September 1-2, 1944 – The Warsaw Uprising, Part 6

Continuing our series of blog posts about the Warsaw Uprising, drawing from our award-winning book The Color of Courage, by Julian Kulski:

CHAPTER 6
AGE 15: 1944 — THE WARSAW UPRISING

pp. 314–316:
Friday, September 1 — We hear that the Home Army Command has decided that it is no longer possible to hold the Old City, owing to lack of food and ammunition, and to enormous losses. Yesterday alone, three hundred soldiers of ‘Chrobry I’ Battalion died in a single sector of the Old City. So, the thin remnants of the Home Army garrison decided to escape through the sewers to the Center City. Their plan was as ambitious as it was radical.

It seems that at dawn the enemy attempted a surprise attack. This was repulsed, and some one hundred of the enemy were killed or wounded. However, at noon there came a simultaneous pincer attack—Ukrainian SS units from the Royal Castle Square and Germans from the north headed toward Krasiński Square. The famished and exhausted troops counterattacked with their last reserves of ammunition. Their devastating fire succeeded in keeping the attackers from entering Krasiński Square, where the manhole to freedom was located.

Leaving only token guards on the barricades, platoon after platoon, company after company, formed a long line. Then, with perfect discipline, the armed men descended one by one into the stinking, swift-flowing sewer.

The trip took four hours through waist-deep sludge and poisonous fumes. The human chain, each link holding tightly to the next one, snaked its way underground. Everyone had to move slowly, in total darkness and in silence. Those who slipped and fell in the deeper parts of the channels and had no strength to get up were drowned. The others could not spare precious time or reserves of energy to search for them, and without lights it was a hopeless task anyway.

Saturday, September 2 — As soon as the first rays of morning light fell upon the smoking ruins of the Old City, the Stukas began to dive-bomb Krasiński Square. Then, during the day, the enemy moved into the Old City, capturing some thirty-five thousand civilians and seven thousand seriously wounded. Many of the wounded, lying in makeshift hospitals set up in the cellars below the ruins, were burned alive with flamethrowers. The old, disabled, sick and all others unable to walk were lined up and shot, and the remainder were taken off to concentration camps.