Group 3, Androfski split into two parts. Part one raided the central market and “confiscated” three trucks loaded with food. The second unit raided the Citadel Hospital for medical supplies.
We know we have reached our high-water mark. We cannot use German uniforms at night again, as they will undoubtedly think of using a password to prevent future occurrences. (Further testimony to their respect for us as a fighting force.) Nevertheless, we can continue to confuse them in the day by sudden attacks, wearing their uniforms.
THE FIFTH DAY
We took inventory. Ammunition is very, very low. Schlosberg has manufactured four more smaller versions of the kasha bowl. We have planted them at key intersections, hoping for the best.
Simon called in all commanders and called for less concentrated fire on the enemy and more “individual improvisation.” Translated, this means more acts of individual heroism.
Our Fighters responded today with incredible acts of courage. A tank blew up on one of the planted mines on Nowolipki, but another tank and armored car were stopped literally barehanded. A Fighter from Rodel's command leaped on the tank, threw open the hatch, and hurled a bottle inside! The armored car was stopped by Fighters leaping on it from a second-story window with grenades in their hands.
The Germans sense we are running short of ammunition. They are pressing us harder. Thank God they have not been able to replace the floodlights we destroyed. Tonight the ghetto was dark. Our fighters need sleep desperately.
THE SIXTH DAY
Incredible acts of heroism continue to save the day. Wolf’s command reports the following:
Two Fighters without guns leaped on a German squad with knives; killed two, three fled. They took the weapons.
Rachael Bronski was caught by a squad of Germans as she tended a wounded Fighter. She reached inside her skirt and flung a hidden grenade at them.
In the central area, Andrei tells me that his people are making the Germans fight house by house, room by room. We start at the ground floor and make the Germans pursue us up, step by step, to the roof. We hurl bombs and grenades on them and we continue to fight clear up to the roof. The Germans quit. They will not come on the roofs.
From Rodel’s command: Saul Sugarman, an old-time Bundist, was badly wounded. He refused to die until he crawled back to his bunker and gave his rifle to his brother.
Simon has called for hit and run only when we are behind the Germans; not to meet them head on. We don’t have the ammunition. We should adjust our positions so that we can retreat and lead them into dead ends to use our bottle bombs with the most effect.
The Germans have managed to unearth a few bunkers of civilians. They have been marched out of the ghetto. I hear that Boris Presser and his family were taken to the Umschlagplatz today. Well? What can one say? Has there ever been a doubt of Jewish courage? I suppose we all have wrestled with that. Andrei confided to me that it crossed his mind on the first day when he saw the six tanks come up Zamenhof Street. I hope these past six days answer that question forever. Sacrifice is commonplace. Not a single Fighter has surrendered.
THE SIXTH NIGHT
Still no replacement for the destroyed floodlights. The Germans press in on night patrols to keep us from sleeping. We butchered them.
Our Fighters shout in the darkness and the Germans fire blindly at our voices, revealing their positions and their fear.
A report from the Aryan side tells us that Funk asked for SS Volunteers for night patrols and no one volunteered!
The report also says that the Polish people are awed by our fight. To hell with awe! Less awe and more help is what we need.
As I write this I realize that tomorrow begins the seventh day of the rebellion. The four days’ work Alfred Funk promised the Death’s-Head Brigade has proved false. This week we have prayed for will come to pass. God! Will we get help!
THE SEVENTH DAY
Simon Eden spoke to his commanders before dawn. We are to drop back to even more desperate tactics. We are to stay in hiding until the German is so close we can smell his breath, count the hairs on his head. Attack by knife, leap on him barehanded, and choke him to death. Fire only at point-blank range. We cannot afford the luxury of missing a single round. We cannot make a bad throw of a single grenade. We must constantly shift our positions at night to alternate bunkers. Finally, a further cut in rations. Water: one glass per day per Fighter.
Today the Germans finally cleaned out the uniform factory. Rodel’s people did not have the fire power to stop them. We had managed to take most of the laborers from the Brushmaker's factory into buildings and bunkers.
The bunkers are becoming unbearable. Mila 18 has four hundred people (capacity 220). It is only an iota above suffocation level. The thermometer today read 140 degrees.
THE SEVENTH NIGHT
The Germans have had enough of the ghetto in the dark. We own the night. We are the kings of darkness? They do not come in here out of sheer cowardice and fear. Like college boys making drunken vows, we have fulfilled our “goal” of holding the ghetto for a week. Israel reborn has lived for seven days under fire. Ridiculous, isn’t it. We are perilously low on ammunition. Food and water are not going to improve. We cannot replace a fired round of ammunition. We cannot replace a killed Fighter. Our wounded die quietly with no complaints about the little aid we can give them. But I am ashamed of my past cynicism. I have never seen morale so high. I have never been so proud to be a Jew. At night we walk tall and straight as free men. We sing and we dance. We tell jokes about our hunger and we laugh about our fear. Strange, so very strange, how a hopeless cause can be the cause of the most exhilarating experience I have ever known (forgive me, Sylvia).
ALEXANDER BRANDEL
Chapter Seventeen
SIMON EDEN WAS CHAGRINED. A week was over and his army was still intact and full of fight. Simon, who had dreaded the burden of command, had reacted to a hundred cries without hesitation. When in doubt, he personally led his troops on foray after foray. He had become transformed into a symbol of leadership.
The week’s end called for a reappraisal. His Fighters no longer had the luxury of concentrating gunfire. This meant that the Germans could cut off and fine-comb surrounded areas with a determined effort. No longer able to protect the civilians in the southern area, Simon ordered Rodel to abandon a suicidal position and pull his Fighters into the central area.
Wolf was ordered to cut and destroy the phone line between Mila 18 and the Franciskanska bunker despite the fact that runners often needed hours to negotiate a few blocks during the daytime. There was too great a risk of the Germans finding the phone line and using it to lead them into the bunkers.