Irena picked her way through rubble-strewn streets, thick with smoke from the hundreds of buildings that still burned, and squeezed her way past several carts piled high with pots and pans, even wardrobes and beds. Two days after Piotr left, the Germans had surrounded Warsaw and, shortly after, started bombing it. And continued bombing hour after hour, day after day. There was hardly a building in Warsaw that wasn’t damaged.
Almost more terrifying than the explosions was the awful screaming sound the German Stukas made as they dived from the sky, before dropping their bombs on top of the buildings and the fleeing civilians. Now Irena was needed more than ever at the hospital and so she made her way there each day, darting from building to building, trying to avoid the explosions and falling debris. Even if her help hadn’t been required, there was no point in staying at home. A bomb was just as likely to fall on her there as on the street. Besides, she would go crazy with only her thoughts to keep her company.
The hospital was in chaos, as it had been since the day the war started. Hundreds of people lined up in the corridors waiting to be seen, the staff singling out those who they could help and those destined for the hopeless ward.
She spotted her father bending over a mother and child as they sat against the wall in the corridor. The mother held her little boy tightly as Tata listened to his chest. He smiled at them and said a few words, before pinning a white label onto the child’s shirt.
When the mother smiled back it was clear that she didn’t have a clue that Tata had just condemned her son to death.
‘Renia! Thank God!’ her father said when he looked up and saw her.
The stretcher-bearers came forward and carried the child away, the mother trotting at his side, smiling. Was it fair to give her hope? Wouldn’t it have been better to tell her that her child was about to die so she could hold and comfort him in his last hours? Irena didn’t know any more.
‘I am fine, Tata. I brought you some bread. Have you eaten?’ She hoped he’d found a bed somewhere to put his head down for a few hours. He wasn’t getting any younger and had had pneumonia last year. He needed his rest.
‘Yes, yes. Some soup. You mustn’t worry about me. The nurses see that the doctors eat.’ He paused. ‘Any news of our allies? I haven’t had time to listen to the wireless.’
She shook her head. No word of her brother, no word of Piotr or of the West coming to their aid. ‘There could be an announcement any time, Tata. Perhaps they were taken by surprise?’
But it had been over two weeks since the Germans had attacked and still the British and French did nothing.
‘We mustn’t give up hope,’ he replied, repeating the words everyone said to each other but with less and less conviction.
She could tell he didn’t really believe what he was saying. ‘Of course, Tata. We must never give up hope.’
The next day, Russia invaded Poland from the east.