The second morning.
Andrei and Wolf lay side by side in a second-story window which looked down at Brushmaker’s main gate. The plunger to set off the kasha bowl was at Wolf’s hand. He trusted no one else with the mine ignition switch.
Half of Wolf’s Fighters crouched inside the main factory buildings behind barricades placed there for the protection of the workers. Their position was vulnerable, for they had to meet a German attack head on. The second half, along with Andrei’s two companies, were scattered in a ring around the Brushmaker’s in order to hit the Germans from the rear. The gamble was completely upon the guess that the Germans would make a try for Brushmaker’s.
Ten o’clock in the morning.
“What’s holding them up?” Wolf wondered.
“Confusion. They’re making their plans outside this time,” Andrei said. “Germans can’t improvise too well. They must fix their plans.”
Wolf patted the handle of the plunger. “We’ll unfix them.”
“A waste. They’ll never come in through the main gate.”
“We’ll see.”
At eleven o’clock runners reached them with the word that the Germans had concentrated a large force in the Krasinski Gardens. Eden had anticipated properly. The Germans were out to snip off the northeastern corner of the ghetto containing the Brushmaker’s complex.
By eleven-fifteen runners reported movements outside the wall along Bonifraterska Street and opposite Muranowska Street. A ring of soldiers on the entire sector.
“Hello, Jerusalem. This is Haifa. Troop concentration to cut off Brushmaker’s. They’ll be entering at any moment.”
“This is Jerusalem. I have two companies ready to move at their backs if you need them.”
“Hold them.”
The Germans entered the ghetto in three places: the two Swientojerska gates opposite the gardens and at the Przebieg Gate touching Muranowski Place.
They strung out quickly on Nalewki Street from the gardens for two full blocks to Muranowski Place. The Brushmaker’s compound was completely cut off. Its eastern boundary was the ghetto wall along Bonifraterska Street.
“They’ve a positive talent for walking into traps,” Andrei said. The Revisionists were also on top and behind the Germans. Andrei dispatched a runner to Ben Horin to hold fire.
Now deployed, the Germans moved toward the main gate. A company down Gensia Street, a company up Walowa set to converge.
Opposite the main gate, the Germans took cover near the buildings. A loudspeaker unit was set up.
“Juden ’raus! Jews come out!”
Five minutes passed. There was no movement from inside the factory. Fixed bayonets, battle ready, the Germans edged for the main gate.
“See?” Andrei snorted. “I told you they wouldn’t march in.”
“Wait”
With caution a squad poked inside the gate. A courtyard of forty meters of open space awaited them before they could reach the main building. They edged into the courtyard unmolested, but squarely in the sights of the barricaded fighters inside.
A second squad of Germans followed into the courtyard. They fired blindly into the main building. Glass shattered, brick chipped away, bullets echoed. No fire was returned. They fired again and again. No return.
A third squad entered and set up a machine gun pointing at the main building, and the other two deployed to give cover to the main German force.
“I’ll be goddamned!” Andrei said as he watched a German battalion mass to march in.
The protection squads gave an all-clear signal.
Clump! Clump Clump! Clump!
Trawniki SS unsheathed their daggers and marched at the gate. The first line passed over the kasha bowl ... the second ... the third.
Andrei licked his lips and looked at the ignition plunger. Wolf’s hands toyed with it.
“Now ... now,” Andrei said.
“Just a few, few more,” Wolf said. “Just ... a ... few ...” His hand thrust the plunger down.
Warsaw bounced from the impact.
Blood and sinew and muscle and shrieks soared skyward. Nuts and bolts erupted like an angry volcano. Disintegrated bits of a hundred Germans floated back to earth. The near living, the half living whimpered with shock, and the neatly deployed living were terrified.
The three German squads in the courtyard were met with a barrage from the factory, but the land mine had already thrown them into disarray.
From the rooftops Samson Ben Horin’s Revisionists—Chayal, Jabotinski, and Trumpeldor—poured a murderous fire at the backs of the Germans stretched out along Nalewki Street.
It was a rout!
Fighters from Andrei’s and Wolf’s commands tore into the streets at the fleeing enemy with a vengeance. Confused Germans guarding the ghetto gates fired into their own troops pouring out. Other Germans tried to leap the ghetto walls. Their hands were sliced to ribbons on the cemented broken glass, their bodies tangled in the barbed wire.
Wolf’s judgment on the planting of the kasha bowl was confirmed.
Chapter Sixteen
Journal Entry
THE THIRD DAY
Today we administered to the Germans their most humiliating defeat of our infant rebellion. I shall describe it.
The Reinhard Corps who survived the first day and Ukrainians, Litts, Latts, and Estonians assembled at their parade ground off 101 Zelazna Street and crossed and marched along the wall along Leszno Street, apparently to enter at Tlomatskie Gate. Rodel has been anticipating such a move against the uniform factory. The Germans moved in the former “Polish corridor,” a slot between two sets of walls. Rodel’s Fighters had rounded up twenty ladders. With the Germans singing and marching in the “protected” corridor, they rushed the ladders against the wall, climbed, and pelted pipe grenades down on the Germans. The enemy never even got into the ghetto!
Later in the afternoon Germans poured through four gates behind heavy machine-gun and mortar barrages. Our strategy: let them in. Their protective barrage must lift quickly after their troops penetrate. Then we hit them from the rear. All four times we drove them out.
Two events to hearten us! The first Russian bombers’ passed overhead for an air raid (on Germany, we hoped). We cheered them wildly!
Tonight the Germans admit on the radio broadcasts that the “Polish bandits” have been joined by Jewish gangs (perverts, subhumans, nun rapists, etc., etc.). This admission that they are fighting Jews is bound to have an impact on the people.
THE FOURTH DAY
Our friends arrived at dawn. This time they neither sang nor marched in formation. They moved in dispersed, heavily, armed formations. After artillery, mortars, and machine guns drove us to cover, they came in slowly. They crept along in the shadows of the building. We no longer suffer from fright. It is they who show fear. We allow them to get deep into the ghetto, and then we hit them with cross fires at intersections, hurl fire bombs and grenades down from the roofs, shout at them in German to confuse them, jump them from the rear.
Today they concentrated on the uniform factory. We estimate they used a thousand troops to seal it off. Rodel's forces harassed them unmercifully, but they managed to get a few hundred workers out. Frantic for a victory, they blew up a hospital near Pawiak Prison. All but the bed patients had long been evacuated.
THE FOURTH NIGHT
Banks of floodlights in tall buildings over the wall lit up large sections of the ghetto. Their troops moved in to continue with a night attack on the uniform factory. Simon and Andrei have spoken of this possibility (night action) for some time. Simon tried our most daring foray. Broken into three groups, our people dressed in German uniforms taken from the factory and trimmed (leather belts, helmets, even decorations) from fallen enemy. Group 1 was led by Andrei, Group 2 by Simon, and Group 3 by Tolek Alterman. Our “Germans” merely marched out of the ghetto. The enemy mistook us. We got them completely off guard. Simon’s group attacked the floodlights and artillery. They wrecked twenty floodlights and five cannons. Tolek’s group raided the arsenal at SS barracks, captured a machine gun and twenty rifles and several thousand rounds of ammunition (desperately needed).