“People, let us pray, and we’ll survive. People, let us pray to Saint Christopher”—and she hastily extracted a medal from her purse.
Again something pelted us. And again, whooooo.
She held up the medal.
“People, Saint Christopher will lead us out of this morass.”
New planes.
The woman in the coat began to speak, in a monotone, but so that each word reached me, with its full meaning.
He that dwelleth in the secret place of the Most High
Shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty.
I will say of the Lord, He is my refuge and my fortress:
My God; in Him will I trust.
Swen knelt down. Beside me. Near the pillar. The whining. And then we heard that we’d been hit. The lights went out. Something shuddered. Things began crashing down above us. The ceiling from the third floor broke through onto the second.
Surely He shall deliver thee from the snare of the fowler,
And from the noisome pestilence.
He shall cover thee with His feathers,
And under His wings shalt thou trust:
His truth shall be thy shield and buckler.
Something rumbled. It was still sifting down on us. But the entire time the woman in the coat kept on talking.
For He shall give His angels charge over thee,
To keep thee in all thy ways…
Something was pouring down above us.
A moment’s interruption.
They shall bear thee up in their hands,
Lest thou dash thy foot against a stone.
I believe it was at this point that she broke off.
Again the vibrations began. A noisy moving about. More and more. Swen squeezed my knee. I pressed my eyes into my face and hid my head in my collar. Is this it already? Already? Yes, too bad, only will it strike from the head? To the feet? Will it knock you flat? If only it could be quick. Two ceilings crashed down together from the second floor to the ground floor, so now it was our turn. Swen pressed his head against my knee. Swen’s mother stood there without changing her position. It was very quiet. There was absolute silence. Only something was rumbling, sifting down, still sifting, sifting…
It was black, everything swirling.
Suddenly… we understood that we wouldn’t be smashed. And only then did people start to croup, choke, cough.
Someone screamed, “The doors! Are the doors still there?”
“The doors! Take a look! Have we been buried? The doors!”
“Matches! Who has matches?”
“The doors! I think we’re buried! The window’s covered! Matches!”
Zbyszek, coughing, was the first to light a match.
“There’s nothing to see…”
Another; he goes closer.
“No, it seems there aren’t any doors — they’re buried! No! They’re here! They’re here! They can be opened… it’s all right, it’s all right…”
We inspected the bombed-out block A only from the Rybaki Street side, on the next day I think. Swen and I. No one went to inspect what remained above us after the bombing. Not even the next day. No one was curious. I was amazed. It wasn’t clear, I think, what had happened with the lights, although probably they were still on. Where the wires hadn’t been cut. But I distinctly remember people saying on the second day that the showers on the ground floor were working. With cold water. No point in expecting warm. Swen didn’t feel up to a cold shower. I’m also afraid of cold. But it was hot. And besides, I considered that those working showers — after something like that — might be the last occasion for bathing — in such a peaceful time — after the raids — on the second day — toward evening— because, after all, those showers were somewhere above us and under us was — who knows what? — so what did it really look like?
I skirted the corridor, the stairs, the exit, and stood in front of our ground floor on the courtyard side, the second one. I even entered the ground floor. Because it could be done. And those showers really were there. They were in working order. There were even shower stalls. And it was possible — because no one was in a hurry to wash there — to strip naked and bathe in freedom. And what did the rest of the building look like? The rest — those two broken ceilings, that is, fused into one concrete mushroom, which itself was fused with the rest of the ground floor. Our shelter was where the hole with the showers ended and the fusing of the mushroom with the ground floor began.
On that very same day, the second day after that bombing and later ones that went on from morning till night, after my bath, in the evening, after things had quieted down, from the bombs at least, a priest ran into our shelter. Not into ours alone. But to other shelters, as well. And he wasn’t the first priest. He came running in order to distribute to each shelter the so-called last sacraments. He just came running as he was. He had nothing with him. No sacraments, no hosts (wafers), vessels. Nothing. Simply, in Stare Miasto it was already so bad that there were not even wafers for Communion. Everything had been used up already or was in crumbs. I am writing about this because it is one of my important memories. It is well known that even in the worst of times, the churches are always well supplied with Communion wafers and that they worry a lot about this. That is something which is never scarce! Once in religion class I learned about “spiritual Communion.” When there are no wafers and you want to take Communion.
I remember that the electric lights were burning then. It happened either in our cellar or the one next door. The shelter was filled with people. I think it was in ours. Because the lightbulb and the ceiling vault were near the priest’s head. There was a general feeling of great depression. And of concentration.
The priest spoke: “Now let us all recite aloud the universal confession. ‘I confess to Almighty God, to the One in the Holy Trinity… that I have sinned in thought, word, and deed — through my fault, through my fault, through my most grievous fault.’ ”
“And now,” said the priest after that choral recitation, “let us all take spiritual Communion.”
A short prayer followed. Silence. Everyone bowed his head. And it was over.
The priest moved on to the next cellar.
Either during the night or in the morning we transferred to the large shelter, the old one. Again. It was too terrifying for us in that other cellar, under the pillars. But here too — in this old one — it was terrifying. We had already inspected the entrances, the descents into our little sewer. But where did it lead to? We thought about the real sewer mains. To Śródmieście. But apparently there were crowds waiting to get in. And to get in you had to have passes. And there were crowds waiting for those passes.
We feared the arrival of the Germans. We feared the shadows of their helmets. Especially toward evening. Or at night. Swen and I often looked at the ceiling: Are they coming already? They could rush out from behind their tanks at any moment. The tanks were really coming out now. From Wybrzeże, too. And from Kościelna. The partisans settled down by the windows. And bent over in the window frames, they waited for hours at a time. With a grenade. Or a Molotov cocktail.
I thought about those pillars then. That in case they should come downstairs (the Germans) and start hurling grenades, then those pillars would always be a kind of protection. Against the first throw at least. Later — who knows — they’ll order us outside — to dismantle the barricade — they’ll drive us in front of the tanks — because they were constantly doing that. After all, Róża Ad. remained here with Basia and she was driven in front of a tank.