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30
1stAugust 1944
Nacha lay back in the hidden room and stared up at the ceiling overhead.The book in her hand was illuminated by a lantern on the floor beside her, but the words had blurred.She’d lost interest in its pages.It was hard to concentrate on anything at all these days.
They were in the middle of a war zone.The Poles were rebelling against their German invaders, attempting to push them out of Warsaw.But she was stuck in the small apartment with her father, brother and Jan’s sisters, while Jan, Waltrina and Walter all went out into the world to fight the battles she longed to fight.
It wasn’t fair.She should be out there in the streets of Warsaw fighting to take her own city back from the Germans.She was a Jew.She had every right to be angry, every right to take up arms against the evil army who’d occupied Warsaw for so many years now and had sent most of her family to extermination camps.But Tata wouldn’t let her go.She had to stay in the small, dank apartment that stank like Nathan’s enormous sweaty feet all the time and do absolutely nothing other than bake and sew and read.It was infuriating.
Give her a gun and she’d show the Nazis how she felt.But she had no choice, and she didn’t know how to use a gun.So she was stuck.
The pages of the story in her hand blended together and she found herself re-reading the same paragraph over and over again before finally throwing it down on the sleeping mat in frustration and emerging from the secret room, her hair a beehive of tangled knots.
“Nice hairstyle,” quipped Nathan.
He and Tata were playing a game of droughts by the window.Tata smiled at her just as the air raid siren sounded throughout the city.The high-pitched keening sent a chill through Nacha’s thin frame, and she ran to the window to look out over Tata’s shoulder.
It was as thoughthey’d descended into hell.All around them, the city burned.Jan hunkered down behind a stack of sandbags in the foxhole and peered through the sights of his rifle.
“Can you see them?”Marek asked, squinting through a pair of cracked binoculars.
“They’re behind the fruit and vegetable shop,” Adas replied.
All three men were huddled in the same foxhole after running from the scattered remains of a German division.The city was falling.It’d been coming on for some time now, but the Polish Home Army had sent word via radio to the rebels on the ground—the Soviets were coming.Warsaw would change hands soon enough, and the exiled Polish government wanted the Home Army on the ground to take charge of the city before the Soviets got there.
The last thing the exiled government desired after so many years of war and occupation was another occupation.The Home Army had fifty thousand troops, and the German numbers were dwindling.
The Soviets hoped for the Home Army to oust the Germans and the Polish government didn’t want the Red Army to occupy Warsaw and instate an alternative government.Everyone had their motives, but in the end, it boiled down to Jan and the other rebel troops fighting a street battle with a disabled Nazi force while the Red Army bombed German positions and pushed in from the northeast.
A bullet pinged into the sandbag beside Jan’s head.He ducked low, then shot back in the direction of the produce shop.Successive rounds rang out and Jan fired back again.Suddenly the sky was full of the roar of an arial attack.
Planes raced by overhead, the noise of their engines deafening.A few blocks away, they dropped their loads, and explosions were followed by an enormous cloud of black smoke that filled the air and made Jan cough.
“Let’s get out of here,” Marek said as he covered his mouth with the neck of his shirt.
They ran for cover, escaping theWehrmachttroops who could no longer see them through the smoke.Jan pressed his back to the wall of a building and surveyed the city around him.It was coming apart.How long could this go on?So many lives lost, so much destruction.And now another army was breathing down their necks.
The uprising in Warsaw, led by the Home Army, had become disjointed and disorganised.The insurgents had split into small groups forced into defensive positions by the much-stronger German forces.
With the Soviet troops surrounding Warsaw, Allied relief had trickled to nothing.It seemed the Soviets would neither help the Poles fight off their invaders nor allow anyone else to help either.Jan anticipated that the Home Army troops would run out of supplies within a few months if things didn’t improve.
“I’m heading home,” Jan said.
The two men waved and headed off in the other direction.Jan set out at a jog for home.They were still living in the apartment his mother had rented for them almost two years earlier.It’d become more of a home to them than any other place they’d lived, since they were all together.
In that time, they’d experienced joy and laughter, bickering and sadness, and everything in between.But they were a family, and Jan couldn’t remember feeling so content in his personal life even as all the world disintegrated around them.
People scurried by.Bicycles rushed past and vehicles honked, trapped by the rush.No one wandered anymore.They didn’t go out onto the streets without some purpose.Many had already left the city and become refugees heading west.
Where they’d go, no one knew, but west seemed like the only option open to them.Away from the retreatingWehrmachtarmy and the advancing Red one.To the west was freedom and hope.The east held only death and destruction.
Jan and his family had chosen to remain.They had all the food they needed and a roof over their heads.If they left the city, it would be on foot.
Walking west was an unknown prospect—where would they go?How would they find food?Would anyone take them in, or would they sleep rough until they died of exposure?No, the known was preferable to the unknown.At least, that was what Antoni and Mama had decided.Now Jan wondered if they’d made the right choice.
The screech of an aerial assault filled the air.Jan picked up the pace, glancing back over his shoulder as a trio of planes descended towards him.He hid in the doorway of a stone chapel.He tested the doorknob and found the door was locked.The noise was overwhelming.
He squatted and covered his ears as they let bombs loose over the city.The Germans were coming down hard on the uprising.They were like a cornered dog, its teeth bared.
