Paul returned to the storeroom, Romek, Kurt and Wójcik were in the middle of a heated debate about decisions that had been made by the Polish commanders. He glanced around the tiny space but hovered in the doorway while a radio operator was speaking to someone on the other end of the line. Activity in the main room heightened. Soldiers had arrived and were helping the last of the injured up the stairs while the doctors were gathering everything they could carry.
“Paul, I’m taking a few volunteers to join Zośka and Wacek’s battalions. The scouts are going to try to take what’s left of the ghetto. Do you want to come?” Romek asked.
“Yes.”
“Good. If we succeed, we’ll use the area as one of our main communication links between the Resistance fighting in Wola and those defending Old Town. You will set up a medical station there.”
Paul took advantage of the five-minute break before the last of the units were due to move out of the area and sat with Amelia against the ruined building’s wall, holding her hand and stroking her fingers. She was brave, efficient, and never cringed at the horrors or lost her calm. Even now, as German tanks closed in and the murderous machine-guns rattled from surrounding rooftops, she maintained her unruffled demeanour.