“Ssshhh…”
We ran with the material from the old barricade (which was growing smaller and smaller, disappearing) into the shadows of Rybaki, to the new barricade, which was growing larger and larger. Passing the apartment houses near the Vistula. And the wooden house near the escarpment. Suddenly someone — could it have been me? — dropped a sheet of metal. Onto the cobblestones. Clang! Crash! A monstrous echo. At that moment everything, the background of utter silence and the August warmth, seemed so suspicious to us that we froze. I don’t know whether it was really caused by that. But right away a flame sailed over us. Alive. Whining. And crashed somewhere. Nearby. A shell.
Then a second. A whine. Like a comet. And crash! From the Kierbedź bridge. And a third: Fire — whine — crash! Fire — whine— crash! From the opposite direction, from the Gdańsk bridge, without warning. Yet another from the Gdańsk bridge. Another from Kierbedź. From Gdańsk. From Kierbedź. And crash! crash! Suddenly. They had caught us between two fires. Literally. As it happens, we had just about finished the barricade. And even if we hadn’t we couldn’t have managed for long. From a third direction too, I think. From the Vistula. Or the zoo. I only know there were these flames from various directions. Intersecting. Crossing each other. Red.
I didn’t understand it immediately. What to do? And what about the others? Somehow they began to disappear. I had to disappear. But how? Where to go? I rush over to a wall. No protection. I slip into the doorway of the apartment building near the Vistula. It really did face the Vistula. And all of Praga. I don’t know if it had a courtyard. Or how it was demolished. I know there was nothing there. Only the Vistula, Praga, the shells, and the echoing explosions. Someone else next to me. How long could I stay there, stand there? One, two, in a minute I jumped out. And up to the wall. And the sidewalk. I see… that is, I sense: unexpected salvation — a tiny window leading into a cellar. I flatten myself out like a cat. Jump. Down. Someone behind me. Also like a cat. And someone else. Warmth emanated from inside. And chattering: buzz-buzz-buzz…
I landed in a huddled mass of people, a tight crowd, men lined up one beside the other. They were us — the men from the barricade. With something, shovels (that’s it, I remember shovels)… But it was so crowded here. And there was absolutely no other exit, hole, hidden recess. Only that cat’s window above and that tiny space. Warmth. As much being alive as stench and fear! And pressing together with feline resourcefulness. Barely room for five sacks of potatoes. Every now and then someone else slid in through the window. One of ours, one of the ones still outside. Leap! And he’s in. It got more crowded every time. You couldn’t move an arm or leg. So you didn’t move. After all, this was happiness — just being here. So that cat’s leap from the street didn’t mean a thing. Something was going on. Splat! Against our barricade. Something spreading. Splat! Against the pavement. Right here. Splat! Into the wooden shed. High flames. For a moment. Then lower. The wooden shed was burning down.
How long did we stay there? For a long time, and yet not till morning. It began to quiet down while it was still night. Rapidly. It stopped. We rushed out. Our tools clutched in our fists. What we didn’t have with us had to be collected. Quickly. What else? I don’t remember. Only that it was done quickly. Cobblestones. The sky. August. Something (a shovel?) under my arm. Kościelna Street. The corner. Near the barricade — the one over here — silence — just a couple, a partisan and his girl — sitting beside the barricade, on duty. And chatting away. As if there were no other way, there could be no other way. Only the warmth. Just sitting there. The barricade like a piece of furniture. And that chatting. That I was happy, that I was going home — I remember that, too.
Morning — from the beginning: sun, heat, smoke, planes, bombings, burning. I keep remembering. Should someone wish to picture to himself the three destructions of Warsaw — September 1939, the uprising in the ghetto from April 19 to about May 20, and the 1944 Warsaw Uprising — all of them happened precisely under such suns, heat, burning, planes. Heat, the sunshine, and a blue sky mingled with fires, smoke, explosions, sifting plaster, all of which added (and this is hard to believe although it is true) something exotic. Or rather, an extra whirling in one’s brain.
So — that’s how it was from early morning. Those were already the days when every hour, every half hour, something collapsed nearby, crumbled, closer, farther off, higher. Part would be saved, if at all possible. If they could, people would dig each other out. Every so often new people would come into our shelters. Sprinkled with plaster dust, with or without bundles, without anything, with children, with families, or alone. They walked in. They ran in. Everyone was welcome. That was obvious. The bunks became more and more crowded. Gray light from the window. There was still room. Then people came in, all the time more and more new people. Several times a day. Now 23 Rybaki, our passageway, was bombed. Now some house on Mostowa. Now on Kościelna. Now Rybaki beyond Kościelna. Now Boleść.
At one point, four generations of the bombed walked in. Lusia Romanowska with Mareczek; her mother, Pani Rymińska; and Pani Rymińska’s aunt, Aunt Zosia, in a black cap, a black coat, carrying a dark cane.
“Good afternoon… may we…”
“Yes. Please. Of course. Where are you from? There’s room here. Please come in.”
“From 2 Kościelna. Now we’re the ones they’ve bombed. We’re lucky to be alive.”
We made room for them near us. We — all six of us with our little cookstove of three bricks beside a pillar. They probably sat on a bench. Mareczek was three or four years old. Aunt Zosia had come to visit Lusia on August 1. Lusia was a writer. We hit it off. Talking, talking. But there were new bombs.
“One, two, three, four…”
New people buried. And those who’d survived came in.
“May we?”
“Of course, where are you from?”
They sat down. They told us.
Our entire shelter under the pillars lived in great friendship. There wasn’t a single quarrel or argument here. Actually, it wasn’t really bad in the other shelters, either. The shelters were getting better and better. And the situation was getting worse and worse.
I don’t remember the date. August 23 or 24? In the afternoon. That day we stood up many times. There was some sort of instinct that made us stand during a bombing. Not sit. Perhaps you wouldn’t sit it out. Or maybe it was because of the pillars, because we would stand around the pillars. Maybe there was one little percent better chance near the pillars. In fatal situations. Like what happened to Father. Once — around this time — he ran into a cellar somewhere between Marszałkowska and Zielna, when something smashed down nearby and broke through the cellar and plaster began to rain down at an angle. Everyone stood in place and covered his head with his arms. So that in case a brick should suddenly fall down they might still have a chance. And somehow they survived. These people. The ones next door, other people began digging them out right away.
So that was in the afternoon. We stood near the pillars for a rather long time as I recall. The planes were flying over, one after another. And dropping bombs. Then other planes followed. And bombs. We didn’t know what was happening in our blocks. What they’d already hit. Where they’d broken through. Maybe it was then that the people were buried in block A, from Rybaki. I know that there wasn’t any singing — not then. Nor counting “one, two.” Swen’s mother, her head against a pillar beside me, was praying silently. Or in such a way that it couldn’t be seen. The lights were on then — I remember that. Yes, it was definitely then that block A was bombed. Because the planes kept flying in. With that whining sound. Then the whine of a bomb. Of one, of a second. And a strike. Something would explode. Nearer and nearer. It was then — practically into our shelter — near the last pillar I think, under a lightbulb — that suddenly a lady in a light, quite ordinary coat stood up. No one knew her. And suddenly, in that silence, she started speaking.