September 25, 1939 – Black Monday

Eighty-five years ago today, the Germans launched their most relentless two-day bombing campaign against Warsaw, Poland’s capital — a bombing campaign so devastating that September 25, 1939 has become known as “Black Monday” — and resulted in the city

In her award-winning book The Mermaid and the Messerschmitt, Rulka Langer, a young working mother of an 8-year-old son George and a 3-year-old daughter Ania, who had been educated at Vassar College in the U.S., describes what it was like to be a civilian in Warsaw on Black Monday.

CHAPTER 22
September 25: Black Monday

(pp. 272–285)

September Twenty-Fifth, 1939. No one in Warsaw will ever forget that day.

Eight o’clock found us already on the back stairs landing, suitcases, gas masks, coats and all. I can still see myself leaning against the wall, trying to shield the children with my body….

Wave after wave of German bombers swept overhead. They flew so low that at times it seems impossible that they should miss the roof. What on earth was our anti-aircraft artillery doing? Not a shot, not a bark….

And then a little before eleven the bell in the courtyard began to ring.

Fire!

There was a patter of running feet. Someone shouted from downstairs: “Quick! The back of the house is on fire. Bring all the water you have. Quick!”

I told Leosia [the maid] to remain with the children on the landing, and ran back to the apartment. Mother and Cook followed me. We grabbed buckets and filled them in the bathtub. No time now to spare the last of our water….

I was just returning to the bathroom with two empty pails when I heard someone knocking at the front door…. Krysia Malachowska, panting and hatless, was standing on the threshold.

“Look here, Rulka,” she was talking very fast, trying at the same time to catch her breath, “do you know that all your side of the street is on fire? You better bring your mother and your children and come at once to our shelter. We will be glad to have you.”

I gasped.

“Do you mean to tell me that you’ve run all this way through a burning street and under bombs just to invite us to your shelter?” I could hardly believe it.

“Yes, of course. Come as soon as you can. I’ve got to run now, I am needed at the house.”

She was already descending the stairs.

“Thanks!” I cried after her….

I collected my little party. Leosia was to carry her suitcase and mine, and keep an eye on George. I took the children’s big suitcase in my left hand, threw the children’s bedding over my right arm and with my free hand grabbed Ania’s little paw.

“Let’s start. Keep close to my heels.”

I did not glance back at the house….

How the house on the left burned! Huge flames leaped from every window from top floor to ground floor. Running, we crossed the street. Faster, faster. If only we could reach Krysia’s house before the planes returned….

If only… Oh God! If only… But no. Even before we reached the corner, the bombers were upon us again….