Paul Suski –
A couple of weeks ago marked the 80th anniversary of the Warsaw Uprising and the massacre of the civilian population. Australians, unlike the nations of Eastern and Central Europe, have never experienced the atrocities of black and red totalitarianism. No civilians were ever murdered en masse. Divine Mercy spared this beautiful country from street roundups and the sight of crematorium chimneys. Even the exceptional cruelties endured by AIF soldiers at the hands of the Japanese occurred hundreds and sometimes thousands of kilometres away from the Australian continent, allowing the residents of the capital to sleep peacefully in their own beds.
The Japanese Imperial Army carried out air raids on several Aussie towns, most notably Darwin, which was heavily bombed on February 19, 1942, and other towns like Broome. The only Japanese force to land in the Land Down Under was a small reconnaissance party in the Kimberley region of Western Australia in January 1944.
In Australian secondary schools, the Modern History curriculum includes several topics that touch upon Poland, especially in the context of important 20th-century events, the experiences of Polish Jews during the Holocaust, including the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising and the German concentration camps. Regrettably, the Warsaw Uprising of 1944 which is indeed a significant event is not addressed in secondary school lessons.
The purpose of this reflection is to fill in the ‘blank spots of history’—to describe obscure, sometimes intentionally overlooked events, as well as to serve as a warning to the present generation. One must not violate the natural-moral or divine law with impunity. The Church has reiterated the inviolability of the moral law from the very beginning. One should also remember that every war is an evil that cannot be justified.
On June 8, 1979, Saint John Paul II at a meeting with the University students of Kraków emphasized that understanding history is crucial for preserving cultural identity and learning from past experiences. He highlighted that history provides valuable lessons that can guide present and future actions, thus helping to avoid past mistakes and build a better society.
“You must carry into the future the whole of the experience of history that is called ‘Poland’. It is a difficult experience, perhaps one of the most difficult in the world, in Europe, and in the Church. Do not be afraid of the toil; be afraid only of thoughtlessness and pusillanimity. From the difficult experience that we call ‘Poland’ a better future can be drawn, but only on condition that you are honourable, temperate, believing, free in spirit and strong in your convictions.”
A few years before the Warsaw Uprising and the Wola massacre Rozalia Celak (†1944), mystic, now Servant of God, told her confessor: ”See Father what happens to Warsaw […] there will not be much left but rubble”.
During the Apparitions of Virgin Mary in Siekierki in 1943, which was then the suburbs of Warsaw, a visionary received the warning of an approaching calamity “Pray because a great punishment is coming upon you, a very heavy cross. I cannot restrain the wrath of my Son because the people are not converting […] Blood will flow in the gutters.”
In January 1980, Blessed Stefan Wyszyński, the Primate of Poland, instructed the Piarists to establish a pastoral centre in Siekierki. Today, a diocesan sanctuary dedicated to Our Lady, Teacher of Youth, stands there.
In the course of the mass executions in the Wola district, according to various estimates, between 40,000 and 60,000 civilians were killed. The mass killings began on August 5, and ended on August 7, but on a smaller scale, they continued until August 12, when SS-Obergruppenführer Erich von dem Bach-Zelewski issued an order to cease killing civilians, especially women and children. He did so not out of humanitarian motives but practical ones, as such actions intensified resistance and depleted ammunition and incendiary materials, in great demand at the time. Moreover, young, strong men and women were required for forced labour in the territory of the Third Reich.
The order to exterminate all residents of Warsaw was issued orally by Nazi official Heinrich Himmler, who had consulted with Adolf Hitler himself. Upon learning of the Uprising, the Führer reacted with fury and explicitly stated that the entire city needed “to be levelled to the ground in order to set a terrifying example to the rest of Europe.” As the analyst Halik Kochanski pointed out, “German tactics were clear from the outset: no distinction was to be made between AK soldiers wearing identifying armbands and the civilian population.” An ensuing directive included the pivotal order – “every citizen is to be killed including men, women, and children.”
“The massacre in Wola is one of the largest acts of genocide, committed in such a short span, against a non-Jewish population during World War II,” said Jan Ołdakowski, director of the Warsaw Uprising Museum.
The Germans approached the extermination with their characteristic meticulousness, respecting the administrative boundaries of Warsaw. They spared homes and their residents located just meters outside the city borderlines.
The mass executions of civilians were carefully overseen by Nazi functionary SS-Gruppenführer Heinz Reinefarth. He issued detailed orders to his subordinate units, including policemen, gendarmes, and soldiers of infamous Oskar Dirlewanger’s brigade, renowned for its cruel tactics in Belorussia, primarily consisted of deserters and ex-prisoners who were promised redemption through participation in the operation.
Regarding the nationalities of various battalions and divisions fighting on the side of the Third Reich against the insurgents and often actively participating in the genocide of civilians, historians, based on credible sources, identify several nationalities: Azerbaijanis, Azeris, Kazakhs, Kyrgyz, Russians, Turkmens, Ukrainians, and Uzbeks. Cossacks were relatively well-represented. Since most of them spoke Russian, which is very similar to Ukrainian, it was easy to attribute reprehensible actions to this eastern nation.
The largest foreign unit suppressing the Warsaw Uprising was the 1,700-strong regiment belonging to the SS RONA Sturmbrigade, led by Waffen-SS Brigadeführer Bronislav Kaminski, who was nota bene a Russian. Not until the SS units had annihilated the population of Wola did the Kaminski`s Brigade unleash a wave of terror in Ochota, a district to the south of Wola. Actually, the combat effectiveness of these Russian SS-men was minimal, as they primarily engaged in looting, drinking alcohol, and raping women.
It is intriguing that they were deployed into combat wearing civilian clothes, with their only distinguishing mark – yellow armbands. This fact understandably caused apprehensions within the command of the 9th German Army, as to whether they might be confused with members of the Home Army. By far, more civilians had been killed than combatants, yet the fighting relentlessly continued until the first week of October.
At the outset, the crime followed a specific pattern. The perpetrators, hurling insults, ordered everyone, without exception, to leave their homes, lined them up against the walls, and immediately executed them with a barrage of rifles and pistols. When they realized that the killing was proceeding too slowly and problems arose with disposing of the bodies, they began to concentrate victims in large courtyards or factory halls, where they were killed with grenades and machine guns.
The Germans issued a special directive ordering the concealment and masking of the genocide through the burning of bodies and the scattering of ashes. In some cases, the Germans ordered the dismantling of wooden sheds and fences, and each person to be shot had to stand embracing a plank to make it easier to burn the bodies later. The goal was to erase traces, making identification impossible, emphasized Jan Ołdakowski.
In the early days of the Uprising, a resistance outpost was established in the Redemptorist house on Karolkowa Street in Wola. The community moved to the basements, providing assistance and shelter to local residents. Fathers continued to hear confessions, celebrate Masses, offer modest meals, and comfort the terrified people. They expected that once the Germans entered the building, they would face death. Although they had the opportunity to escape, they decided to stay until the very end.
On August 5, 1944, the insurgent units were forced to retreat towards Nowe Miasto. The next day, August 6, the Germans surrounded the Redemptorist house and, under guard, marched all the occupants to St. Wojciech Church on Wolska Street. There, the Redemptorists were separated from the others, taken to the Kirchmayer factory grounds, and executed with shots to the back of the head. Among the victims were fifteen priests, nine brothers, five seminarians, and one novice.
Crimes in hospitals, including the murder of patients and the staff, were commonplace. On August 5, at the Wola Hospital on Płocka Street, the Germans killed the hospital director, Dr. Marian Piasecki, Professor Janusz Zeyland, the hospital chaplain, Father Kazimierz Ciecierski, and then drove the remaining staff and about 300 patients, some even naked, to the execution site on Górczewska Street, where they were killed.
Here are two poignant memories of those heartrending days.
Jerzy Jankowski, who was 12 in August 1944, recalls:
In front of the building where we lived on Sowinskiego Street in the Wola district, a group of soldiers appeared, dressed in German uniforms, with ammo belts and grenades. They were Germans and their allies—Russians and Ukrainians. Fear paralysed us; we could hardly move or breathe. Over a dozen soldiers rushed into the building, looting the apartments. Suddenly, shots rang out, and we heard shouts in both languages: “raus,” “wychodzicie skorej,” “schnell.” Everyone in our building ran to the exits, where we were met with orders: “hände hoch,” “ruki wierch.”
They lined us up against the wall, hands in the air, including our neighbors. My mum was there too, standing with two younger kids.
Just a few meters away, a group of soldiers held submachine guns. People started begging for mercy. There was a moment of silence, broken only by the sound of ammo being reloaded. We thought it was the end.
But then, a miracle happened. I noticed two Germans running from Górczewska Street, shooting in the air to get attention. When they reached us, it turned out they were German officers—one from the Wehrmacht and the other from Bahnschutz.
After what felt like forever, they managed to convince the soldiers to stop the execution. We were saved!
Later, we found out that a neighbor, who spoke German, had seen what had been going on and ran as fast as she could to beg for help. She saved us from certain death.
Wanda Felicja Lurie, who was 33 years old at the time, shares her terrifying experience:
“… Until August 5th, 1944, I was staying with my three children, who were 11, 6, and 3.5 years old, in the basement of a building at 18 Wawelberga Street. I was in the last month of pregnancy. Around noon, the Nazis entered the yard and ordered everyone to leave the basements. Not long after, they started throwing incendiary grenades inside…
At 55 Wolska Street, in front of the ‘Ursus’ factory, they gathered five hundred people… Some of them waited for hours, knowing they were about to die. In the yard, I saw piles of bodies, up to a meter tall… In my group, there were many children, around 10-12 years old, often without their parents…
I begged Ukrainian soldiers to spare my children and me. One of them asked if I had anything to bribe him with, so I gave him three gold rings. He took them, but the German officer in charge of the execution told me to join the group that was about to be shot… He pushed me so hard that I fell, and when he saw I was heavily pregnant, he hit and shoved my older son, shouting, ‘Quick, you Polish bandit!’ I was in the last group taken to the execution site. The children were crying as we walked…
At one point, the German standing behind me shot my older son in the back of his head. The next shots killed my other two children. Then they shot me. I fell to the ground, the bullet hitting my neck, going through the lower part of my skull, and exiting through my right cheek. I lost several teeth. As they finished off the others, I was shot in the legs. Later that evening, a German soldier stepped on me, injuring my ankle and collarbone. They even took the watch off my wrist. The bodies of those who were killed fell on top of me.
During the massacre, the soldiers drank, sang, and laughed. Lying there, I felt the baby inside me was still alive. That gave me the strength to think about escaping… After several attempts, I managed to crawl to Skierniewicka Street. …On August 20, 1944, I gave birth to a baby boy…”
The policy towards Warsaw’s civilian population drastically changed when Von dem Bach-Zalewski took a decision to compulsorily deport the inhabitants of Warsaw and create a transit camp in Pruszków – this was Durchgangslager 121.
There, my mum – Zofia, found herself, expelled along with my grand-mother – Aniela, from the building at Ustronie 2 (present day – Toeplitza 2). As a six-year-old girl, she remembered that the Germans threw incendiary grenades into buildings setting them on fire that did not display a white sheet and shot anyone trying to flee. Among the residents of the St. Stanislaus Kostka parish in the Żoliborz district, she was brutally herded along Krasińskiego Street towards the Zachodni railway station to be transported to the camp in Pruszków. She saw the dead bodies of men hanging on balconies as a deterrent to those who might consider active resistance
In spite of the scale of mass killing, none of the German perpetrators were held accountable for their crimes before German courts – said a historian, Professor Bogdan Musiał.
Finally, it is worth indicating a completely unknown incident from August 1944. Benedictine Nuns of the Most Blessed Sacrament, at Nowe Miasto Square 2, being aware of the upcoming fall of the Uprising, the immense suffering, and the evil requiring expiation, with the consent of their superior, offered their lives to God, asking that their sacrifice would obtain mercy for their Country. As one of the sisters expressed: So that when Poland is reborn, it will be neither white nor red, but Christlike!
Thursday, August 31, 1944, was a beautiful and sunny day. The Germans dropped leaflets from an airplane—an ultimatum—stating that if the Sisters, along with the people remaining in the basements, did not leave the monastery by 4 P.M., it would be bombed.
The nuns surrounded the tabernacle. Silence prevailed, not even interrupted by a whisper. A silence full of the solemnity of impending death. Suddenly, a terrible explosion, darkness, and a horrifying human scream could be heard. The entire church vault collapsed, burying under the rubble thirty-four nuns and about a thousand civilians.
May God forgive the perpetrators, receive their victims into His Kingdom, and grant humanity peace and protect from World War. Amen.
[Recently, the magazine “Do Rzeczy” published an in-depth interview, conducted by Piotr Włoczyk, a journalist, with Professor Stephan Lehnstaedt, an expert on German history during the occupation of Poland, from the University of Berlin. His way of interpreting history, which many readers in the USA and the UK might find controversial, is on the contrary, highly persuasive to me. Prof. Lehnstaedt argues “In the Anglo-Saxon press, we typically read about ‘Nazi crimes’ rather than ‘German crimes’, which is not entirely accurate but has its own historical explanation. This distinction, often made for political reasons, was intended to separate the so-called “bad” Nazis from the “good” Germans. As a result it can be observed in leading newspapers. […] Currently, however, in Germany, no one doubts that these were German crimes, not Nazi crimes. This is also how it is presented in the academic world here. I would go further: if someone were to attempt to discuss ‘Nazi crimes’ in a lecture, everyone around would look at that person with suspicion. Albeit, the extreme right might frame it this way, we as historians simply present the facts.” Author`s note.]
Paul Suski, based in Poland, has a BA in English Language Teaching, an MA in Political Science, three adolescent children, and wears a Carmelite scapular.