Isaac's Army
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27 Irene Sendler, who rescued three thousand Jewish children Ibid., p. 142.
28 “I was so sure of myself, and the guard looks at my pass and says ‘Where did you buy it?’ ” Simha Ratheiser-Rotem, author interview, Jerusalem, March 2009.
29 “I was always calmest whenever I was in the most danger” Ibid.
30 “It was filled with women wearing all kinds of creams, curlers” Tec, When Light Pierced the Darkness, p. 34.
31 in 1944, its budget exceeded two million zlotys a month Kunert, Zegota, p. 35.
32 The five-hundred-zloty monthly subsidy from the Council prevented eviction Zuckerman, Surplus of Memory, p. 418.
33 “I contrived a system for myself for finding streets and people” Ratheiser-Rotem, Kazik, p. 97.
34 “I was certain he had no chance” Simha Ratheiser-Rotem, author interview, Jerusalem, March 2009.
35 “He bandaged his face and pretended to be mute” Ibid.
36 He personally headed a cell that was sheltering 280 Jews Gilbert, Righteous, p. 143.
37 “I can testify only that a lot of money did arrive” Ratheiser-Rotem, Kazik, p. 99.
38 “I was a bodyguard” Simha Ratheiser-Rotem, author interview, Jerusalem, March 2009.
39 In just one October 1943 cable to London, he acknowledges receipt of $10,000 and £10,000 Mark, Powstanie W Getcie Warszawskim, p. 181.
40 “The only luxury on the menu was a glass of vodka” Ratheiser-Rotem, Kazik, p. 99.
CHAPTER 36: ZIVIA GETS HER GUN
1 saplings … would grow into a dense, dark forest Author site visit, March 2008.
2 Boruch Spiegel became convinced that Hitler was going to lose Boruch Spiegel, author interview, Montreal, November 2007.
3 an astounding forty-seven thousand copies a day Ozimek, Media Walczacej Warszawy, p. 77.
4 In mid-May, German bureaucrats were issued handguns Bartoszewski, 1859 Dni Warszawy, p. 677.
5 “In the street markets … German military nurses are selling openly watches and cigarette cases” Korbonski, Fighting Warsaw, p. 346.
6 327UNSUCCESSFUL ATTEMPT ON ADOLF HITLER’S LIFE Ozimek, Media Walczacej Warszawy, p. 83.
7 “He played the great socialist with our bourgeois money” Joanna Olczak-Ronikier, author interview, Warsaw, December 2008.
8 “People of the Capital! To Arms!” Zenczykowski, Samotny Boj Warszawy, p. 26.
9 Twenty thousand troops still remained in Warsaw Bartoszewski, 1859 Dni Warszawy, p. 711.
10 Mietek Pera, code name Frenchy, was in fact ferrying Sten guns Mieczyslaw Pera, oral testimony, Warsaw Uprising Museum, online at http://ahm.1944.pl/Mieczyslaw_Pera.
11 “In the twinkling of an eye, the remaining civilians disappeared from the street” Bor-Komorowski, Secret Army, p. 216.
12 Nearly forty thousand Home Army combatants had risen up Ibid., p. 208.
13 “Most Poles saw the [People’s Army] as phraseologists or as aliens” Zuckerman, Surplus of Memory, p. 525.
14 “It was obvious to us that the insurrection had twin goals” Lubetkin, Zaglada I Powstanie, p. 149.
15 The Polish flag once again flew atop the Prudential Life Insurance Building Bor-Komorowski, Secret Army, p. 221.
16 In the first twenty-four hours of combat, the Home Army lost two thousand men Wladyslaw Bartoszweski, Powstanie Warszawskie (Warsaw: Swiat Ksiazki, 2009), p. 28.
17 “The People’s Army knew of our contacts with the Home Army” Ratheiser-Rotem, Kazik, p. 66.
18 “They put me off with hemming and hawing” Zuckerman, Surplus of Memory, p. 523.
19 a brass plaque on the building informs visitors that double Nobel laureate Marie Curie had been born there Author site visit, January 2008.
20 “It would be too great a historical responsibility to send the few survivors of the Ghetto Uprising back to war” Zuckerman, Surplus of Memory, p. 534.
21 “Finally we can start living again” Edelman, I Byla Milosc w Getcie, p. 130.
22 “I hid in a store that was burning” Mark Edelman, author interview, Lodz, May 2007.
23 “ ‘Jew, you set the building on fire’ ” Ibid.
24 delivering $40,000 in U.S. currency Edelman, I Byla Milosc w Getcie, p. 132.
25 The pariah National Armed Forces, with 72,439 members nationwide Sebastian Bojemski, Narodowe Sile Zbrojne w Powstaniu Warszawskim (Warsaw: Fronda, 2009), p. 32.
26 Only one in ten Home Army soldiers was properly armed Ciechanowski, Powstanie Warszawskie, pp. 116–17.
27 the Gestapo had seized a stockpile of 78,000 grenades Luczak, Dzieje Polski 1939–1945, p. 427.
28 “I wasn’t going to fight with people trying to kill me” Beres and Burnetko, Marek Edelman, p. 208.
29 each intricately decorated with pastel murals and glass mosaics depicting folk tales Author site visit.
30 “It was twice her size” Ibid., p. 210.
31 The Home Army had only one thousand rifles in all of Warsaw Bartoszweski, Powstanie Warszawskie, p. 22.
32 “all the Gentiles knew that this was a Jewish unit” Zuckerman, Surplus of Memory, p. 535.
33 which enjoyed a seven-to-one numerical advantage over the retreating Germans Zenczykowski, Samotny Boj Warszawy, p. 56.
34 “Mein Führer … the action of the Poles is a blessing” Norman Davies, Rising ’44: The Battle for Warsaw (New York: Viking, 2004), p. 247.
CHAPTER 37: SIMHA’S SECOND SEWER RESCUE
1 That Saturday they murdered twenty thousand residents in Wola alone Bartoszweski, Powstanie Warszawskie, p. 38.
2 “If I changed the Polish names, it would sound like a Jewish story” Zuckerman, Surplus of Memory, p. 523.
3 “They drove us from the cellars” Central Commission for Investigation of German Crimes in Poland, eyewitness testimony record no. 57, online at http://www.warsawuprising.com/witness/atrocities4.htm.
4 “Between 11 and 12 noon … the Germans ordered all of us to get out” Ibid., record no. 63.
5 was supposed to be fighting in the 6th District, third region, as platoon number 693 Oral testimony, Warsaw Uprising Museum, online at http://ahm.1944.pl/Mieczyslaw_Pera.
6 “To the credit of the Poles … they were brave people” Zuckerman, Surplus of Memory, p. 538.
7 “I have been scared many times in my life” Ibid.
8 the Home Army’s Information Bulletin was receiving over one thousand new missing persons reports Ozimek, Media Walczacej Warszawy, p. 145.
9 two million rounds of ammunition airlifted to Warsaw by converted RAF bombers Davies, Rising ’44, p. 311.
10 “Cinders were flying everywhere. You couldn’t see the sun for all the ashes” Ibid., p. 256.
11 including the Holy Sacrament Monastery in New Town, where a thousand people who had taken shelter all perished Bartoszewski, Powstanie Warszawskie, p. 91.
12 Spam and Philip Morris cigarettes Permanent exhibit, Warsaw Uprising Museum, Warsaw.
13 Gradually the two German forces were closing in on the five thousand defenders caught in the middle Bor-Komorowski, Secret Army, p. 285.
14 “A single house could change hands several times a day” Mark Edelman, author interview, Lodz, May 2007.
15 German losses during the latest push exceeded 1,570 men Rozwadowski and Ignatowicz, Boje o Warszawe, p. 153.
16 a kilo of butter soared in cost to a staggering 2,400 zlotys Bartoszweski, 1859 Dni Warszawy, p. 781.
17 In fact, “the opposite was true” Paulsson, Secret City, p. 171.
18 “I have to say that everyone, including the civilians, treated us cordially” Lubetkin, Zaglada I Powstanie, p. 150.
19 so-called Bear Cubs, Chevrolet Suburbans retrofitted Permanent exhibit, Warsaw Uprising Museum, Warsaw.
20 “The carved oak beams in houses burned like matchsticks” Bor-Komorowski, Secret Army, p. 286.
21 The only food left was tinned tongue and wine Ibid. p. 290.
22 “It became clear that no one was going to survive much longer”
Simha Ratheiser-Rotem, author interview, Jerusalem, March 2009.
23 “I was placed in charge of a unit of mainly sergeants and officers” Ratheiser-Rotem, Kazik, p. 125.
24 “My nostrils were assailed by a well-remembered repulsive odor” Borzykowski, Between Tumbling Walls, pp. 179–80.
25 Tuvia grabbed her and pulled her by the hair Ibid., p. 182.
26 Zivia, meanwhile, had fainted, and Isaac carried her on his shoulders Zuckerman, Surplus of Memory, p. 543.
27 In all, some 5,200 people managed to escape Old Town Bartoszewski, Powstanie Warszawskie, p. 94.
28 “drunken soldiers practiced Caesarean sections with bayonets” Davies, Rising ’44, p. 344.
CHAPTER 38: FOOLISH ERRANDS
1 the death toll in the Warsaw Uprising was approaching 150,000 Tadeusz Sawicki, Roskaz Zdlawic Powstanie (Warsaw: Bellona, 2010), p. 190.
2 Marshal Rokossovsky’s 3,360 tanks were now in Praga Zenczykowski, Samotny Boj Warszawy, p. 122.
3 “a purely adventuristic affair to which the Soviet government could not lend a hand” Rudy Abramson, Spanning the Century: The Life of W. Averell Harriman (New York: William Morrow, 1992), p. 382.
4 “without the prior knowledge of Soviet military command” Zenczykowski, Samotny Boj Warszawy, p. 118.
5 “They’re pigs, not soldiers” Cezary Gmyz, Rzepospolita, May 17, 2008, p. 1.
6 “I’ve got used to the sight of male corpses” Davies, Rising ’44, p. 353.
7 “He took me and my mother by the hand” This occurred to the author’s mother, Dr. Wanda Brzezinski.
8 A nearly mile-long trench separated the rebel and German positions Piotr Basmajew, Historia Zoliborskiego Powstanca (Warsaw: PAX, 2008), p. 90.
9 “all black and splattered with mud, reeking and covered in feces” Ibid., p. 74.
10 “She ordered us to dunk our heads into it” Edelman, I Byla Milosc w Getcie, p. 141.
11 where half of the thirty documented murders of Jews by Gentile insurgents were committed Paulsson, Secret City, p. 181.
12 “Part of the evidence was that Frenchy was frequently seen in the company of a Jew” Ibid., p. 176.
13 “Why endanger ourselves for papers? … For history” Ratheiser-Rotem, Kazik, p. 126.
14 historians estimate as many as 4,500 Paulsson, Secret City, p. 168.
15 “He immediately brought out a large sum and gave it to us” Zuckerman, Surplus of Memory, p. 546.
16 grains seized from the Haberbusch and Schiele breweries Goldstein, Five Years in the Warsaw Ghetto, p. 211.
17 one hundred and ten B-17 Flying Fortresses, escorted by 72 Mustangs Zenczykowski, Samotny Boj Warszawy, p. 119.
18 “Everything around going up in flames, walls caving in—and that music” Ratheiser-Rotem, Kazik, pp. 127–28.
19 “This river rat was always squirming his way everywhere” Edelman, I Byla Milosc w Getcie, p. 130.
20 They climbed inside, momentarily safe Simha Ratheiser-Rotem, author interview, Jerusalem, March 2009.
21 one hundred thousand people were already crammed behind the hastily strung barbed wire Davies, Rising ’44, p. 386.
22 had permitted a two-hour cease-fire to evacuate nine thousand residents Sawicki, Roskaz Zdlawicz Powstanie, p. 154.
23 almost twenty-six thousand German casualties, including ten thousand dead Rozwadowski and Ignatowicz, Boje o Warszawe, p. 153.
24 “There were shiny new automatic weapons, tinned meat and milk” Borzykowski, Between Tumbling Walls, p. 186.
25 “Every house in the quarter was hit several times by shells” Ibid., p. 189.
26 had to be fired at very close range—less than fifty yards—to be effective Badmajew, Historia Zoliborskiego Powstanca, p. 66.
27 “The echo of that shooting made me completely deaf” Zuckerman, Surplus of Memory, p. 547.
28 “The whole unit had come back, except for Zivia” Ibid., p. 548.
29 “I asked one of the Gentiles to bring me some spirits” Ibid.
30 “Do you want to know what color a person who has taken a direct hit from a tank shell leaves on a wall?” Edelman, I Byla Milosc w Getcie, p. 144.
31 of the twenty-one people in his unit, he was the only one alive Assuntino and Goldkorn, Straznik, p. 105.
CHAPTER 39: ZIVIA’S CUPBOARD
1 After sixty-three days and nearly two hundred thousand fatalities Lukas, Forgotten Holocaust, p. 219.
2 “You can’t do this!” Simha Ratheiser-Rotem, author interview, Jerusalem, March 2009.
3 “Don’t shoot, there are women down here” Ratheiser-Rotem, Kazik, p. 131.
4 to run fire hoses through coal chutes to drown everyone inside This was experienced by the author’s mother, who as an eight-year-old stood on her mother’s shoulders in a cellar in Warsaw as water poured in. The flood stopped when the water pressure broke a door down.
5 “The ruins are exceptionally photogenic” Stanislaw Kopf, Wyrok na Miasto (Warsaw: ASKON, 2001), p. 9.
6 “They were probably taking us there to rape the girls” Simha Ratheiser-Rotem, author interview, Jerusalem, March 2009.
7 a Wehrmacht officer stopped the Ukrainians and asked where they were headed Ibid.
8 its cemetery had been transformed by the SS into a makeshift crematorium http://www.Swiety-wojciech.pl/historia.
9 “And how long have you had that name?” Ratheiser-Rotem, Kazik, p. 133.
10 A total of 650,000 people would eventually pass through its gates Kopf, Wyrok na Miasto, p. 28.
11 “Three hundred thousand people are now enjoying the fresh air” Ibid., p. 27.
12 “Hundreds of human beings had to parade in front of German officers” Ratheiser-Rotem, Kazik, p. 135.
13 along with 150,000 other able-bodied Varsovians Paulsson, Secret City, p. 219.
14 “A mood of apathy descended on me” Ratheiser-Rotem, Kazik, p. 135.
15 “I suppose fate had dictated that we should live” Lubetkin, Zaglada I Powstanie, p. 151.
16 The spiteful omission affected four hundred combatants in Jolie Bord Sawicki, Zdlawic Powstanie, p. 154.
17 “We didn’t know what to do” Lubetkin, Zaglada I Powstanie, p. 151.
18 “The women knew, and we knew, too, that our presence was not to their advantage” Borzykowski, Between Tumbling Walls, p. 199.
19 He soon grew “very mad at Zivia,” because “it seemed she pinched me the hardest” Zuckerman, Surplus of Memory, p. 551.
20 “must completely disappear from the surface of the earth” Ceiechanowski, Powstanie Warszawskie, p. 662.
CHAPTER 40: DESPICABLE YIDS
1 “Everything beneath us lies in ruin” Kopf, Wyrok na Miasto, p. 100.
2 Pens filled with a few grams of explosive, enough to remove a hand Ibid., p. 93.
3 “We budgeted the precious liquid with mathematical precision” Borzykowski, Between Tumbling Walls, p. 203.
4 “Get us some help” Ibid., p. 215.
5 “I had a feeling that Gestapo agents were everywhere” Ratheiser-Rotem, Kazik, p. 140.
6 “I was sure the SS would be looking for me sooner or later” Simha Ratheiser-Rotem, author interview, Jerusalem, March 2009.
7 “It seemed as if several platoons of soldiers had invaded the house” Borzykowski, Between Tumbling Walls, p. 215.
8 “We got to know the soldiers working around our house” Ibid., p. 216.
9 “That night was a night of horrors” Zuckerman, Surplus of Memory, p. 552.
10 “She had to be careful since she didn’t know whom she was telling it to” Ibid., p. 553.
11 “Passing Germans looked at us with curiosity” Borzykowski, Between Tumbling Walls, p. 220.
12 warning “Achtung, Fleckfieber” Beres and Burnetko, Marek Edelman, p. 213.
13 “Despicable Yids” Mark Edelman, author interview, Lodz, May 2007.
CHAPTER 41: MARK AND THE MOHICANS
1 “It was the saddest day of my life” Mark Edelman, author interview, Lo
dz, May 2007.
2 “I finally realized that it was over” Simha Ratheiser-Rotem, author interview, Jerusalem, March 2009.
3 “Are you crazy?” Ibid.
4 “Give them everything they want, for after all, they are killing Germans” Abramson, Spanning the Century, p. 345.
5 Soviet losses were sixty-five times greater than America’s Hitchcock, Liberation, p. 132.
6 More than twenty million Soviet citizens had died fending off Hitler Ibid., p. 131.
7 “the barbarian invasion” Abramson, Spanning the Century, p. 395.
8 “Harriman was never included in the private talks on Poland” Ibid., p. 376.
9 “He is a very sick man” Conrad Black, Franklin Delano Roosevelt: Champion of Freedom (New York: Public Affairs, 2005), p. 1075.
10 On April 5, 1945 … the United States formally … recognized the new Provisional Government Slawomir Cenkiewicz, Sladami Bezpieki I Partii (Lomianki: LTW, 2009), p. 37.
11 “his heart bled for them, but the brutal facts could not be overlooked” Hitchcock, Liberation, p. 155.
12 in Warsaw, the population had rebounded to 162,000 Luczak, Dzieje Polski, p. 492.
13 “I cannot believe how fortunate I am to be alive” Olczak-Ronikier, W Ogrodzie Pamieci, p. 298.
14 “I went crazy and almost killed them” Simha Ratheiser-Rotem, author interview, Jerusalem, March 2009.
15 “She thought a tearful little girl with long plaits would fall into her arms” Olczak-Ronikier, W Ogrodzie Pamieci, p. 297.
16 “A lot of our misfortunes were solved after the war because they remembered what we had done for them” Zuckerman, Surplus of Memory, p. 357.
17 “We were firm friends” Ibid.
18 an estimated 11,500 Warsaw Jews had survived the war Paulsson, Secret City, p. 198.
19 Eventually, more than 150,000 Polish Jews returned from the Soviet Union Jan T. Gross, Fear: Anti-Semitism in Poland After Auschwitz (New York: Random House, 2007), p. 43.
20 raising the total number of Jews in Poland to more than 200,000 Beres and Burnetko, Marek Edelman, p. 220.