Translated by Krystyna Olas
In
Mokotow the uprising ended earlier than in the downtown district, which
was still held at that time by the Polish fighters. The Germans came in
the evening and said that they knew that there were resistance fighters hiding
among us and that they were to immediately surrender. No one spoke up. The
Germans forbid us to leave the basement, and throughout the entire night we
were shut up in there. In the morning they led us out onto Madalinski
Street. On the opposite side of the street stood commandeered horse
carriages filled with items stolen by the Germans.
They
led us down Madalinski Street to Independence Avenue. The
street was burning, fire billowing from the windows of houses along the sides. For
a second I thought that I heard someone playing the xylophone. It was
window panes dropping from burning frames onto the cobbles below. At one
moment my mother said that our house too was already burning.
At
the defunct Polish Airplane factory in the Okecie district the Germans said
through megaphones that nothing would happen to us. Later they told us we
were to give up all valuables - watches, jewelry, and money - to help fund the
war effort of the German Third Reich. Those who did not cooperate would be
punished. That was how my mother lost her watch. We spent the night
on the concrete floor of the factory. I was scared and hungry. This
feeling stayed with me during the next long months of wandering in the
midst of German-Russian battles.
* * *
We
returned to Warsaw in April 1945. The front half of our building
was charred, but our apartment was spared. We, kids, had a lot of places
to play because half of the surrounding buildings were either burned or in
ruins. We had all the toys we needed: from the wrecked armor on Wisniowa
Street to dud mortar shells to different types of explosive powders and
cartridges.
They
were exhuming
a body very near the fence where I had seen the slim, elegant man the first day
of the uprising. Two men were digging up the corpse while a woman with a
Polish Red Cross armband was checking over some papers. Nearby, a horse
carriage was waiting to transport the body to the cemetery. The woman from
the Red Cross was saying,
“Listen,
papers are most important. We have many people about which
families are still asking. Please be careful.”
I
decided that the Red Cross woman wouldn’t be interested in the bomb shelter the
Germans had built near our home. The shelter, which was dug into the earth
so that from the outside looked only like a small mound, was a place where we
children often played. It had two entrances and was so low-ceiling that one
couldn’t stand up straight. When my mother had brought us back to Warsaw
in April 1945, the entrances had been covered with dirt. The unearthing of
the entrances took us about two months, mainly because in the beginning my
brother and I were the only children in the house. Later Bulek returned,
and also Jacek and Piotrek. The inside of the shelter stunk; it was mildewed
and dirty. When we found a human skull, we stayed away for a week. But
it turned out the shelter was an excellent hiding place for hide-and-seek, and
we later moved the skull into a blind corner of the shelter so as it wouldn’t
bother us. A little while later we found a second skull and moved it to
the same place. It was against our rules to hide near the skulls. The
skull with fewer teeth we named a German, and the other one we dubbed a Pole.
I
went to school on Narbutta Street. I had nightmares; the worst one was
where I was being chased by SS men and I had to escape by roof hopping. Most
of the time I fell, but occasionally I was caught. At school I was a
favorite of our teacher, Mrs. Siwczynska. This helped me when I
accidentally lit my bench on fire while playing with artillery powder during a
Polish lesson. The janitor, Mr. Grzelak, put out the fire with a few of
pails of water. It so happened that one bucket accidentally hit me. What
was worse, the entire carry-with-me portion of my arsenal was confiscated. Most
painful was the loss of two small rocket cartridges and a large buckshot
cartridge. Wet and robbed, I was sent to the principal’s office, where, in
the presence of Mrs. Siwczynska, he told me there was no room in his school for
bandits like me and that I was expelled. Mrs. Siwczynska told me to go
into the anteroom and wait. Through the slightly ajar door I heard the
principle shout fearfully at my teacher when she mentioned that my father had
been murdered at Katyn by the Communists.
“Madam,
for such
talk one can go to jail! I didn’t hear you say that!”
“Mr.
Principal, the child is underfed and neglected. Only God knows
the trauma he underwent during the uprising. We must nurture him, not
expel him!”
I
didn’t consider myself neglected. Starved I wasn’t either; a
number of times during the war I had seen sausage, and at least twice I had actually
tasted it. Besides this, I was rich: only a few days before I had
found among some rumble a disassembled Parabellum handgun. It was worth at
least a hundred cartridges or even two grenades.
Jacek and Piotrek’s mother, Mrs. Patycka,
was the head of the Syrena theater’s literary department, so she knew a lot of
actors. Later on, thanks to her, I got to be backstage number of times. My
first theatrical experience was also because of her. The play was The
Nutcracker. I was awed. I had never before seen such rich and
vivid colors, actions, and sounds. It was a special performance for
children, and the actors involved the audience by asking questions and
occasionally asking our advice. When the Rat King first came on stage, on
of the actors asked us:
“Do
you like him?”
The
answer was an unanimous “noooo!” Surprisingly, even to
myself, I shouted “yes!” Even when all the rest of the audience had
quieted, I was still shouting, “Yes! I like the Rat King!” I didn’t
know what the actor expected when he invited me up to the stage and asked me
why I felt so. I answered, crying,
“The
rat was the bravest! He was braver than the fighters!”
And
then I remembered what had happened during the uprising. The SS
men had come one afternoon. I was near the entrance when they stormed the
basement. First there was the terrifying order,
“Hände hoch!”
Two
black silhouettes with the blinding white opening of the door behind
them, loaded with weapons. One was shouting, “Weg!” He set himself in
the corner of the basement, pushing Mr. Grusze out of the way, and stood there,
prodding the room with the barrel of his sub-machine gun. The other one
was howling, “Schnell!” and was herding Mr. Grusza and someone else, a short
man, whom I didn’t know, up the stairs, kicking and pushing them. I knew
that one of them would kill me at any moment. I didn’t try to escape,
instead I started screaming with all my might.When Mr. Grusza and the short man
were already at the exit from the basement, the SS man with the submachine gun
came out of his corner and went towards the stairs. In the sudden silence
Mrs. Pojawska said,
“Mrs.
Olas, will you calm your child, or they will shoot all of us.”
The
SS man, already at the bottom of the stairs, turned in her direction,
the barrel of his gun scanning the room so that at one point it was pointing
directly at me. My screams changed into howls; no one in the room moved. The
SS man left. I heard two series of shots. In the basement there was
silence. Then Mrs. Grusza started to scream,
“
Please! Give me back my husband!”
The
corpses lay for several days in the courtyard, by the entrance to the basement. Then
we learned that the Germans had finally allowed the interring of the dead, and
a few men dug a grave in the courtyard’s lawn. Mr. Kowal, returning from
the courtyard, said,
“If
this uprising doesn’t end soon, then they will have killed us all.”
* * *
Luckily
for the unfortunate actor, Mrs. Patycka was backstage. After I
had started crying hard and stomping around repeating that the rat was brave,
the actor didn’t know how to get me off the stage. Mrs. Patycka simply
came out from behind the curtains and said “Come here,” and took me home. My
mother told me o get something to eat and go to bed. I fell asleep
quickly, but after a little while talking woke me up. My mother was just
then scolding Mr. Kowal.
“Mr.
Kowal, you are drunk, and I hate drunks. Why don’t you go
home.”
“Mrs.
Olas, I went home, but my wife wasn’t home. I immediately knew that she
must be with you. And anyway, I only drank because I met Mr. Smolinski. Remember
him? He was in the basement next door during the uprising. And you
know what? This world is so stupid. Now those SOB communists are
saying exactly what we’ve been saying all along, that the whole uprising was
just one big blunder.“
That
night I dreamed of the uprising. The Rat King, wearing a royal
purple cape, sat on a throne in the middle of our basement. On the left of
the King sat Mr. Grusza, and on the right the short man whose name I didn’t
know. The herald, also standing on the right side of the throne, was
reading from a huge parchment:
“Let
it be known to all, that all past blunders invalidated.”
In
the crowd, I recognized my mother and Mr. Kowal with his wife. In the
back, I saw groups of people, under a red flag, all wearing red shirts. I
moved toward Mr. Kowal and asked,
“Sir,
what about
the SS men?”
Mr.
Kowal shouted, interrupting the herald, “Exactly! What about
the SS men?”
The
Rat King answered seriously, “The SS men are bad people.”
I
asked, “Will there be another uprising? I’ve already been through one. I
don’t want an another uprising.”
“In
Poland bad things are happening, but there will not be a second uprising,”
replied the King.
My
mother then asked, “Rat King, is there somewhere a Great Order Among
Everything? Is there somewhere Justice?”
The
Rat King hesitated, “It is difficult to talk about order in a place
filled with graves and corpses. Every fourth person in this country is
dead. We are led by barbarians.” Now the Rat King pointed at me. He
continued, “ Maybe he will live to see the Great Order Among Everything of
which you speak.”
I
fell into a deep sleep. That was my last dream about the uprising.
The
city changed. The burnt half of our apartment building was rebuilt, the
air raid shelter torn down. I grew quickly. I became interested in
books and sports. Jacek, Bulek, and I formed a soccer club, and I got to
play the centre. Everything was going great. I hadn’t quite realized
then that, more and more, I was seing portraits of a Great Leader with a
mustache, and that more and more people mumbled the name Stalin.
THE END
Brak komentarzy:
Prześlij komentarz