The artillery fire had stopped. Almost nothing remained standing. The moonbeams played on disorganized heaps of brick.
Beep ... beep ... beep ...
A weak sound came from her radio.
She ran into the room.
Beep ... beep ... The signal faded and became drowned in static and re-emerged. Beep ... beep ... beep.
It stopped.
She sat with bated breath for a repeat. There was no further sound.
Then from the ghetto a sudden crackle of gunfire startled the stillness. She ran once more to the balcony but could see nothing. The gunfire sounds heightened.
Gabriela closed the balcony door, pulled down the blackout curtain, and flicked on the lamp beside the phone stand. She hedged for several moments, hoping that the transmission from the ghetto would be repeated. She lit a cigarette and pulled at it nervously, then with an impulsive spur of decision dialed a number.
A half-sleeping voice answered at the other end of the line.
“Kamek. This is Alena,” Gabriela said.
“Yes?”
“Did you hear it?”
“Yes, but I could not understand it.”
“Neither could I,” Gabriela said. “What should we do?”
“There is nothing we can do until after curfew. Come over to my place as soon as it turns light.”
Oberführer Funk blinked sleepily over the report. It was almost four o’clock in the morning, yet he wanted it for Kroger, Globocnik, and Himmler, finished and en route by dawn. It was precariously close to the one month marking the uprising. He wanted to give assurances that the bulk of action was over. Any further action was merely the formality of a mop-up. Soon, quite soon, victory could be formally declared.
Four o’clock.
Funk untied his silk night robe.
The sound of gunfire! What the devil! It was not possible. He had ordered the artillery to cease fire at two-thirty and for the patrols to resume their fixed positions.
He tied his robe quickly and started to lift the phone, then let his hand drop. A sudden grip of fear encompassed him. Could it be possible that the Jews were attacking? No ... it was ... discovery of another bunker, that was all. Don’t let your imagination run wild. Calm ... calm, now. Another large belt of schnapps and he sat slowly behind his desk again.
The crackling gunfire was sharper now. His hand once more touched the phone, fell from it. He licked his dry lips, sagged in the chair, and waited. The report to Berlin, Lublin, and Krakow lay face up before his eyes.
From: The SS and Police Führer, Warsaw District, Special Actions.
Ref. NO: 1 ab/ST/Gr-1607-Journal No. 663/43 SECRET
Re: Large-scale Ghetto Operation
To: Reichführer Der Schutzstaffel Himmler, Berlin
SS Obergruppenführer, Police General, Krakow
Gruppenführer General Government SS, SD, Lublin
I beg to advise the following information:
1. A total to date of 34,795 Jews and other sub-humans caught for deportation, 7,654 known destroyed in former residential area. Estimate another 11,000 destroyed in bunkers by asphyxiation, flames, etc.
Conclusion:
Except for sporadic resistance from the few remaining Jews and sub-humans, we have succeeded in our mission.
2. Account of reduction of Jewish residential compound,
(a.) 612 bunkers destroyed.
(b.) So-called Jewish residential area is nonexistent. Three buildings remain standing; that is, the Convert’s Church, parts of the Pawiak Prison, the Jewish Civil Authority building (former post office convenient for us to make immediate on-the-site executions of those we do not desire to transport).
3. Booty captured to date:
(a.) 7 Polish rifles, 1 Russian rifle, 7 German rifles.
(b.) 59 pistols of various calibers.
(c.) Several hundred hand grenades, including Polish and home-made.
(d.) Several hundred incendiary bottles.
(e.) Homemade explosives and infernal machines with fuses.
(f.) A variety of explosives, ammunition of all calibers. (In destroyed bunkers we were not able to capture further booty, which was destroyed. The captured hand grenades were used by us against the bandits.)
Furthermore, I beg to report
1. 1200 used German uniforms (tunics) and 600 pair of used trousers. (Some uniforms were equipped with medals.)
2. Several hundred assorted German helmets.
3. Four million zlotys (from deportees). Fourteen thousand dollars, nine thousand dollars in gold; an undetermined value in gold, rings, watches, jewelry.
I beg to report that today the principal Jew-bandit bunker was located at a place known as Mila 18 and it was summarily destroyed by gas, flame throwers, dynamite, and small-arms fire.
The ruins of the Jewish residential reservation will give us vast amounts of scrap material and used brick which can be salvaged for future building projects.
May I make mention of the valiant SS Waffen and Wehrmacht troops attached to this command whose uncommon devotion in the face of the “invisible” enemy has brought about this success. They went into the sewers, crawled into bunkers, and otherwise exposed themselves to the gunfire of the enemy. These comrades will not be forgotten.
Under separate cover I recommend the following decorations:
Iron Cross, Second Class—SS Haupsturmführer Zisenis.
Cross of War Merit, Second Class with Swords—SS Untersturmführer Manfred Plank, SS Rottenführer Joseph Blesche.
IT IS MY FIRM OPINION THAT I WILL BE ABLE TO ADVISE YOU OFFICIALLY OF THE FINAL EXTERMINATION OF THE JEWS IN WARSAW WITHIN SEVENTY-TWO HOURS.
Heil Hitler!
Signed:
SS Oberführer Alfred Funk
Certified copy:
(Jesuiter)
SS Sturmbannführer
Horst von Epp entered the room but did not speak. The two of them listened and listened and listened for nearly an hour until the gunfire in the ghetto stopped.
Five o’clock.
The moments before dawn of the second month of the uprising came. Neither Alfred Funk nor Horst von Epp dared lift the telephone. A knock.
“Enter!”
Untersturmführer Manfred Plank, showing the effects of battle, stood wild-eyed before his general. “Heil Hitler,” he said with somewhat less than his usual vigor.
“Heil Hitler,” Alfred Funk answered.
“What happened out there?” Horst von Epp asked.
It seemed as though Plank’s fine young Aryan body would collapse.
“Speak!” ordered Funk.
Plank’s lips quivered. “We were moving into our fixed position at the western end of Niska Street ...”
“Speak!”
“Like ... like ghosts, they leaped out of the ruins on us! They did not fight like human beings ...”
“Speak!” Funk screamed again at the faltering man.
“We were compelled to abandon our positions.”
“Swine!”
“Herr Oberführer!” cried Manfred Plank. “I have been decorated twice for valor on the eastern front. As a result of my fearless attitude in combat I was sent to SS Waffen training. I tell you, sir ... I tell you ... there are supernatural forces in there!”
“Get out,” Funk hissed.
He did not hear the Untersturmführer click his heels and make his squarely conceived exit.
Funk’s hands were so slippery with sweat, he could not hold his drink. He took his report promising victory and dropped it in the wastebasket after tearing it to shreds, and he looked up at Horst with dazed puzzlement.
“Even from their graves ...”
Tonight we have really lost this battle.”
On his hands and knees, his shoulders rubbing against the top of the pipe, Wolf Brandel crawled first into the sewer pipe that cut diagonally down the eastern end of the ghetto. Rachael, second in line, grabbed his ankle with one hand and followed. Tolek, next in line, took Rachael’s ankle and Chris took Tolek’s and Ana took Chris’s. The chain spread down for the twenty-three who left the bunker after sending the radio signal to the Aryan side.