Thread by @akoz33

I decided to post my translation of a fragment of my mother’s wartime recollections in which she describes events that happened near the end of the Warsaw Uprising. I think it illustrates well the difference in the way the Germans treated various nationalities, including the

Poles and the Jews.
In 1944 my mother was 19. Having escaped from a transport that was supposed to take her to a forced labor in Germany, she could not return back to her village. The heiress of the local estate (the Polish countryside was still in some regions srmi-feudal) had a

friend in Warsaw, who was the wife of a doctor. The doctor had an important job - he was the head if the medical section of The Chief Welfare Council (Rada Główna Opiekuńcza) - the only charitable organization the Germans permitted to function in occupied Poland. The organization

good and medical care to many Poles and maintained secret contacts with the Polish Givernment in Exile.).
My mother stayed in Warsaw with this couple and their son Mirek until the liberation of Warsaw. The windows of the apartpulation) went out on Muranowski Square, which was

in the Ghetto. From that window she was able to watch the Ghetto Uprising and the massacre that followed it. Once when she was looking a German soldier noticed her and fired in her direction. Only because she noticed him aiming slightly earlier and stepped back, she avoided his

bullet. She attended classes in a famous secret school (schools other than those that taught practical subjects like needlework were banned by the Germans for the Polish population) to which she was accepted even though she could not pay the fees. Then the Warsaw Uprising came.

The initial elation, was followed by what became for most inhabitants of Warsaw the darkest period of the occupation. My mother together with a group of civilians were captured by German soldiers, who used them as shields against the Polish fighters. This is the point where the

fragment that I have translated begins.

“We found ourselves on a large square between two long storage buildings with many German soldiers, artillery pieces etc. They ordered the women to stand under the wall of the second building and in front of us they put a machine gun. They ordered us to put our hands up.

The sleeve of my coat fell down and a German soldier saw that on my hand I had a watch. He came to me, pulled it off my hand and kept it.
We had no idea what they would do to the men as they took them to the other side of the building.

The Doctor ’s Wife, who spoke perfect German, was listening to what the Germans were saying. She told me that they have been ordered to shoot us all. It was August and very hot. I was wearing a winter coat and was trembling of cold. These were nerves.

Since then I have known how a person sentenced to death feels. I wasn't thinking about anything except that my mother will not know what happened to me and will be all the time waiting.

After some time the Doctor's Wife told me that the Germans got a new order to kill the men only. Then she said to me: "Regina, I will say that I am a German, maybe in this way I can save someone" . I told her that she must do it.

Then she started shouting: " What are you doing to me, I am a German, my brothers are fighting at the front!". The Germans immediately became interested in this. "Are you really a German! Have you got any proof?" They started asking for her " kennkarte" - a German identity

document that every Pole had to carry. But she pretended not to hear what they were asking and kept showing them her birth certificate. She was born in Vienna. She had told me that her father was a diplomat and she lived there until she became nineteen or twenty.

She spoke German like a native.
Her cries were having an effect. Her son, Mirek, was with her because they had not taken him away as although he was eleven he looked younger and other boys of the same age who were bigger and looked older went to their deaths with the men.

When she was shouting "what are you doing to my husband and father" they brought them to her and started asking why she married a Pole. She answered "because I fell in love" . I don't know if the Doctor knew German but he did say a word.

She was shouting to the father "please say at least one word!" but he was as if he had turned into stone and no word came out of his mouth.

Then the Germans started walking among the women and looking carefully at each; they particularly carefully looked in the eyes. Some women they separated and took into a building and probably beat them because one could hear screams and crying.

Then they brought back these women, who were now in tears, and msde them stand aside. We knew these women because they all attended the church. But when the Germans separated them anyone could notice that they all looked Jewish.

There were among them a mother and a daughter. There was also a younger daughter, whom the Germans did not recognise. She was standing among the rest of us, very sad but did not make any visible gesture. Then the Germans ordered some of

younger persons to load goods such as uniforms, military coats etc. on trucks. I think I was not made to do this because all the time I was with the Doctor's wife. When the truck was full, the Germans brought the Doctor and the Doctor's wife's father and told them to help the

women get on the trucks. They brought one more man who had proved that he has a Hungarian. When the truck was almost full they told these men (the Doctor, the Doctor's wife's husband and the Hungarian) to join the women. Some high ranking German came to the Doctor's wife and

asked her if she was satisfied. She answered "yes, thank you". We went on the first truck so we did not see the executions but the women who come in the next two saw how all the men and these separated women were shot. The Doctor told us what they did with the men.

On the other side of the storage were railway tracks on which ran trains which carried various goods to Germany. The men were ordered to undress to their underwear and lie down on the tracks. In this position they were shot. Their clothes were probably taken to Germany.”