Resistance (35 page)

 

Enveloped by fires, in flame-lit darkness, the fighters and the units filed out one by one, from passageway to passageway, from house to house, and from courtyard to courtyard, with the units covering one another. Reaching the stretch of the central ghetto was only possible through a narrow opening in the wall, which was guarded by gendarmes, Ukrainians, and the blue police. There were twelve guards alongside a two-meter-wide passage. Five units had to break through the narrow outlet. Ratajzer recalled:

 

In shoes wrapped in rags to stifle the sound of their tread, under fire, and in a state of considerable tension, the units of Gutman [Hanoch], Gerlinski, Grinbaum make their way and pass through. Jurek Blones' group covers them from behind. When the first members of the group reach the street, the Germans illuminate the place. It seems that no one would pass through after this. Romanovitz extinguishes the light with a single shot. Even before the gendarmes managed to understand what was going on, all of us were already on the other side.

 

The fighters reached one of the bunkers in a house with many courtyards in Franciszkanska Street, in which the workers of the supply center were located. On the following day, as a result of a confrontation with the Germans in one of the attics of this house (this was evidently the first time the German forces penetrated a house after sundown), the house was also set on fire. Fighters from the brushmakers' block joined the fighting in the central ghetto.

Stroop was particularly interested in a mass evacuation of the Jews. On the second day, he noted in his report that he tried to persuade the larger enterprises (Többens, Schultz, and Hoffmann) to be ready to leave the following day.

 

The man in charge of the Többens workshop took on the responsibility for leading some 4,000–5,000 Jews to the transport gathering point willingly. If the voluntary evacuation does not succeed, as in the instance of the manager of army supplies [the brushmakers], I shall also purge this part of the ghetto by force.

 

The owners of the factories did their best to convince the workers and even tried to get those who occupied key posts in the workshops to assist them. They argued that the destruction and slaughter in the central ghetto did not affect the workshop area, and that if the local population would refrain from joining the revolt, they would be taken to better conditions in Poniatowa, where a work camp awaited them under the supervision of Többens and other workshop owners.

On April 21, Többens, in collaboration with Stroop, issued an order addressed to workers in the large workshops in the principal factory area. This directive stated that "workers without special permits who will be found in the closed area after the evacuation, will be executed [on the spot] in accordance with military law."

In his report of April 21, Stroop claimed that "5,200 Jews from the former munitions factory were caught and were brought under guard to the loading station assigned to transports, that is, the
Umschlagplatz.
" Evidently Stroop had some reason for saying that the Jews who actually arrived at the transport center voluntarily had been "caught." In reality, the major part of the transport had been slyly surrounded when they were assembling in the workshop area. There was, however, a real difference between the behavior of the people in the workshop area and other ghetto residents. The number of bunkers was limited in the workshop area, and did not suffice for all the inhabitants. In addition, some of the workshop employees assumed that they had an alternative not available to the inhabitants of the central ghetto. As occurred on more than one occasion during the period of Nazi domination, the Jews were victimized by fate and lack of understanding of the Nazis' methods. The Jews who were brought from the workshops in Warsaw to the camps in Poniatowa and Trawniki before and during the last expulsion were all murdered within a few months, in November 1943. Those who were taken during the final stages of the Uprising were not sent to Trawniki but to the concentration camp of Majdanek. After enduring immense torment in the harsh conditions of concentration camps such as Majdanek, Auschwitz, Mauthausen, Buchenwald, and others, only a few had the luck to survive the terrible "death marches" of the final stages of the war. Of these, some hundreds survived.

Stefan Grayek noted in his memoirs that after the transport of April 21, the workshop sector was no longer protected by the owners of Többens and Schultz, and, as with the rest of the ghetto, complete control of the enterprises was transferred to Stroop's soldiers. On April 21, Ludwik Landau wrote:

 

Warsaw continues to be the center of the struggle nearby—the Jewish-German war. "The Third Front," as it is commonly referred to. The emotional attitude to the fighting differs: Among some it is characterized by a sympathy for the Nazi victims who are bravely withstanding the Nazis; among others, the foreboding element of anti-Semitism in what is happening leaves its imprint. And perhaps the majority represent the view of the neutral bystander. But even among the indifferent or even antagonistic, one hears a tone of admiration and everyone is interested and even tense...

At night one sees increasing fires over the ghetto, one hears echoes of the rumbling sound of cannon ... Today one saw, it is told, 20 tanks moving towards the ghetto. Georgian units were seen being transported there. And it is said that regular army units were being sent to this "front." The struggle is going on with unusual fierceness—at any rate, on the part of the defenders. One says that houses are changing hands a number of times in the course of the fighting, that the Jews hold their positions and continue the fight from the higher stories even when the Germans are already in the lower stories ... the beleaguered population has had their water cut off by order of the authorities, but there are wells in the ghetto area.

The worst aspect of the situation is the (shortage of supplies], especially of arms and munitions. One has to take into consideration that despite German efforts, contact has not been severed altogether and there are passageways and tunnels that the Germans do not know about. The optimists assumed that the ghetto would continue to defend itself for another few weeks, and there were those, it was said, who wished to stimulate the war front against the Germans. By the way, now there are said to be alleged German deserters there...

 

On the fourth or fifth day of the Uprising, the Germans strengthened their hold over the ghetto, and the Jews began going on sorties and fortifying their positions in the bunkers. In his report of the twenty-second, Stroop said:

 

The fire that had been burning throughout the night caused those Jews who, despite all the combing exercises, were still hiding under the roofs, in cellars, and other hiding places, to penetrate to the front yards of the blocks of houses in order to evade the fire in one way or another. Gripped by flames, the Jews jumped out of the windows in great numbers—whole families—or tried to wrap themselves in bedsheets attached to one another and the like. We saw to it that these and other Jews would be immediately destroyed.

 

Edelman wrote that with the change in fighting tactics, the fighters of the ZOB sought to

 

defend the larger concentrations of people hiding from the Germans in their bunkers. Thus, for instance, two ZOB units (those of Hochberg and Barak) transfer some hundreds of Jews from the blocked shelter at 37 Mila Street to 7 Mila Street during the day. This position, in which some thousands are hiding, succeeded in holding out for more than a week.

 

The fighters rescued hundreds of Jews whom Franz Konrad had assembled from the
Werterfassung
employees and tried to bring to the
Umschlagplatz.
More and more, from a stubborn attempt to defend the ghetto or part of it, the fighting was turning into a struggle over bunkers and isolated houses. The fires blocked the entrances and passageways and made the bunkers utterly useless. The arrangements made when the bunkers were set up had fallen to pieces, and Jews seeking a place to hide wandered despondently in the night with their last possessions wrapped in a bundle. The lack of fresh air, water, and edible bread caused many to collapse. In his last letter of April 23, Anielewicz expressed his sense of personal fulfillment and the feeling that he and his comrades had engaged in an event of historic significance on the brink of destruction. He wrote:

 

I cannot describe the conditions in which the Jews of the ghetto now live. Only an unusually determined person could hold out. The remainder will die sooner or later. Their fate has been decided. In almost all the bunkers in which thousands are hiding it is impossible to light a candle because of the lack of air.

 

The most terrible calamity the bunkers had to endure was the fires. Most of the bunkers had been constructed under the houses in existing cellars or tunnels that were built for this purpose. The buildings were burned to their very foundations, and within the bunkers the concrete, bricks, and smoldering embers created a dreadful heat. One memoir described the events in a bunker beneath a burned building:

 

We can think of nothing but a breath of air. The heat in the bunker is unbearable. This is not simply a burning heat. The seething walls exude odors, as if the mildew of decades was released and spread out under the influence of the temperature.

I sit with my mouth open and everyone around me does likewise, with the illusion and effort that we are swallowing air. One does not talk in the bunker. When one talks, it is even more difficult to breathe. But from time to time there is shouting, quarrels, nervousness and tension without end, and generally the quarrels are nonsensical. We have not eaten now for twenty-four hours. Only rusks can be gnawed at, and the water is still more or less possible to drink.

All the food supplies have been spoiled. The moldy smell has seeped into the food and it cannot be used. Some try to console themselves with the fact that when the house cools down, it may be possible to save some of the food stores. But the talk of cooling down is just an illusion. The house was burnt down two days ago and the heat has not only not subsided, but increases hour by hour. Everyone has taken off their clothes and no one gives a thought to the fact that the men and women sitting about are almost naked....

This afternoon, an argument started which implicated almost everyone in the bunker. Someone went to the entrance, moved the hidden cover, and started to swallow the fresh air coming in from outside. To do this in the middle of the day was like committing suicide. The Nazis above us are poking around and looking for us—at any moment they may be just above our heads. Frequently, the sound of their heavy boots can be heard above us. They sniffed round, searched, and went off, without finding anything. But we know that many bunkers have been penetrated and we must be very careful. The sounds and stifling air escaping from the entrance can lead to our discovery.

 

The entire ghetto was ablaze. Thousands of people near physical and mental collapse—virtually on the verge of madness—not only maintained this way of life but viewed its disappearance as a great catastrophe. We know of no instances in which the inhabitants of an entire bunker capitulated. There were many cases, however, in which, when a bunker was discovered and the Nazis called to surrender, the inhabitants responded with bullets.

The Polish press ignored "the war of the bunkers," nor was there much evidence in the survivors' accounts that were sent abroad at the height of the war. In fact, even after the war, not much was revealed on the subject. Paradoxically, alone among those retelling the story of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, Stroop was greatly concerned with the campaign against the bunkers and the efforts required to conquer them.

On April 23, the fifth day of the expulsion, Stroop was convinced that the Uprising had come to an end. He divided the ghetto into twenty-four sectors and assigned a special unit to comb the sectors thoroughly. "The units were informed that the action would come to an end today," he reported, noting that the mission would have to be completed by 1600 hours. But his units encountered opposition from Jews using ingenious means to avoid falling into his hands. Again it was reported that Jews were discovered in the sewage canals and hiding in the wagons that took the dead to the cemetery.

The continued resistance forced Stroop to delay ending the mission until the following day. He again put twenty-four units into action, ordering them not to advance but to attack every corner of the ghetto area simultaneously. Such pressure was necessary, as Stroop put it, because despite the surrounding inferno, the Jews "preferred to return to the fire than fall into our hands."

On April 25, Stroop put together seven special units and issued an order stating: "A further combing of all the houses. Locate the bunkers, blow them up, and get hold of the Jews. Wherever there is opposition or it is impossible to reach a bunker, the house should be set on fire." Nearly all the special units concluded their missions by igniting large fires to force the Jews to abandon their hiding places. In all, some 1,690 Jews were captured, 274 were shot, and, as was the case earlier, hundreds more were buried in the blown-up bunkers or perished in the flames.

"According to my estimate," Stroop reported, "in addition to today's spoils, a large number of the bandits [a term used frequently when referring to the fighters] were caught together with the lowest element of the ghetto. The immediate destruction was not completed until sundown." And, he added, "there were also incidents of repeated armed opposition, and in one bunker three pistols and bombs were taken."

On April 26, Stroop returned to the original plan of the mission and announced that the time had arrived to deal with the most stubborn Jews. Almost all the special divisions reported encountering opposition, which was silenced by setting fires and blowing up bunkers. The bunkers were often entered by force, and their inhabitants had not come out from under the ground since the beginning of the action. In a series of instances after a bunker had been blown up, the inhabitants were almost unable to crawl out. According to accounts of the Jews who were taken in this manner, many of the bunkers' inhabitants "went out of their minds because of the heat, the dense smoke, and the successful bombing."