Godzina "W"- the "W" Hour

We celebrate the 70th anniversary of the Warsaw Uprising (sometimes called Warsaw Rising) this year.

In 1944, the Western side of Warsaw had been occupied by German forces for five years. The Ghetto had been murderously emptied in 1943, its own uprising having failed. On the Eastern bank of the river Vistula, in the part of the city we call Praga, the Soviet armies gathered. Soviet planes had been dropping pamphlets calling Warsaw to arms for months now, and radio transmissions from Moscow where the Polish Committee of National Liberation had been formed urged citizens to rise up against the Germans.

Meanwhile, the German occupants were already enacting a retreat. Administrative workers were being evacuated. As Hitler had said to Hans Frank, the Governor-General of occupied Poland: Warsaw, perceived to be the nest of the Polish resistance against the Nazi new world order- the 'Polish problem'- was to be destroyed at the nearest opportunity.

Today, some will say the Uprising provided that opportunity, and that it had been cleverly incited by the Soviets, who wanted a clean territory to move into. They could very well have expected it- Hitler's orders were clear: raze Warsaw to the ground and kill every single citizen. Take no prisoners: make it a terrifying example for the rest of the world.

Was the Uprising good or bad? This is a debate which happens every year. Decisions made by the Polish Home Army are often questioned, called foolishness or outright treason in the face of the 200,000 civilian deaths, destruction of 90% of the city, and the subsequent unhindered entry of the Soviets, who proved to be wolves in sheep's clothing. On the other hand, waiting meekly for rescue or oblivion was not a preferable fate- Poland had no options at that time, as even the Allies' help was insufficient, and blocked by the Soviets (sic!). We had already been sentenced to oblivion by both of our neighbours.

Whatever you make of it, one thing remains true: seventy years ago, citizens of Warsaw, civilian and military alike, fought against all odds for two months to liberate their city. 

We didn't always celebrate them- we weren't always able to. In fact, during the socialist days many former members of the Home Army and their families suffered severe repercussions. The Uprising was not a welcome or safe topic.

Even though the system changed in the 80s, it wasn't until the establishment of the Warsaw Rising Museum ten years ago that awareness of the Uprising began to improve. On the 60th anniversary, an advertising campaign aimed at young people was rolled out, featuring photographs of smiling elderly insurgents who would have been teenagers in 1944, and the question: "Would you go?"

I think that is the question we ask ourselves every time we notice the many reminders of the occupation scattered around Warsaw, every time we look at a building that looks old, and know that it was rebuilt from rubble. Would we go? 

You will see many, many plaques like these all around Warsaw. They say: 
"This place was sanctified by the blood of Poles who perished
fighting for our country's freedom", with details below.
In this case:
"In this place on the 27th of September 1944,
Hitler's soldiers shot 22 Poles in an insurgent hospital."

It's hard to put yourself in their place. They had no social media, no global information system. Their parents still remembered the first war, and their grandparents a time when Poland didn't even exist on the map. They lived in a country under the rule of an occupant who had made great efforts to erase their dignity through imposed language, racial and ethnic segregation enacted on multiple levels from the creation of a ghetto for Jews to tram carriages that said 'Nur für Deutsche', forced labour, deportations to concentration camps, random executions, and also very precisely planned executions aimed at cultural and national authority figures. Warsaw was no longer the capital. Warsaw was no longer a Polish city. Warsaw was dead.

Except it wasn't. Warsaw's motto is Semper Invicta- latin for 'Ever Invincible'. Clearly not because its walls have never been breached.

If you happen to be in Warsaw on August 1st, go out into the street just before 5:00 p.m. and wait.  5:00 p.m. on that day is "W" hour. "W" for Warsaw, and for walka, wybuch, wystąpienie; battle, explosion, stepping forward. You should be out in the street, because when the sirens sound, everyone will stop in their tracks and stand still for one minute. People will get out of their cars and stand up from their meals at restaurants. Trams will pause on the rails, buses will turn off their engines. Flags will be raised and flares fired in perfect silence.

And then everyone will go back to whatever it was they were doing.

It's my favourite way of celebrating the memory of the Uprising because it is the one that happens only because people want it to. Nobody forces us to stop. Nobody organises it. Nobody announces it, nobody stands up with a mic and says 'get ready now'. Nobody sets up a stage and gives out freebies afterwards. I guess at some point someone suggested: one minute of silence, and everyone thought it was a good idea. This happens in every part of Warsaw, and perhaps most spectacularly in the centre, where people no longer just stop what they are doing, but come out on purpose to pay their respects to those who fought.

There is another latin motto which we often hear in Poland: Gloria Victis. Glory to the Defeated. 
I will blog again this month about other ways in which we pay our respects to the insurgents.

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Meta:

The video above was shot on August 1st 2014 by the Warsaw Rising Museum. For the 70th anniversary, we stood in silence for 70 seconds instead of the usual minute.

Warsaw Rising Museum website: http://www.1944.pl/en/

Wikipedia Entry on the Uprising: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warsaw_Uprising

A story of two wars

This is a true story and I never tire of hearing it.

My paternal grandfather was born in 1899 in what was then Prussian territory, and so at seventeen, he was drafted into the Prussian army to serve during World War One. He was Polish, of birth and of heart, which he later proved through his actions in the Uprising of 1918, but being born in bilingual territory, he spoke the cleanest German. He was an officer, a professional soldier, and his name was Stanisław Bryll.

Grandpa Staś

In 1939, he fought under General Kleeberg in the last large battle of the September 1939 defensive campaign.

This battle was fought by the small town of Kock (pronounced Kotsk) in the Podlasie region, close to the present Belarussian and Ukrainian borders. Grandpa Stanisław was a scout, mainly on account of his excellent German. Kleeberg's Corps was in fact the last organised unit of the Polish Army left standing, and his men fought fiercely to defend their position, hoping for the aid promised by the French and English Allies.

The Allies, however, never came, and Kleeberg was running low on supplies. My grandfather took part in one desperate skirmish fought with bayonets- the soldiers had no bullets left. But the mad advance was such a shock to the Germans that they retreated. The hopeless charge turned into another victory.

Thus, though outnumbered, the Polesie Group, as they were called, continued to win battle after battle- but their time was running out along with their provisions and ammunition. And when Bolshevik airplanes roared in from the East, Kleeberg was forced to make the difficult decision to disband the Corps.

General Franciszek Kleeberg

So, on October 6th, after sending his men away through the forest, Kleeberg capitulated. He had not lost a single battle in that campaign, and was the last Polish general to surrender in 1939. He did so knowing that there was no hope of winning another battle, and that if his men would be captured by the advancing Bolsheviks, they would no doubt be executed. He was right- by the end of the war, thousands of Polish officers were murdered by the Soviet Secret Police in one of the many attempts of the aggressors to eliminate the Polish elite.

Kleeberg died as a prisoner of war,  but his men escaped through the thick, primeval forests of the Podlasie region. Alas, the hunt was on, and finally, grandpa Stanisław was taken prisoner. Luckily- as it turned out- by the Germans.

Along with a few others, he was marched West, to an unknown fate, under the supervision of a man only slightly older than him. Since he knew German, he began to chat with this Wehrmacht officer, who was after all just another man and not the barking Hollywoodian stereotype Nazi we have come to class all German soldiers as. They talked about the battle, about weapons, this and that- and it was not long before the German noticed something curious about Stanisław. This Pole, he observed, did not only speak perfect German, but he used a particular military jargon.

A very familiar military jargon.

This is the coincidence that saved my grandfather's life. It turned out that Stanisław and his German captor had both served in the Prussian army in 1916. They had practically been brothers in arms, fighting the same battles and skulking in neighbouring trenches at Verdun. They spoke the same language; the instantly recognisable, very particular jargon of WWI soldiers.

I don't know how long the Wehrmacht officer thought about what he did next, and how he rearranged his loyalties. I don't know exactly what went through his mind when he asked Stanisław where he lived.

Fifty, maybe sixty kilometres from here, was the answer. Not too long a walk, for a soldier.

"Kameraden," said the German. "I will turn around, and I will not look. And you will run home."

Who knew whether he would keep his word? As Stanisław turned and made away through the forest, he feared a bullet in his back, as any fleeing prisoner would. Maybe the German was playing a cruel game?

He was not. No shot was fired, no chase given. Out of sentiment, or perhaps out of some complicated loyalty towards his fellow soldier, the German had let my grandfather go.

I never met my grandfather- he died before I was born, in 1969, still hiding from socialist repression towards Home Army soldiers. But in October 1939 he did make it home to his wife and son, exhausted and ill, crawling with lice and wearing a disguise of rags pulled from clothes lines and scarecrows- his uniform would have been a death sentence. He went on to fight in the underground, often working as a spy, using forged papers to pass as a German and gather information.

Here is his grave, which I visited this week for All Souls' Day. He is buried in Falenica, a district of Warsaw, where he died unexpectedly while walking to the train station to meet my stepbrother, and my grandmother. Her name was Helena, and I remember her as she outlived him by nineteen years. She is buried beside him, and it is worth mentioning that she, also, worked for the underground, gathering information while working as a translator in a hospital for German soldiers.

They were both remarkable people. But so was that German officer, whose story we'll never know, at the very least in that moment when he decided to turn his back, and let my grandfather escape. He must have been quite aware that he would not only risk being tried for treason if his deed was discovered, but that the man he had let go would never cease to fight against the invaders.

Whatever it was that made you do it, thank you, unknown German soldier.



Meta info:

Wikipedia page for General Kleeberg's Corps, the Independent Operational Group Polesie:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Independent_Operational_Group_Polesie

General Kleeberg's photo taken from a Public Domain file:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Kleeberg.jpg

The Strońsko-Beleń battle of September 1939

One more WW2 post before we move on to lighter things.

September 1939 is not a good month in my country's memory- the Nazi advance was swift and overwhelming. To put things in context, here is another map which shows, roughly, the borders of Poland in 1939.

You shouldn't trust in the details, my mapping skills are very amateurish- but you get the idea.

As you can see, Germany was much closer to Łódź than it is today, and so the industrial town would be one of the first larger targets for the advancing army, which was then to move on to Warsaw. To stop the attackers and protect the city was the immediate goal of the 30th Rifle Regiment of Kaniów (named so to honour a 1918 victory, the Battle of Kaniów) and the Łódź Army.

There had been, of course, some anticipation of an attack, and so a line of defense had been built along the banks of the Warta river. Alas, it remained unfinished on the day War broke out- supposedly, farmers had asked the army to hold off construction until after the harvest. The defense had to make do with what was on hand- 47 concrete bunkers, few of them complete.

Seven bunkers remain in the area, and are kept clean by volunteers.

Seven of those artillery bunkers remain to this day in the stretch between the villages of Beleń and Strońsko, in the river valley that saw one of the first battles of World War Two.

 Last Saturday, I biked down there to watch a reenactment.

I park my bike, I walk away for two minutes, and when I get back, there's German motorcycles everywhere. Oh dear.

 The event's main organisers were the Strzelcy Kaniowscy Historical Society, a group of military history buffs who work to preserve artefacts and sites relevant to the Rifle Regiments of Kaniów. A few hundred amateur reenactors and extras took part, with several thousand people gathered on the hill above the battlefield to watch.

The Germans

The Poles

An audience for a memorial.

 
In a strangely contradictory manner, it was at once fun and extremely upsetting.

This was not a victorious battle for Poland. The Łódź Army and Kaniów Riflemen held the defense for three days, but were eventually overpowered by the German forces. They hardly stood a chance- one regiment against a whole division. And so, the colourful, picnicking crowd of families that spread over the hillside last Saturday had in fact gathered to honour the valor and memory of those who fought, and failed, by watching them desperately fight and fail again.

Shivers down one's spine are not optional in such a situation. Sitting high up in this naturally-formed amphitheatre, we were directly behind home trenches, our soldiers's backs to us as they scanned the forest line for enemy forces. All was peaceful, at first, and we watched as a group of peasants slowly walked across the valley, the adults carrying bundles, the children clutching beloved teddy bears and dolls. A strangely gentle image of flight- they looked like families out for a pleasant weekend stroll.

My dad was four when the war began. His family packed up and ran East, because the Germans were coming.
Soon enough they turned around and ran back West, because, word had it, the Soviets were coming...

 And then, the skies roared, and a Luftwaffe machine tore through the blue. Down in the valley, the civilians froze, then began to run. Where were they expecting to go? With the forest line behind them, and the trenches too far to offer any shelter, they scattered like rabbits.

I didn't know there would even be an airplane. My first reaction was: "Wow!" And then: "Oh god."

Boom. Boom. Smoke and fire; screams that we heard even where we sat. Most dove to the ground- some never rose again. The airplane tore away and vanished behind the trees, only to return again and again. In the trenches, guns aimed for the skies and the plane, trying in vain to destroy it and protect the refugees.

Then, by the forest, something moved. German troops crept forward, the plane covering their advance.

Closer and closer they came, and even sitting among the colourful crowd, it was not difficult to forget, for a moment, what year it was, and that there was no need to seek shelter. It was over quickly; much quicker than in 1939. From where I sat, I had a good view until the police line thickened and official photographers wandered into my frame. It's always like that, isn't it? The light did not favour me, either- we were staring West at the setting sun. So, the photos are what they are.

Since the reconstruction was spread over a good couple kilometres of the valley, I couldn't possibly see everything. For one thing, I missed the TKS tankette in action on the battlefield, but I'd snuck over earlier and caught it on video. You can watch that here:

Reenactment of September 1939 Stronsko-Belen defense from Poland Is Awesome on Vimeo.

 This TKS is a particularly interesting vehicle as it is one of a handful still in existence, and was recovered in a remarkably good state from Norway, where it was being used as a tractor. Its rescuer, private collector Jacek Kopczyński had his work cut out for him, but he restored it beautifully. This machine dates back to 1936- it was a Polish improvement on a British design, manufactured in Poland and a significant tank force for our army in 1939. It's a titchy thing, but very maneouvrable and good for reconnaissance missions.

The TKS by one of the remaining bunkers.

So, that was my Saturday.  I'd never been to a reconstruction like this before; not one dealing with history as fresh as World War Two- and in Poland, even for generations born decades after the war was over, it is still fresh. Some people say events like these are ridiculous, childish. I would rather say, seeing all the care put into the reconstruction by the historical societies, that they are like a living memorial. An open-air history lesson. This was no popcorn and candy-floss affair, there were no stalls with plastic guns and chinese knock-offs. As we sat on the hill, every minute of the battle was narrated and explained through large speakers, and the conclusion was inevitable- our side would lose. Our country would be invaded and tormented for long years- not only during the war, but after it.

If any of the thousands of kids and teenagers standing on that hill last saturday thought of their fighting counterparts from seventy-two years ago, if any of them found that the distant memory had suddenly become much more fresh and painful for them, then I think the reenactment was worth it. We all need to know where we come from.

Anointment with fake blood. They were not so lucky seventy two years ago. 

Meta info:


The Strzelcy Kaniowscy Historical Society:

http://strzelcy-kaniowscy.pl/strzelcykaniowscy/

The Łódź Army Wikipedia entry:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C5%81%C3%B3d%C5%BA_Army

The TKS tankette Wikipedia entry:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TKS 

On September 1st

Let's get serious for a minute.

For most people around the world, the word 'Poland' means only one thing. World War Two.  Though one of the goals of this blog is to peel that drab label off of the country, that particular period should neither be ignored, nor forgotten. Awesomeness also comes from standing up to an adverse situation, and for the most part, Poland represents.

Yesterday was September 1st, a date globally considered to be the First Day of World War Two. Seventy two years ago on September 1st, two attacks on Poland happened.

The timelines are disputed, but I side with the following. On September 1st 1939, at 4:45 am, without warning or prior declaration of war, the Luftwaffe bombed Wieluń- a small town with no military structures or units stationed, utterly insignificant in strategic terms, but as good a start as any for a ruthless demonstration of power. Soon after, shots were fired from the battleship Schleswig-Holstein, in an attack on a Polish Military Transit Depot on the Westerplatte Peninsula.

Westerplatte is in Gdańsk, on the coast, but Wieluń is about 100 km from Łódź, the city I live in. I am tempted to say that Łódź did not suffer much during the war- compared to little Wieluń, three quarters of which were blasted to ruins, or Warsaw, razed to the ground so thoroughly that she was never fully rebuilt, it seems to have fared well. But what it did not lose in brick and mortar, it lost in flesh and blood.

Wieluń after the bombing, and Warsaw at the end of the War. If you've seen the Pianist, my dad tells me it was exactly
like that, with one difference- everything was red from the shattered brick. Movies usually show the ruins as grey.

Indeed, you would be hard pressed to find a place in Poland that remained untouched. The wounds of the War in Łódź may not be as apparent as they are in Warsaw, but they certainly exist.

One such wound gapes open in the ruins of the Radogoszcz Prison, now a Monument and Mausoleum. Once a textile factory built by Jewish businessman Samuel Abbe, in Nazi hands it became a grim holding facility.

The remains of the prison, now a memorial and mausoleum. You can still see it has the shape of a factory.

It is supposed that some 40,000 people passed through the gates of Radogoszcz Prison. How many were killed, how many deported and how many sent to labour camps, it is difficult to tell. Its first 'residents' were chiefly Polish and Jewish intelligentsia, citizens of renown, taken in accordance with the Nazi repressive strategies which aimed to eliminate the intellectual elite and leave behind malleable masses fit for slave labour, yet uncapable of rising against the oppressor. About 1500 people, intellectuals, office workers, clergy and military veterans were murdered in the Lodz region alone.

The prison also served as a transit point for labour camps, death camps, and mass execution sites, often the end fate of those who committed crimes against the Reich (breaking any of the special laws that applied to the 'subhuman'), or were simply taken randomly from the street.

"Never again to fascism"

But on the night of January 17th 1945, the prison saw its first mass execution. The Eastern front was approaching, and orders to retreat were dispatched by the SS command- orders which stated that all prisoners must be exterminated before the troops move out.

A wave of mass murders swept over Poland. In the Radogoszcz prison, about 1500 people were still being held. At midnight, the German soldiers began the massacre, using firearms, bayonets, and finally a machine gun which fired bursts at prisoners being chased out of the building. When the soldiers reached the third floor, they met with resistance from the prisoners, who fought back by throwing bricks and debris.

Thus confronted, the Germans decided to burn the prison down. Bullets awaited those trying to escape the flames. Only twenty five prisoners survived.

Five of them did so by submerging themselves in the prison's water tank. It was housed at the top of the building, and filled using small steam-powered pumps. A similar tank, taken from a different building with the same gravitational water distribution system, is now on display in the old prison yard.

A water tank used for gravitational water distribution.

The plaque explaining the event has the following quote from Bolesław Popławski, a survivor:

"(…) We submerged ourselves in the water, then surfaced again for a moment after. Our heads were covered with wet blankets. A half hour later or so the roof collapsed, giving us more fresh air. We climbed out of the tank and hid in the corner, between the tank and the wall, by the sandbox. We watched what was happening. We couldn't climb down, because the Germans spent all day in the yard, guarding the prison.


(…) Once it started to get dark (that is, on Thursday evening) we climbed downstairs, to the ground floor, over dead bodies, because we had to warm up. We were freezing cold. We sat behind the chimney and heard the Germans finally leave Radogoszcz. At around nine or ten at night, a car drove by and took the rest of the Germans. In the night, two prisoners who had hidden on the roof joined us, then seven more from the roof.


We sat there all night, and at around five in the morning we took a ladder from the storage room. In the kitchen we saw the body of the cook dressed in a leather jacket. We climbed out of the window into the yard and crawled along the ground. In this manner, we made it to the outer wall, which we climbed using the ladder. We leapt over the barbed wire onto Zgierska street, and ran into the fields. I was the seventh one to climb over the wall."

For over a month, citizens of Łódź tried to find and identify the bodies of their close ones among the burnt-out ruins. The found remains were buried in February 1945; in 1961,  a memorial sarcophagus was unveiled in the prison yard. The inscription on it states:

Here we lie

murdered 
on the eve of freedom

Our names and bodies were taken by the fire

We live on only in your memory.

May a death so inhuman

Never again repeat.

Meta info:

Warsaw and Wieluń photos:

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Old_Town_Warsaw_waf-2012-1501-31(1945).jpg

http://pl.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Plik%3AWielun_zbombardowaneCentrum.jpg&filetimestamp=20071004082258

Radogoszcz Mausoleum and Memory Museum official site:

http://www.muzeumtradycji.pl/page/index.php?str=109