To arms,
Jesus and Mary, to arms…
At that time Halina and I thought it was brand new and we liked it very much. Second — we were irritable out of jealousy. Because the front was moving. Because there was an uprising in Paris. Four days. And already Paris was free. That is, it was the way we had imagined ours before it began. Then in Holland — repeatedly, new names of liberated cities. Arnhem cut me. To the quick.
September 18—in broad daylight — suddenly a squadron of American planes flew over. And the whole sky started to flutter with colored parachutes. They really were colored. Assorted colors. They took a long time falling. For our short patience. They had something tied to them. We waited — what? It turned out to be guns, bandages, and books. It turned out to be, but not immediately. Because not a single parachute landed near us. Apparently, that day there was a bit of wind. It even seems to me that, atypically, the weather was not so hot. So the parachutes were carried away somewhere. Then it seemed as if they were just about to land on us. But not here. But no, we didn’t have that impression at all. Because most of it sailed over to the German sector.
After that entertainment our mood was spoiled. Because the front was really in action. Or shooting. The chatterbox flew over by night. But we simply wanted to be taken. And somehow that didn’t occur.
One thing important began to happen. Very frequently, as soon as they started to bomb us, the others simply drove them off. With their own planes. But the Germans were stronger over here. Because those who had been driven from Praga to this shore were included in the anti-uprising actions. The artillery began to rage. The armored train fired continuously. From the peripheral railway. From the west. And also there were attacks on the partisan divisions. It wasn’t known if the front would hold near the Saxon Gardens. And in western Śródmieście. What surprised me in any case — after the hell on Chłodna and Wronia — was that the front from Ceglana—Łucka was holding right on Wronia.
Immediately after their loss of Praga the Germans attacked whatever they didn’t control over here. From the Vistula. Sielce fell. From the fifteenth to the sixteenth. And on the sixteenth Marymont fell. We definitely read about that then. But I’d forgotten. And not only I. How had Marymont held out for a month and a half? A little cluster of houses on sloping sand. Except that on one side it was tacked on to Żoliborz. Bielany was separate then, much farther off and small. Żoliborz was several times smaller. It didn’t have as many streets. Rather, its housing stock was mainly apartment buildings. So it was difficult to run through there. Very few hidden niches. The buildings weren’t too tall. The only housing blocks that were somewhat taller were near Veterans Square and Wilson Square (called Paris Commune Square today). There were a few narrow streets. Built up near Winnie the Pooh Street. So how did Żoliborz hold out? Yet it did. I know very little about that. On the other hand, I remember what burnt-out Mickiewicz Street looked like. And the center, which was bombed to bits. Wilson Square. Krasiński Square. And the backs of the buildings. Where the terrain slopes downhill. The Germans in the meantime focused their attack on southern Powiśle. The former upper Czerniaków, that is. What went on there I know from Teik who, after all, had already survived Wola. Then Starówka. Then this. He survived — that’s a bit too understated. After all, it was they who were falling from the roofs. Men like Teik. They defended Wytwórnia (in August). And attempted to join Żoliborz. Via Muranów. Żoliborz was late. The Germans expected something. And began to attack. Teik and his colleagues defended themselves in the depot. At the Gdańsk Station. I don’t know how many of them came out of that alive. At one moment Teik found himself in the toilet. It was not for nothing that I recalled the Skaryszewski latrine. I know several other tragic latrine stories. Zygmuś M. told me (in a sanatorium already) how as a soldier during the German attack in 1939 he had leaped inside a wooden latrine. How the latrine took a machine-gun round. And Zygmuś thought that was the end of him. I myself, in ’43, during a Soviet air raid, rushed into my so-called courtyard lavatory on Chłodna Street. Some other guy rushed in after me. The Soviet planes were aiming at the tracks of the old “Siberia.” Not too far from us. The bombs were falling with a thud. As if someone were hammering on metal. And they went somewhat astray. Because they were dropping from a great height. At one point the latrine shook. And we thought it was our time to be buried. The bomb hit the corner of Żelazna and Chłodna Streets. But let’s return to Teik. Well, he’s there in the depot toilet in Muranów. With a friend. Both of them are lying there for the time being. Unconscious. Then they realize that they can’t move. Because the floor and a piece of the wall are pinning them down. Then they want to talk things over. But they can’t hear anything. So they dig out. They brace themselves. And in the meantime they communicate in sign language. And now it’s time to clear out. They rush into the main hall. The Germans are astonished. They throw two grenades and run for it. Teik calculates while running. They have the grenades and then what? He took off. He chose well. Because he’s still alive.
Teik was in Solec, too. The distant end of Solec was peculiar. Cobblestones. I hadn’t known that Solec stretched so far. Once, when I was young, I took a long walk there. There were apartment houses, people, women. And since it was fine weather, spring, there was lots and lots of blue sky and water. But where was it, where was it? I don’t remember. But those people. Exactly. They caught it there; woe is me, they caught it. And they had the landing there, too.
“Tonight the Soviet” (I think that’s the word they used) “troops landed on the Czerniaków beachhead.”
That morning I was at the radio chinks myself. As soon as the news came over I started running back to my people. Along the corridors. The turnings. In leaps and bounds. What joy! Until suddenly there was an explosion in my head. Pain. Blood. Well, nothing important. I’d forgotten. How low the passageways were. And those Klein beams. And one of them — iron — whacked me on my forehead. Everything went dark before my eyes. For many years afterwards I had a small scar in that spot.
Well, that landing. And the Żoliborz landing, too (on Krasiński Street), which I think we didn’t know much about at the time. They didn’t succeed. People died and died. For the rest — retreat. Some went with them. Some of ours, I think. Some of our men from down below and of theirs, too, I think, broke through uphill. To upper Mokotów. And after several dozen hours of the second hope of certainty, along with the rumor (or perhaps the truth): “The Russians seem to be on Książęca Street!”
Which meant only Three Crosses Square and Żurawia Street (how far was that? — a kilometer) and then — us. But no. Later, after that hope, the radio. I hear: “Today at… o’clock… the Kościuszko Division… from the Czerniaków beachhead… driven back…”
In Starówka people had said with a sigh:
“The fifteenth day…”
“The sixteenth…”
“The twentieth day of the uprising.”
Now. Here. After so many of these. There was no longer any reason. To count.
“The fortieth — the fortieth.”
“The fifty-second — the fifty-second…”