Emilia
Uncle Piotr prepared detailed, careful plans for our escape to Lodz. Truda, Mateusz and I were to stay home to pack while he attended one last business meeting.
“Do we really need to do this?” I asked, as he stood in the hallway, donning his hat. He checked himself in the mirror, then shot me a wink.
“It’s an important meeting, Elz·bieta.”
“I wasn’t talking about your meeting, Uncle Piotr. I was talking about Lodz.”
I’d gradually come to terms with the news that kindly, jovial Uncle Piotr was also something of a wartime vulture, snapping up precious black-market commodities and reselling them for as much money as the market would allow. I tried, on more than one occasion, to challenge the ethics of this, but he saw me as a little girl with no important opinions of her own.
“We could stay and see if we can contribute. Roman knows people in the AK, and Sara knows doctors and nurses. I’m sure if we were to stay we could—”
“Elz·bieta,” Truda said sharply. I turned to look at her, and she pursed her lips. “We are most definitely leaving, and, Piotr, we should leave as soon as we can. Do you really need to do this deal first? Why must we cut it so close?”
“I will be back at three o’clock with a driver and a car. The insurgents will rise at five. That is eight hours away! There is plenty of time for us to clear the city,” he said firmly, then he winked and tapped me on the nose. “You’re going to love Lodz. My apartment is twice the size of this place, and the restaurants are fantastic.”
I wasn’t interested in a palatial apartment or restaurants. My heart was heavy, and I was so conflicted about leaving both the city and Roman.
Over our year as neighbors, our relationship had never evolved beyond friendship, although at times, I had the sense that we were skating on the edge of something more. Our eyes would lock in a way that was fascinating and delicious. On more than one occasion, I found myself just staring at him, thinking about his hazel eyes or the way his hair fell into neat curls around his head. I was drawn to him—not just emotionally but also physically. I wondered how it would feel to rest my head on his chest, to listen to his heartbeat, to breathe in his scent. Sometimes at night, I’d lie in bed, and I’d lift my hand to touch the wall between us, comforted that he was on the other side.
But for all of the ways I was drawn to him, something held me back. It was a glimpse of darkness that I understood, even as I feared it. He was relentlessly driven, barely out of bed after his recovery before he was out looking for a contact in the Gray Ranks.
“Maybe you should give it more time,” I’d said to Roman, and he’d shaken his head, as if I was crazy to suggest such a thing.
“There is an uprising coming! I need to contribute. I can’t waste this second chance.”
“I’m not saying you shouldn’t fight. It’s just that if you are stronger, you can contribute more.”
“Or I can rest in bed until I die of old age, and if everyone else opts to do the same, Poland will never be free. No one is coming to save us, Elz·bieta.”
Other times, he would speak about his martyrdom with a glint in his eye that I came to understand was longing. It seemed Roman wasn’t just willing to sacrifice his life for our country, he was determined to.
“Aren’t you afraid to die?” I asked him hesitantly one day.
“I already know death,” he said, shrugging. “I’ve been so close to it, I could feel it. I know how it smells, I know the rhythm of it. Whatever lies on the other side, almost everyone I’ve ever loved is already there waiting for me. Why would I be afraid?”
I once described his anger as righteous anger, and I still understood that to be true. But I wondered where this darkness would lead, and I was nervous to link myself to someone who seemed so determined to destroy himself. I had closely watched Sara’s relationship with Piotr over that year, and I knew she refused to make a commitment because there was an obvious disconnect in what mattered most to each of them.
I drew inspiration from that. I had a sense that I was connected to Roman in some way that was predestined, but even so, I controlled how fast and how deep that connection would grow. If I were honest with myself, deep down I wanted a future with him, but even when our gazes lingered or when our hands almost brushed or our conversation skirted the edge of how we felt about one another, I could not bring myself to cross that line. Roman, too, seemed reticent. I saw the way he stared back at me, and I was quite certain he felt something beyond friendship, too.
Whatever had been going on between us that year, neither one of us opted to confront it directly. And now, all I could do was pray for him, and I intended to do that with all of my might.
The first gunshots rang out just after one o’clock. They weren’t in the immediate vicinity but somewhere in the blocks around us, loud enough to be startling. At Mateusz’s shocked command, Truda and I joined him flat against the floor.
“It’s not on our block,” he told us, peering up at the window, as if we could see anything from the carpet on the third floor. “But stay low. Stray bullets can be unpredictable.”
“But it’s too early,” I protested. “They said it would start at five...”
“Something has gone wrong already,” Truda said, gnawing her lip. “My God. Piotr is out there. And Sara! She will be at work downtown.”
“Sara was going to skip work to set up the field hospital at the church,” Mateusz reminded her. “And Piotr is smart and a survivor. He will be fine.”
“What do we do?” I whispered, looking up at the window. Above us, birds had scattered at the gunfire and were soaring in a cloudless sky. If I could block my ears, it could have been a perfect summer day—the perfect day for a car ride to Lodz.
“We don’t have a choice,” Mateusz said with a sigh. “Piotr was bringing the car back from his contact in Z·oliborz, so we can’t exactly go without him.” Another volley of gunfire sounded. Mateusz winced. “Besides, now is obviously not the time to cross the city.”
We sweated through an anxious hour on the floor of the apartment, listening to distant shouts and sporadic gunfire. Mateusz insisted we stay low, but when the shrill ring of the phone rang out, he crawled into the hallway to answer it. When he returned, his expression was grim.
“It was Piotr. He says there is early fighting in the Z·oliborz district, too. He is going to stay there for now and try to get back if the situation calms down.”
“And if it doesn’t?” Truda asked.
“There are too many variables to make a plan, my love. Piotr suggested we stay here unless it becomes unsafe. He has spoken to some of the insurgents, and they tell him they are confident they will have a citywide stronghold within a few days, at which point the Red Army has agreed to back them up. God willing, the city should be safely in Polish hands in just a few days.”
“So we will be in the city for the Uprising, after all,” Truda said, sighing. She glanced at me. “You got your wish.”
“I didn’t want to be stuck on the floor of our apartment while the city fought around us,” I muttered.
“At least the three of us are all together,” Mateusz said suddenly, but he sounded nervous, and his gaze kept skipping toward the window. I reached across and put my hand over his and smiled.
“That is a silver lining,” I said quietly.
“We’ll just keep our heads down,” Truda announced. “We’ll just stay inside, lie low and wait for the drama to pass.”
By nightfall on the first day, gunfire was rising in every direction, and other sounds came with it: shouts of pain and cries of fear, the whine of air-raid sirens, then the roar of planes overhead sporadically and explosions that rattled the windows. Whenever we heard a plane or an air-raid siren, we would run down the stairs to the basement to cower in the bomb shelter with the other residents of our building. The all clear would sound, and we would run back up the flights of stairs to our apartment all over again.
My thoughts were very much with the missing members of our extended family—especially with Roman. I was mindful of Uncle Piotr and Sara, too, and I kept them in my prayers, but I had the feeling that those two had the sense to run from conflict if it erupted around them. I knew with absolute certainty that regardless of how hot the battle was, Roman would run toward it.
On the third day, sounds of victory came from the street below us, and when I crept to the window, I saw AK soldiers and civilians walking freely along the road, waving banners with the vibrant red and white of the Polish flag.
“Can we join them?” I asked, but Mateusz pursed his lips.
“Not yet. Stay away from the window.”
And so, for one more day, we maintained our life in limbo, eating as little as we could to stretch our supplies, staying low to the floor. I was more frustrated than scared by then, hearing the sounds of jubilation from down the street, while we seemed to be in a self-inflicted siege.
On the fourth day, the front door opened just after dawn, and Uncle Piotr was there, larger-than-life as he always had been, laughing at our tears of relief.
“All of this fuss for nothing,” he said and chuckled. “I’m a survivor—you should all know that by now. The street fighting was intense down there in Z·oliborz, so it seemed safer to hunker down. And would you believe it—I happened upon some weapons while I was there and sold them for a tidy profit.”
Even Mateusz’s nostrils flared at this, but I was too relieved to focus on Piotr’s commercial exploits. Instead, I asked him, “How did you get back?”
“I came across some wonderful soldiers, and they were happy to exchange safe passage for some money. There are pockets under Polish control all over the city—my girl, it is glorious!” He looked at us, confused. “But wait—why are you three hiding up here when the streets are safer than they have been in years?”
“I’m not sure, Piotr,” Mateusz said, glancing warily at the window. “There is so much we don’t know.”
“I wasn’t sure how all of this was going to unfold, brother. You know that. But the scenes I have just witnessed—Polish flags flying proudly on the street, Polish soldiers in command at last! I feel like this is how it begins... This is the beginning of the end! Now let us go and find some good food and vodka to celebrate.”
“Wait a minute,” Truda said abruptly. “The plan was for us to go to Lodz. We agreed it would be safer to get out of Warsaw. Things are going well for the insurgents now, but there’s no guarantee that’s going to continue. Shouldn’t we try to get out?”
Piotr shook his head.
“The AK has strongholds all over the place, but they aren’t connected yet. We control pockets of the city, rather than a safe corridor we could use to get out. We are stuck here for now, Truda, but you’ll see, it’s going to be okay. We just need to give it a few days, and you’ll see.”
A few days stretched into a week. I didn’t see Sara—Mateusz insisted I stay inside just in case of trouble—but Piotr went to the church basement occasionally to check on her.
“It’s unpleasant down there,” he told me, grimacing.
“Unpleasant?” I repeated.
“Blood, injuries...nasty business. But you know Sara. She’s in her element with that kind of thing. She’s fine.”
“Did you see Roman?” I asked hesitantly. He shook his head.
“No, and Sara hasn’t seen him, either, but we’ve heard news of his battalion. Most of this district is under AK control. You should be proud of him.”
“I am,” I said, “but I’m also worried.”
“Well, his headquarters are right near the church. If things get hectic and we haven’t heard from him, I’ll wander down and ask around for you, okay?”
“I could come with you?”
Uncle Piotr smiled. “Let’s just see how the next few days go.”
Although the strongholds closest to us had not fallen, it was obvious something was changing in the districts beyond. Aerial bombing was increasing, and we made frantic trips up and down the stairs every time the air-raid siren sounded—now several times every day and night. From the first week of August, explosions constantly rang out, and I noticed a different kind of gunfire. It was sustained and constant—like dozens of machine guns firing, and sometimes all at once. For twenty-four hours, it seemed either our side or theirs was firing without a break. There were so many gunshots, the sounds all blended together until there was a general, awful hum echoing out across the city.
“What could it be?” I asked at breakfast. The jubilation in the streets had faded to nothing, and around our breakfast table, a confused, strained silence had fallen.
“Maybe it isn’t even shooting,” Truda suggested. “How could they be shooting so much? It sounds like the whole German army is firing at once. It could be some new machine they have invented.”
“No,” Mateusz said, shaking his head. “I think it is gunshots.”
“I have an idea,” Uncle Piotr announced, and then he left the apartment, returning after an hour with a wireless radio in his arms. These had been illegal in the city for some time, although plenty of people defied this order. Piotr turned the device on, and we crowded around it, listening as he tuned across various stations. First we found a Soviet station, broadcasting from their stronghold to the east of Warsaw, promising that relief was coming soon and encouraging the citizens of Warsaw to fight to push the Germans out.
“Could the noise be the Soviets?” I asked.
“No, it is coming from the west, not the east,” Piotr murmured. He twisted the dials and this time found an underground AK station. There was a general update with a mixed bag of news—some areas lost, others gained—but the headline news made my blood run cold.
“...Germans are going from home to home in Wola, dragging civilians of all ages to the street and executing them in retribution for the Uprising. Heavy casualties are reported, with massive piles of bodies in streets around the district. Reconnaissance reports suggest tens of thousands of civilians may already be dead. Particularly heavy losses are reported at the railway embankment on Górczewska Street and factories on Wolska Street...”
“They’re only a few kilometers away from us,” Mateusz whispered.
Piotr reached forward and snapped the volume button off, the action so sharp and violent that it startled me. When I looked to his face, I found him ashen, and he was staring at me in horror.
“We should have left when we had the chance!” Truda exclaimed, pushing back her chair, her features twisted with rage. She slammed her fist down onto the table. “You just had to do one last deal, didn’t you? What will your zloty benefit us now, when the Germans are going from door to door murdering us and we are trapped here?”
“God,” Piotr said, choking, “what have I done?”
“What are we going to do?” I asked uneasily.
“We are trapped,” Mateusz said, scrubbing a hand down his face. “There is nothing we can do. We have no choice but to stay here. They are still a few kilometers away, and there is a firm AK stronghold between Wola and Sródmiescie, so we have time. And you heard the Soviet station. They are coming. We just have to hold on.”
By the time the sun set that night, I had been listening to constant gunfire for thirty-six hours, and now I imagined I could hear screaming, too. Unable to sleep, I crept into the dining room and found Uncle Piotr sitting at the table in darkness, nursing a bottle of vodka. Even as I approached, I could tell that he was quite drunk. I sat opposite him, and he lifted the bottle to his lips and gulped at it, then dropped it heavily onto the table.
“Is there anything we can do?” I asked him.
“I have let you down.”
“Uncle Piotr, I’m not interested in looking back. It’s done now,” I said. “I just want to know if there is anything we can do to get out.”
“The AK are using the sewers as a transport route, but it is risky and supposedly only to be used by soldiers. I am going to make inquiries, okay? I’m going to see if I can find you a way out.”
“Thank you.”
“If we can get to the outskirts of the city, we can make our way down to Lodz, even if we have to walk. It is just over a hundred kilometers. We could do it.”
“We could.”
“I am worried about your young friend, you know,” Piotr said, then he sniffed miserably. “If the Germans are slaughtering tens of thousands of civilians, they will not hesitate to execute the AK if they capture them. Even the boys, like Roman.”
“I know,” I whispered, feeling a pinch in my chest.
“When I was younger, I thought that life was fair. I thought that maybe each person was allotted a degree of suffering, but once they endured it, life would be easy. Now I know it is random, and that if there is any intention to life at all, it leans toward cruelty.”
I’d never seen Uncle Piotr so flat, his demeanor so bleak. As worried as I was, I felt compelled to present some optimism.
“Life can still be good, Uncle Piotr.”
“There are unexpected blessings, that’s for sure. Take you, for example. Your spirit has brought me much joy, and it was most unexpected.”
“Thank you. And...likewise.”
“For these past two years, I have loved Sara, and she has rejected me time and time again because I am selfish and greedy.” I didn’t know what to say to that. I stared at him in the darkness, watching as he stared down at the bottle on the table. “I wish I’d listened to her. I wish I’d changed to be a better man so we could be together. I just kept thinking that in life, there were winners and losers, and I felt sure this would be true even in war. I wanted to be a winner. I told myself that she would wait and that when I made bucketloads of money, I would turn over a new leaf, and we’d be married.”
“You still could...” I offered helplessly.
“I want to. I just keep thinking about your young friend and how, if there were a quota for suffering, he would have met it some time ago, and yet still he suffers.”
“It’s not fair.”
“He is a good man, Emilia. Sara sees in him what she wishes she saw in me.”
“You can change. Can’t you?”
“I want to do something for Roman. Do you remember when we were supposed to go to Lodz, and you so desperately did not want to go?”
“Of course,” I whispered, laughing weakly. “That was only two weeks ago.”
“It feels like longer.”
“It does.”
“I should have insisted he come with us. I should have told him that he had already proved himself a hero and that he owed this country nothing. Do you know that I watched them march into the ghetto?”
“His family?” I said, startled.
“Probably. I don’t know. I watched thousands of Jews walk past me on the street as the Germans marched them in, and I told myself all kinds of reasons that it was going to be okay and why I shouldn’t get involved. Now I wonder...if I were a better man, would Sara have told me the truth about what she was really doing during those months? From time to time, she would ask me for papers or food, but I had no idea the extent of it. If I knew, would I have done something? If an opportunity had presented itself to me, could I have been courageous enough to take a stand? To risk my life, the way you did?”
“Uncle Piotr,” I whispered, and I reached across to put my hand on his. He sniffed again and then wiped the back of his other hand across the bottom of his nose. In the moonlight, I saw the shine of tears and snot, and my stomach contracted. “You aren’t perfect, but you are a good man. Most likely, you saved me and Mateusz and Truda.”
“Sure,” he said bitterly. “When my brother comes to me for help, I agree. Then I trap him and his family in a city as it begins to collapse around him.” He removed his hand from mine to scrub it over his face. “You should go to bed. It’s late.”
“Are you going to be okay?” I asked him uneasily.
“I am going to atone for my sins,” he announced, then he sighed heavily. “I just don’t know how. But I’m going to find a way to do something good for your friend, and then I’m going to get you and your parents out of the city before it is too late.”
The next few days, Piotr was constantly in motion. He was in and out of the apartment, visiting his friends all over our district, trying to find a safe passage past the AK barricades that were keeping us safe and through the German-held parts of the city.
“I promise you, I’ll get you out of the city,” he kept saying. “I know I let you down, but I’m going to make up for it. I promise.”
“I know,” I would say, feeling uncomfortable with his desperate contrition.
“I’m going to convince Roman to come with us. And Sara. I don’t know how, but I’m going to find a way.”
And then he was gone again, trying to find a sewer guide who would take us and a way to line up transport so we wouldn’t have to walk to Lodz.
Our district had been within an AK stronghold almost from the beginning, but the conflict came in waves, and the borders were constantly shifting. The AK would fight back and gain ground, then the Germans would crush it and slaughter untold civilians and destroy entire buildings, as if to reinforce the point. From the safe harbor of our apartment, I could see columns of smoke rising here and there. Rooftops I could see one day gone by the next.
I was increasingly aware of a sense of doom creeping in. Even if Piotr could find someone to take us through the sewers, our chances of escape were slim. When Mateusz or Truda had ventured out for food over the weeks of the Uprising, they’d brought back increasingly awful stories of Germans dropping grenades down manholes onto groups of people below or welding shut the manhole covers to eliminate previously safe routes. I couldn’t believe our best bet for survival was to wade through raw sewage, praying that grenades didn’t fall onto our heads and hoping that the exit hadn’t been sealed before we reached it.
On Sunday the thirteenth of August, Uncle Piotr came flying into the house in a flurry of excitement. He squeezed me in a bear hug, then announced triumphantly, “I figured it out! It’s going to cost almost all of the money I have left in the city, but don’t worry—we are going to be okay.”
“What’s the plan?” Mateusz asked him.
“I’ll tell you on the way, brother. We need to speak with Sara, and we need to visit Roman—hopefully he will be at his battalion headquarters.” Uncle Piotr pointed to Truda, then to me. “Pack lightly. One small bag, that’s all. Nothing that can’t be washed. We will be going through the sewers for at least part of the journey. When we get to Lodz, we will stay at my apartment. It’s so much nicer than this dump anyway, and I have plenty of money stacked away there. Once we are safe, I will replace everything you have lost, I promise, and we will live like kings.”