August 5, 1944 – The Warsaw Uprising, Part 2

Continuing with our series of blog posts about the Warsaw Uprising, we will draw from our award-winning book The Color of Courage—A Boy at War: The World War II Diary of Julian Kulski.

Julian Kulski, author of The Color of Courage, was a 10-year-old Boy Scout when the war broke out in September 1939. At age 12, he was recruited into the Home Army by his Scoutmaster. During the Warsaw Uprising, Kulski, then 15 years old, was a member of the Ninth Company Commandos stationed in the Żoliborz neighborhood in northern Warsaw. Kulski had worked very hard to join a commando unit after his Home Army commander and former Scoutmaster Ludwik Berger was killed by the Germans in November 1943.

In his Afterword to The Color of Courage, Captain Mieczysław Morawski ‘Szeliga,’ commander of the Ninth Company Commandos, writes (pp. 383–384):

“Without any doubt this Company was the best unit in the Żoliborz Division. It was most effective in its close contact surprise attacks on the enemy. Used in special actions, the Company was the first to attack and the last in withdrawal.

“Divided into three platoons, the whole Company was never more than one hundred fifty strong. Sixty percent of the Company’s complement were teenagers, and fifteen to twenty percent were girls….

“There were heroic tasks performed; there was bloodshed and suffering, but surprisingly few tears.

“Julian Kulski’s book tells the truth, while also bringing a message of desperate importance: it is difficult to obtain freedom, but it is even more difficult to maintain it.” [italics in original]

Excerpt from The Color of Courage:

CHAPTER 6
AGE 15: 1944 — THE WARSAW UPRISING

pp. 285–291:
Saturday, August 5 —

Two detachments of our platoon were called to the still unfinished barricade at Słowacki Street today, to defend it against the attacking German infantry. We repelled three enemy attacks with our hand grenades and with our machine guns, Sten guns, and rifles. In this action, eighteen were killed on the German side while we had only two wounded….

The Germans are attacking the Old City with airplanes, tanks, infantry, and all available artillery…. Every hour enemy Stukas fly over Żoliborz from the Bielany airfield, dropping bombs on the city before returning for a new assault. It is outright slaughter; we do not have one antiaircraft gun in the entire city.

According to the news circulating in Żoliborz, the enemy is now fighting to open an artery from the western part of Warsaw through the Center City held by the Home Army, all the way across the river to the eastern suburb of Praga. The reason is obvious. The German Army fighting the Red Army across the river has lost its vital line of supply, which we have cut. Unless they can restore  contact, they will not be able to hold out against the Soviet troops much longer. Therefore, they are throwing their main forces against the Home Army units blocking their way. We hear that a brigade of Ukrainians, organized by the Germans from Soviet war prisoners with promises of plunder, food, and vodka, is fighting with the Germans.

The westernmost suburb of Wola evidently has received the brunt of the first attack, and it is reported that the Germans and Ukrainians are giving no quarter to anyone in their way. They are taking no prisoners, and are killing men, women, and children on sight. According to eyewitnesses who have reached Żoliborz, the entire staff (as well as the sick and wounded) at the Hospital of Saint Lazar on Leszno Streetr has been massacred. Babies were swung by the legs and their heads split on the corners of buildings; women were raped before being shot; and hundreds of civilians were herded by the Germans in front of tanks attacking the barricades. Polish fighters cannot open fire on these innocent civilian shields, and some of the enemy’s successes have been due to this tactic.

Were it not for what has happened during the last few years, and what happened to the Ghetto little more than a year ago, nobody would have believed the Germans capable of such barbarism.