“I have prepared a press release that it wasn’t Jews but that we discovered gangs of Polish bandits hiding in the ghetto and have gone in to clean them out. The gunfire was not from Jews but from the bandits, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.”
“Jews? Jews threw the Reinhard Corps from the ghetto? Jews?”
“Jews,” Von Epp answered.
Funk threw over the tray and slushed to his feet, half slipping. He leaped from the tub and ran into the living room. A bloody, trembling officer stood before him.
“Untersturmführer Dolfuss,” he said, snapping his heels before the naked, dripping general.
“Speak, God damn you!”
“We were caught in a terrible cross fire.”
“Where!”
The confused lieutenant tried to find Zamenhof and Mila streets on the table map filled with pretty colored pins. Funk’s orderly threw a large towel over his master.
“What the good officer is attempting to say, Alfred ... it was here,” Von Epp said.
“So,” he snarled. “So. They want the taste of the whip.” He lifted the phone. “Get me field headquarters. ... Hello ... Oberführer Funk here. Send the tank officer to my suite immediately.”
Noon.
Six medium panzer tanks rumbled through the Swientojerska Gate and hugged the wall as they proceeded toward Zamenhof Street and into the central area. Their cannons and machine guns pointed at the buildings.
Their motors set up a din, and their weight caused the streets and the buildings to tremble.
The Fighters of Ana Grinspan’s company became frozen with fear at the sight on the street. What could one do with pistols? The panzers passed under the muzzles of ineffective guns and turned into Zamenhof Street.
The gun turrets swung menacingly and aimed at the upper stories of the buildings on both sides of them. Gunners peered through the slits, looking at the lifeless, motionless windows and roofs. Now where was this army of the Jews? Now let them fire!
Andrei tried to think as the tanks rumbled toward his area. If they blasted his people to cover or if his people cowered, the Germans would own the ghetto immediately. But how to stop tanks? For an instant an agonizing thought tantalized him. Perhaps we are cowards. Perhaps all the fight was gone from us after the first ambush.
As the first tank rolled over the intersection of Kupiecka Street a lone figure darted out into the street so quickly that the German gunners could not train their guns on it. The figure ran directly in front of the lead tank.
Andrei watched the single Jewish Fighter attack the panzer. The fighter’s cap fell off, revealing a long head of flaming red hair. It was a girl! With the tank almost on top of her, she jammed a pipe grenade into its treads. The tank rolled on the grenade and exploded it. With a resounding shudder the tread unsnapped and lashed from its moorings and the tank spun around, helpless. The redheaded girl was crushed.
Fighters watching on both sides turned the panzers into iron coffins. As from the tops of ravines, they rained down a hailstorm of borscht bottles. The tanks spun crazily, firing wildly at an enemy they could not see, trying to wipe the pricks of fire from their steel skins, but the rain of bottles increased. The tanks became engulfed in flame and turned into infernos. Fighters crept up close to make their hits more certain.
One by one the hatches were thrown open and gagging, blinded, burned Germans stumbled out onto the streets, to be raked by cross fire.
Dusk.
The German corpses were stripped of uniforms and guns and ammunition and stacked at the curbstones as Jewish corpses had once been stacked in the ghetto.
The tanks were silent and smoldering and wrecked.
The streets became quiet again.
Tolek Alterman was the first up from Mila 18. He shouted at the top of his lungs, “The Germans have quit! The Germans have quit! Condition green!”
“Condition green!” a voice echoed.
Hand signals ... runners flashed from block to block.
“Hello, Haifa. The Germans have quit the ghetto! Condition green!”
“Beersheba! Condition green!”
The cries of joy and whoops bounced from building to building.
A Fighter appeared in the street, running up and down, calling the all-clear.
They poured out of the buildings and threw arms about each other and skipped and somersaulted and hugged each other and cried and shouted and wept for joy.
In a few moments hora rings were dancing in the middle of the street and civilians cringing from the sounds of battle came up one by one in shock and amazement and kissed the Fighters.
Andrei and the other commanders were tolerant of the breakdown in discipline. Nothing could dim the exultation of those who had waited three years for this moment of triumph.
Gabriela Rak heard the voice of Alexander Brandel on her radio, as did all of Warsaw. “Fellow Poles. Today, April 19, 1943, we have struck a blow for freedom as the first to rebel against Nazi tyranny. By ejecting the Nazi butchers from the ghetto, the Joint Jewish Forces tonight hold the only piece of sovereign Polish territory. In the past we have begged you to join us, and we beg you again. The Germans are murdering Polish citizens at a staggering rate in the gas chambers at Auschwitz. They intend to reduce Poland to a slave-labor pool by murdering more than half its citizens. No matter what our differences have been, the struggle for survival is mutual. Join us. Help us destroy the tyrant!”
In Warsaw, things were rather gay. For a while there was concern over the noise and shooting from the ghetto, but the newspapers and radio quickly explained that bandit gangs were hiding there and the Germans had begun action to get them out. The Germans confessed to a half dozen or so casualties, but the noise was certainly nothing to get excited about. As for this repeated broadcast from a clandestine radio—well, it was typical Jewish exaggeration and really, who cared, anyhow?
Chapter Fifteen
THE WEARY FIGHTERS OF Joint Forces slept deeply with delicious dreams of their victory. It was a victory largely belonging to a single girl who threw herself beneath a tank at the right moment to galvanize them into action, but she had done it and they had won the day. Tomorrow or the tomorrow after they would be asked to do the same as the redheaded girl, but tonight it did not matter. Victory is a balm. Alexander Brandel, a man of violence, celebrated longer and harder than anyone. He said he had two thousand years of defeats to make up for.
While the rabble army slept, their commanders worked far into the night on more practical matters than celebrations. They assessed the day. It had been a good day mostly. Only six of the twenty-two battle groups had been committed to action. Casualties from stray bullets were nominal. They had captured sixty rifles and pistols from fallen German soldiers. They had administered a wicked defeat to the best of Hitler’s Elite.
Yet the balance sheet added up to a minus based on one simple fact. Joint Fighters had expended more ammunition than they could replace. There would not be many more Victories like today’s. It was a war of diminishing returns. A rather sober judgment said they’d shoot themselves out of business quickly. The victory broadcast from the ghetto failed to stir the population or the Home Army. A dozen Polish youths tried to get into the ghetto to help but were shot for their effort.
Tomorrow ... another day. The commanders guessed that the Germans would go for the factories. Here was the largest pool of Jews in the most vulnerable place and the most difficult to defend.
Simon shifted two companies under Andrei to help Wolf at Brushmaker’s. Ana took her company from the central area and Tolek brought three groups down to Rodel at the uniform complex.
They argued till dawn. Simon and Andrei demanded that Wolf remove the kasha-bowl land mine. The Germans surely would not dare march through the gates in close formation again after the lesson of the first day. Wolf reckoned differently. He was certain they had not learned or would not admit respect for the Jewish fighting force. Wolf filibustered until it was too late to replant the mine.