We were in the tunnel through the eighteenth, the nineteenth. That is, relocation was on August 20 at the earliest. August 26 was the evacuation. And the twenty-third (I think that was it!) was a memorable day. But we spent several good days there. Certainly two or three more days before the twenty-third. Because in memory those two good days seem like several days. Almost like a week. And not only in memory. Because they did at that time, too. During that period right before the worst on Rybaki Street we began counting time differently, faster. It seemed to pass more slowly. But only sometimes. And that was just how it seemed. Actually, time was condensed.
So, the twentieth day of the uprising. We are in a new shelter, beneath the pillars. In times of war, it seems, there is always a return to matriarchy. And especially during that war. That uprising. Particularly with that descent underground, under Warsaw (into the anthill of the shelters). It was a relapse — an explosion. Of the cellars? The caves? What’s the difference? Masses of people. The mothers rule. Sitting underground. Hide! Don’t stick your head out! Mortal danger. Nonstop. Even if you don’t stick your head out. And coping. It’s good that candles and big and little carbide lamps were found. Also those chickens, their feathers plucked to make feather beds. Somewhat better weapons than the cavemen’s. But not much better. And not all that many. For the chosen. Stocks of food. Although they grew smaller until finally they disappeared. After all, what kind of stocks were there? Animals? There weren’t any. The larger ones had been eaten already. And the small ones? Some people kept an animal they loved, took it below and sat with it. With an animal. But that was unusual. Particularly in Starówka. There were fewer pets there. Or they weren’t taken. Underground. Or they were brought along and died. Whatever didn’t escape, fly away, burn up, cave in, die, was hunted down. Cats disappeared. Dogs disappeared. There’s no use even talking about winged beasts. Only that cricket in the wall when it grew dark. And then, in September — lice.
So, the shelter under the pillars. At first there was a normal crowd. Or rather, plenty of room. One couple. I remember. Young. How energetically she shook her carbide lamp. From Zakroczymska Street.
“They bombed the ruins three times…”
I was appalled. Because the conversation had started with me saying precisely that they probably don’t bother to bomb ruins. So now I didn’t want to believe it. Because we were beginning to count on the ruins as a safer place. That’s fate for you.
“Of course they’re bombing the ruins. And deliberately, at that.”
This is where the question of electricity becomes confusing. It seems it was still on then. But I can remember how frequently she shook the carbide lamp. Her hair was cut short. Always in motion. Even sitting she was in motion. Whenever the carbide lamp died out she would grab it and shake! shake! And “ssss”—and the flame was large again.
Aside from that there was nothing new in the shelter beneath the pillars. Dawn. Heat. Burning. The Sisters of the Holy Sacrament. They were still on fire all this time. Almost the whole time. Smoke was drifting over from them. From high up. From above the escarpment. And from below. There was something there, too. And over there. And immediately: “They’re here already.”
We could hear the planes flying over us. At once, on the first day, I’m sure; I remember a bench beside the wall under the pillars in the gray light from the window. People started coming in from the bombed buildings. In tattered clothing. Hungry. With scarcely anything in their hands or with nothing at all.
“I’m so hungry,” a young woman says.
“Have some,” an old man on the bench interrupts his soup-drinking. And when she’d already begun eating he said, “I haven’t eaten anything for two days, but I’m holding out.”
At night the shells and the “wardrobes” had a heyday. And yet the nights were better. Because they were without bombs. At night there were more actions. The kind for civilians. Volunteer work. Only at night now was it possible to move the barricades. That’s what it was all about. Once. I remember. We had obviously lost some ground. Or perhaps it was only a tactical move. It was necessary to move the barricade several meters. In our direction. On Rybaki Street. Not too far from Wytwórnia. A gathering. Of volunteers. At one or two o’clock. A lot of us. Twenty-odd, I think. Shovels. Pickaxes. Crowbars. Everything is distributed. We get moving. It’s delightfully warm. At this moment it’s even quiet. It seems to me there are even stars. But how could there be stars?! Surely they were veiled by the smoke. A lieutenant leads us. A lieutenant? Could it be? That’s what I was told. During the uprising a lieutenant was a somebody. So maybe it was a corporal. Or a civilian warden, a semi-military person. (I don’t want to go into matters of military organization now, but it’s worth recalling that all told there were some fifty-five thousand partisans in Warsaw.)
So, we walked. Our housing block (B plus C and D), the picket fence across from it, the escarpment with the Sisters of the Holy Sacrament, the wall. The barricade. The intersection of Rybaki and Kościelna Streets. Again a barricade. Various ditches. On the Wybrzeże side, storehouses and something residential. Rybaki is all twisted, now wide, now narrow. Cobblestones. On the left, the escarpment, above parapets, walls, ruins. (That’s right — ruins!) On the escarpment, on the hill behind the cupola of the Sisters of the Holy Sacrament — Our Lady. Gothic. With its distinctive spire. From the side, winds blowing from the Vistula. Finally, the searchlight windmills. What’s underfoot keeps changing. Suddenly, dry grass. Or earth slides. Or piles of something or other. I can remember with some certainty only those cobblestones. And also that on Rybaki Street we could see slightly lower buildings. And the barricade. Which we had to move. And then suddenly a silence. Which went on and on. So that at last we became very afraid.
“Ssshhh… The Germans…”
“Shh… They’ll hear us…”
We approach our goal. Everything swings into motion. Behind the barricade there was another stretch of Rybaki. And its extension. I think the roadway dipped lower. The moving of the barricade was literal. Slab by slab. Every piece of paving stone. Rail by rail. (Perhaps those tools I mentioned weren’t distributed for this job; I’ve confused this with another nighttime action.) The night wasn’t too long. At any moment just about anything could happen. The silence became more and more suspicious. So we developed a tempo. Tempo. Movement. There were many heavy and clanking objects. And — I remember — many sheets of metal. And sheets of metal create echoes. A lot of bustling, people, moving at a trot and rushing to get the next piece, and once more all over again. And all the time, during this hurrying about and moving and passing each other, in this rush, everyone would shush everyone else.
“Ssshhh…”
But after all, with so many people and things, something had to be sacrificed. Because of all that haste. So putting things down was more like throwing. Only it was also like stacking things up. There was so much!