Read Rising '44: The Battle for Warsaw Online
Authors: Norman Davies
Tags: #Non-Fiction, #War, #History
Three days before the end of the war, on 5 May 1945, the NKVD arrested Janina Fieldorf, the wife of General Nile. (Unbeknown to them, her husband was already a prisoner in Russia.) As she remembered it, her Russian interrogator lost his temper when discussing the Warsaw Rising and let slip some revealing remarks:
‘And what were you Poles thinking?’ the Russian asked rhetorically. ‘Did you think that you were going to take control of Warsaw on your own and then start fighting our Soviet forces? And do you know what Stalin told our commanders, who had stopped before Warsaw? [Stalin said] “Don’t move an inch. Wait while the Germans kill as many Poles as possible, and there’ll be less work for us to do.” ’
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Of course, a third-hand report of this sort is no real evidence for what Stalin may or may not have said nine months earlier. But it does indicate something about prevailing attitudes in the NKVD.
After the war
, many striking differences between Soviet and Western attitudes became immediately apparent. Winston Churchill had expressed his own views about steadfastness in conflict, defiance in defeat and magnanimity in victory. But magnanimity played no part in Stalin’s philosophy. Indeed, he insisted on treating his own people as suspects and the entire world beyond the new Soviet borders as a nest of ‘anti-Soviet’ spies and vipers. All manner of groups and individuals who had found themselves outside Soviet control during the war were rounded up. Democratic formations, like Poland’s Home Army, were not just excluded from public life. They were slated for destruction.
In Poland, the formation of an Internal Security Corps (KBW) in May 1945 was an important sign of the times. The KBW was no mere armed gendarmerie on the French model. It was a fully fledged, elite military force on the lines of the NKVD’s ‘special regiments’. It was highly trained, highly mobile, heavily armed, and entirely separate from the regular armed services. It posed a special challenge for the remnants of the Underground. Working alongside the People’s Militia under the Ministry
of Public Security, it gave warning that all non-conformers and resisters were to be treated to a mailed fist. The one benefit lay in the prospect that the NKVD’s own special troops could be gradually withdrawn.
The victory over Germany in May 1945, and the establishment in Poland of the Government of National Unity in June, obviously brought relief for many, and opportunities for some. But for those whom the new regime regarded as mortal enemies, the war had
not
ended. On the contrary, it was soon transformed into open and vicious internal warfare. Since the Soviets and their Polish clients continued to harass and persecute their democratic opponents, showing no readiness for reconciliation, the most determined democrats were driven to review their earlier inclination to wait and see. They were increasingly convinced that the decision to disband the Home Army had been a mistake. If they were going to be wiped out for doing nothing, they had little to lose by returning to the conspiratorial resistance which had sustained them against the Nazis for the previous six years.
Such were the circumstances which led in June 1945 to the formation of the secret Freedom and Independence Organization (WiN) which in all but name was the Home Army, mark II. Like another of its predecessors called NIE (‘No’), which Gen. Nile had tried to launch in 1944 in the Soviet-occupied zone, it was pitted against the growing power of the Soviet-run regime; and its enemies were quick to put it in a negative light by denouncing it as ‘reactionary’ and ‘anti-Soviet’. But its aims were positive enough. They were to preserve the groups and individuals which were devoted to the ideals of democracy and patriotism. This time, however, all outside support was denied. The Western powers, which had once helped and encouraged the Home Army, were not prepared to support WiN, even verbally. And a war-weary society that was mourning millions did not have the stomach for another fight. The result was a lonely struggle of small isolated cells and armed groups who faced the combined powers of the NKVD, the KBW, and the UB in a very unequal conflict. It goes without saying that veterans of the Warsaw Rising joined WiN in considerable numbers. But not all veterans favoured the policy of open confrontation; and WiN was only one of several similar underground bodies. The unequal battle lasted from the summer of 1945 to the summer of 1947 and beyond. It was an essential background to the renewed wave of political repressions which occurred in those same years.
In Germany, meanwhile, all Allied prisoners were being freed. Much depended on who freed them, but for the Poles, there were three basic choices. Military prisoners, including Home Army soldiers, could head for Polish forces stationed in the West. In practice, this meant travelling either to northern Italy, where the Anders Army was based at Rimini, or to Matchkovo, which was the zone of occupation in northern Germany occupied by Maj.Gen. M.’s division.
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The second choice was to move into one of the numerous Displaced Persons camps which the Allied Control Commission was now opening. The third and riskiest choice was to try to return home – if one still had a home to return to. British and American officials were under orders to recommend this last course of action. They were not always aware that ‘Liberation’ in the east did not have the same connotations as Liberation in the west. Nor did they seem to realize, having approved the annexation of the eastern half of Poland by the Soviets, that half of the Polish refugees, by ‘going home’ would not be going to Poland.
No POW or camp survivor ever forgot the moment of liberation. For the inmates of KZ Sachsenhausen near Berlin, it came on 22 April with the arrival of the 2nd (Polish) Army. Adam S., a member of the Polish Socialist Party (PSP), had been captured in Warsaw’s Old Town on 2 September, and had found himself inside Sachsenhausen within twenty-four hours. Thanks to a leg wound, he was still lying in the camp sick-bay seven months later when he heard a cheery Polish voice. ‘I’m Shenkevich’, the young soldier announced; ‘Well, not Shenkevich exactly, but Blumstein.’ It turned out that the two men had lived on the same street in the Riverside. ‘Good Street no longer exists,’ said Adam S. ‘My family no longer exists,’ replied Blumstein.
The main advantage of being freed by the Soviets rather than by the British or Americans lay in the fact that it tended to happen early. Indeed, the Soviet Army was reaching POW camps in Silesia and Pomerania in January 1945. A prisoner thus freed from Stalag IIC at Woldenburg was able to rejoin Bear Cub in the Underground shortly after the AK was disbanded. In due course, Bear Cub made him his deputy, just as Boor had invested Bear Cub. When Bear Cub failed to return from his meeting with the Soviets, ‘Chairman’ automatically assumed command. [
FUGITIVE
, p. 505]
One particularly joyous moment, however, has to be recorded. Stalag VIC at Oberlangen was situated in north-west Germany very close to the Dutch frontier; and it was the principal POW camp for the female soldiers of the Home Army. Its 1,500 inmates consisted mainly of former nurses,
couriers, and other women auxiliaries from the Warsaw Rising. On 12 April, word spread that ‘the English Army’, as they called it, would be arriving at any minute. The story is best told by one of the soldiers of that ‘English Army’ driving along in his jeep at the back of an armoured column:
We covered the ground very quickly. In the totally flat and treeless countryside a camp appeared with its watchtowers and its barbed-wire fence . . . Everyone drove up to the main gate, but I turned off some 200 metres to the side. My [driver] leapt out of the jeep, and ran right up to the wire, Sten gun in hand . . .
The historic shout of one of our soldiers can’t sum it up.
O rety, ile tu bab
, ‘Oh cripes! What a crowd of birds!’ He was right. There was a huge crush of women. And how well they looked. After four years of looking at pale and skinny Scots girls, we thought every one of these women was a picture of health and beauty. The intense joy of liberation made them all look absolutely marvellous. It was impossible to believe in the cold and hunger which, in reality, had ravaged that penal camp – for that is what it was.
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What a coincidence! The women soldiers from the Warsaw Rising had been liberated by the men of Gen. M.’s division. It was equally a coincidence on that same day that the women’s former commander, Bear Cub, was about to complete his deposition for the NKVD.
For ex-insurgents who decided to join the 2nd Corps of Gen. Anders in Italy, the prospects were highly exhilarating. Having experienced both the horrors of the Rising and the boredom of the prison camps, the journey across the Alps in the spring or early summer of 1945 must have aroused deep feelings of joy and relief. For, as they climbed the Brenner or the St Gotthard Pass in the back of the British army trucks sent to collect them, surrounded by magnificent snow and sunshine, they were leaving their wartime woes behind. And they knew that as soldiers of Gen. Boor they were driving to the warmest of welcomes.
Life in German Displaced Persons camps was not so rosy: but most participants were able to resign themselves to temporary discomforts in the hope of better fortunes to follow. Most of them hoped either to join the European Voluntary Worker scheme or to emigrate to North America, Australia, or South Africa. The time of waiting could be distressing. Living conditions were primitive. US quotas did not provide for sick or disabled candidates. Local German officials were often appointed as supervisors. And Soviet officials were permitted to visit the camps looking for people whom they alone regarded as Soviet citizens. On those occasions, anyone who felt threatened – including those born in eastern Poland or even in Warsaw before 1914 – tended to take to the woods.
FUGITIVE
A fugitive POW, who spent the last weeks of the war among Czech partisans in Bohemia, finds the way to freedom on an ex-German motorcycle
6 May 1945
The peace in our ravine was interrupted by Thomas’ hysterical shriek.
‘Americans! The end of the war! . . .’ We drive into a wide valley, where units of General Patton’s 3rd Army are pitching camp. The news is fantastic! Hitler is dead, and in Italy they have strung Mussolini’s corpse up by the legs . . .
8 May
The behaviour of the American soldiers does not inspire trust. In the afternoon they fired coloured rockets over the valley. Later their colonel climbs onto a tank and begins to shout something. His soldiers shout even louder! Worse! They begin to shoot! But no, they are celebrating victory! If so, me too! I get out my pistol, load it and fire it into the air – once: a habit from the Rising . . .
19 May: on the road in Saxony
My greatest desire is a glass of water. A grey old man opens the door.
‘
Wasser, bitte schö n
,’ I say. The old man invites me inside and points to a bucket. I drink two large mugfuls. Everywhere there are visible traces of former luxury and of terrible destruction. I get out a packet of American coffee from my rucksack.
‘Coffee?’ I ask. ‘
Ich bin Polnische Kriegsgefangener
.’
‘
Ach ja?
I speak a little Polish,’ he says. ‘I once lectured in Cracow.’
We heat up some American tinned food and he adds potatoes. A feast fit for a king. We eat on beautiful Meissen porcelain, with silver cutlery, sitting on broken armchairs. [My host] begins to chat. He is a widower; his son died at Leningrad; and his daughter fell into the hands of the Bolsheviks.
I sympathize, but I cannot stop myself from commenting on Nazi barbarity. ‘You Germans also carried out monstrous crimes!’ I said. ‘Now the whole world knows about the crematoria in Auschwitz, and many other concentration camps, where Germans murdered millions . . .’
‘Yes, you are right, and what is worse, Goebbels, the choirmaster of deception, is dead, but thousands of his pupils survive and at some point will shift responsibility to others . . .’
At the interzonal border
The border runs through the suburbs of Chemnitz. In front of it are the Russians, and the Americans beyond. The Russians are playing cards. The Russian officer reads my document, and points to the border. I let out my breath and [wheel] the motorcycle under the barrier. I feel a gun barrel in my stomach! The American soldier is looking at me with deep suspicion! I show him my permit from the [Czech] hospital. He edges it out of my hand with the barrel of his gun and then treads on it with his boot . . . The Soviet officer laughs. ‘American culture!’ he says . . .
Sunday 20 May
I sleep tucked in a German duvet next to a Russian. A piercing shriek from the next room wakes me. I see Soviet soldiers struggling with two women, whose clothes are in tatters. No one hears the hysterical cries. A queue forms, ready to rape the mother and daughter. I feel sick . . .
I wash in a mug of water and go to my motorcycle. I must get away at any price! I ask the Russians for a few litres of petrol. They agree, but they all want to have a go. Not one of them knows how to ride. The Americans laugh and lift up the barrier. One of the Soviet soldiers managed to drive a dozen metres, but the engine cuts out. I run over, pretending to help him, and thereby cross the border. I start the motor, sit on the seat, and start going. I drive in a small circle near to the Americans then drive off in zigzags at top speed. No one shoots . . .
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L. Halko
Refugees, deportees, and ex-prisoners returned to Poland in 1945 for any number of reasons. But they did so at their own peril. Most wanted nothing more than to be reunited with their families and loved ones. Some wanted to recover property or businesses. Some thought to test the conditions of the new regime. Others returned with the clear intention of contesting the regime with every means at their disposal. Such were Vitold P., ‘Roman,’ the hero of Auschwitz I, and his partner, Barbara, who had both fought in the Rising in the ranks of the AK.
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Both spent a couple of idyllic months with the Second Corps in Italy before following the call of duty.