Resistance (34 page)

But according to Stroop's report, only a few Jews in the area responded: "Therefore I decided to evacuate the whole sector by force, or to blow it up." Thus, Stroop began the systematic destruction of the residential houses and of the brushmaking enterprise itself, arousing the considerable ire of its German owners. It is very likely that Stroop's extreme action, which consisted not only of the mass murder of Jews but also of the destruction of property that Himmler had ordered him to protect, was taken with his superior's permission and prompting.

From the very beginning, the campaign was described in articles and reports in the newspapers of the Polish underground.
Dzien Warszawy
(The Warsaw Daily), an underground paper published with the support of professional journalists and representing the Polish government in exile in London, wrote on April 20:

 

Considerable German forces which included battalions of the SS and some companies of the police, the gendarmes and supplementary forces, started a bloody action in the ghetto of Warsaw. Army troops and the blue Polish police [police in the service of the Germans] surrounded the Jewish quarter and the action began with a siege on the houses. The Jews hiding in the bunkers greeted the Germans with a concentrated barrage of machinegun and pistol fire, and hand grenades. After a few minutes of fighting, at about 10
A.M.,
the attackers withdrew, taking with them their wounded (some twenty) and killed (seven)...It is impossible not to sympathize with and admire the Jewish population, who have set aside their passivity in order to carry on a heroic struggle which has no chance of succeeding, against the Nazi hangmen whose forces are a hundredfold stronger. We must express our deep and unspeakable revulsion to this battle of heavy arms being waged against a civilian population.

 

The next day, the paper reported:

 

The war of despair in the ghetto continues. The Germans have suffered many losses. Yesterday the Germans celebrated Hitler's 54th birthday. Throughout the world, in all advanced countries, the birthday of the head of government is generally marked by an amnesty. The Germans honor their leaders by the hangman's method—by the mass slaughter of Jews.... In the course of two wars, I participated in many battles. But none of them made such a moving impression as yesterday's. In the glare of the blazing flames, to the sound of the exploding field cannon and anti-armor fire, the throwing of hand grenades from the rooftops, the rattling of machine guns, the German sappers are advancing toward the Jews' fortified positions in order to lay mine traps. Flame-throwers were also used.

After these preparations, the German infantry moved to attack but from time to time were driven back by the Jews. I counted 15 dead and 39 wounded among the German soldiers in one sector alone. The Jews, using machine guns and a large quantity of hand grenades, are defending themselves with fierce bravery. Molotov cocktails are being thrown at armored vehicles and tanks. I witnessed a flaming tank from which its burnt crew was being extricated ... yesterday, appeals appeared on the walls of houses bordering on the ghetto, which the Germans immediately removed, saying: Poles, Jews, we are asking for your help! Long Live Free Poland! The Germans called to all the Jews [of the ghetto] to appear at 6:30
A.M.
at the
Umschlagplatz.
No one responded to the call. The battle continues.

Wiadomosci Codzienne
(Daily News), published by nationalist right-wing circles, stated on April 22:

 

The besieged are resisting stubbornly. They consist of some 20,000 armed men, led by someone named Jachman, a lieutenant in the Polish reserves. Even the women are fighting, pouring sulfuric acid, gasoline and benzine on their attackers. The German losses are quite painful. There are rumors that Soviet deserters have infiltrated into the ghetto where they are helping to organize the defensive ... in the fighting in the ghetto, the cowardice of the SS people stands out, as they move "carefully" against the determined defense of the Jews.

 

Ludwik Landau, a Polish scientist of Jewish origin on the "Aryan" side, who usually wrote in his diary dispassionately, could not restrain the pathos in his entry of April 20:

 

Life provides us with strange surprises at times. Now a war is being fought nearby, a real war, with shooting from both sides, setting fire to buildings, even with the aid of tanks and [small] cannons. In brief, "The War of the Jews," from which there are episodes which would merit the pen of a Josephus Flavius ... a Jew bearing an automatic rifle is wounded and in the next moment, the woman at his side takes over his weapon, and aims a round of bullets at the Germans.

Alongside the walls, there is a group of SS men surrounded by curious spectators. A woman appears on the wall, waves a red flag and warns the civilians to leave and at the same time, a group of Jews move through the sewerage canals, throw hand grenades at the SS men and return to their posts by the same means. One or two tanks have been destroyed by setting them on fire with benzine, one of the cannons has been damaged. Vehicles full of dead Germans or wounded SS men were seen. Some prisoners were also taken by the besieged. Soldiers of the regular army were released while the SS men are being held.

 

Thus, amid many rumors and much exaggeration, the campaign was described by eyewitnesses and journalists. The entire city was excited and amazed. To the confusion and embarrassment of German officials, Governor Hans Frank, who viewed security as primarily the responsiblity of Himmler and his followers, sent a letter on April 20 to Hans Lammers, minister of the Reich and Hitler's chief adminstrative officer, stating, "Since yesterday, we are experiencing a well-organized uprising of the Jews of the Warsaw ghetto against which we must already use cannons."

If the Germans thought that the Jewish opposition would fade after the first day, by the second day they soon realized they faced a planned military campaign that encompassed all the ghetto and the Jews. In the words of Ber Mark, one of the first to write about the Uprising after the war, the "blitzkrieg" failed in the Warsaw ghetto.

In earlier instructions, Stroop had been asked not to damage the large area of workshops in and around Leszno Street. But on the second day of the Uprising he encountered opposition in this area. As a German army column accompanied by heavy equipment moved through Leszno Street, it was attacked by hand grenades and incendiary bombs thrown by ZOB forces directed by Eliezer Geller. A tank was hit and began to burn. In his report, Stroop states that the area contained many nests of opposition that prevented a nearby tank from passing through. Two units were needed to subdue these rebels and clear the way for the tank crew. In this operation, two SS men were wounded. The Nazi forces burst into houses along the street where much of the population of the workshop district lived. They destroyed everything in their path.

As reported by the AK, a group from the Polish organization commanded by Captain Jozef Pszenny headed toward Bonifraterska Street to break through the wall and enable Jews to escape. This was apparently an improvised plan meant to satisfy the obligation undertaken by the AK command to aid the rebelling ghetto. As this did not meet the needs of the Jewish side (Zuckerman does not even mention the action), and no simultaneous move was coordinated with the Jewish fighters, it was no doubt intended simply as a symbolic gesture. The Polish group was equipped with mines and succeeded in getting near the wall without interference. The area was full of curious Poles observing what was happening in the ghetto, which made it difficult to accomplish the task. Only one mine exploded, blasting a crater in the road but not damaging the wall. Polish police alerted the Germans, who exchanged fire with the Polish group. According to Polish sources, some Germans were wounded in the confrontation, as well as two of the AK fighters. On the same day, a group of men from the AL branch of the Communists attacked the German gun position opposite the ghetto in Nowiniarska Street. According to those involved, the gun was silenced and two German crewmen were wounded.

In his summary of the second day, Stroop reported that he sent 1,262 soldiers and 31 commanders into action and that nine bunkers were discovered whose inhabitants put up opposition. The special units caught 50s Jews, sending those fit for work to Poniatowa. On the second day, a group of 10 Jews, headed by a Jewish porter, Jacob Rakower, broke through the siege to a Jewish cemetery and across to the Polish side of the city. Most of the ZZW forces stationed in Muranowska Street also crossed over to the Polish side on that day, or the next, through a tunnel that had been prepared in advance. According to their reports, the fighters took the body of their commander, Leon Rodal, with them. Available documents suggest, but do not confirm, that the escape reflected a ZZW operational plan to fight with as much force as possible but, when the battle was clearly lost, to find ways of saving themselves. The group that escaped reached the woods on the outskirts of Warsaw where, either by betrayal or accident, they were met by a German force and caught.

There was a drastic change in fighting tactics on the fourth day. During the first days, the fighters conducted their attacks and defense from prepared and permanent posts. As the Uprising continued, however, the command evidently decided to use these positions as a base from which sorties and surprise attacks of mobile groups were to be conducted. The change in tactics was needed for two reasons. First, the Germans no longer moved in large groups but dispersed their units over the entire area, with only the heavy weapons stationed in permanent positions at some distance from the Jewish fighters. Second, the Germans had kindled a series of fires, and the conflagration was affecting the ghetto houses. The first fires actually had resulted from the Jews' attacks on the German barricade. The Germans made no attempt to put out the fires. From the third or fourth day onward, however, the Germans set fires sporadically, then began systematically burning all the houses of the ghetto.

It is unlikely that the fires were intended solely to get the fighters out of their posts in the higher stories of the buildings. Interest in eradicating the ghetto had already been made apparent in Himmler's instructions to destroy the ghetto after its systematic evacuation. Stroop's deviation from the original plan evidently stemmed from the Jews' stout resistance and the retreat of Jews to the bunkers.

It is astonishing that the Germans were unaware of the network of bunkers in the ghetto, in view of the many agents and traitors they placed within the ghetto. One can understand that the Germans were unable to gather reliable information about the underground and its preparations to fight, which very few knew about, but the construction of the bunkers was a mass phenomenon that went on in almost every house and, to a certain extent, quite openly in the central ghetto.

While the major defensive effort in the ghetto did not come as a complete surprise, after the war Stroop repeated the claim that the Germans had no knowledge of the bunkers. In a report summarizing the campaign for his superior in Cracow, Stroop said:

 

The number of Jews taken from their houses in the ghetto during the first days was too slight. It turns out that the Jews hid in the sewerage canals and bunkers that were prepared especially for that purpose. During the first days, it was assumed that there are merely a few isolated bunkers, but in the course of the great action it became clear that the entire ghetto is systematically provided with cellars, bunkers and passageways. Each of these passageways and bunkers has an outlet to the sewerage canals. Hence, this allowed for undisturbed underground contact. This effective network also served the Jews as a means of escaping to the "Aryan" side of Warsaw. We received constant reports that the Jews were trying to escape through the underground canals.

 

Soon, the focus of the campaign moved to the bunkers, which formed a kind of fortress for the remaining Jews. In the fierce "battle of the bunkers," the Nazis relied on fire. The area became a burning battlefield. During the day the sky was filled with smoke, and at night with an enormous wheel of fire.

On the third day, skirmishes continued in the streets of the central ghetto, and the German forces turned to attack the brushmakers' area, an attack that did not end until nightfall. In his April 21 report, Stroop stated that a reinforced battle unit of the Engineers Corps was in action in the area:

 

After combing a large block of houses, where it was evident that there were a large number of underground passageways and bunkers, some 60 Jews were caught. Out of the 700 to 800 Jews living in this block, it was impossible to apprehend more of them, despite all our efforts. These Jews withdrew from cover to cover through these underground passageways while being fired on from time to time. I therefore decided to blow up these passages, if I could discover their whereabouts, and afterwards set everything on fire.

 

In his notes of the same day, he pointed out that "the enemy is fighting today [the Jews were now raised to the level of 'the enemy'] with the same weapons as yesterday—home-made explosives ... this is the first time that women members of the Jewish Fighting Organization can be seen on the battlefield." A fighter from the brushmakers' district, Simha Ratajzer-Rotem, described the situation at the height of the Germans' massive attack:

 

The fighters' stand was so determined that the Germans finally had to forgo the possibility of suppressing them by military means and look for a new and seemingly more certain way of handling the situation. They set fire to the brushmakers' area from every side. For a moment, the flames enveloped the entire neighborhood, black smoke congested one's throat and irritated one's eyes. The fighters don't want to be burned alive, so we take the only chance left to us and decide to burst out of the ghetto.