Holy Week: A Novel of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising

Chapter 3

Chapter 3 ||| B y t h e n e x t d a y the ¤res had spread. At ¤rst it was dif¤cult to determine who had set ¤re to the houses: the Germans or the Jews withdrawing from the walls into the heart of the ghetto. Later it turned out to have been the Germans. Among the ¤rst buildings to burn from the night of the twentieth to the twenty-¤rst were the large apartment houses along Bonifraterska Street that the Jews had defended for such a long time. The neighboring buildings caught¤re from them, and when Malecki went to his of¤ce as usual at eight o’clock, an immense cloud of black smoke could be seen from afar, rising over the ghetto and covering the sky overhead. The day was sunny, but breezy, and the wind coming from that direction carried with it the acrid stench of burning to as far away as Ÿoliborz. The ¤ghting by now had shifted from Bonifraterska to Stawki Street in the Muranów district, and it must have been quite heated, because from around the Ÿoliborz viaduct, which was as far as the streetcars ran, everything shook from the ceaseless volleys. Apparently, in the early morning a group of insurrectionists had succeeded in getting out beyond the ghetto walls and had taken the battle as far as the forts of the Citadel. Now it was quiet in that district, and well-forti¤ed posts guarded the exits from all the tiny streets leading from the ghetto. In the meantime, whipped by the winds, ¤res burned uncontrollably all along Bonifraterska. Although the day was sunny, the sky overhead had become gray-blue and translucent, as if glazed over. People walked through this netherworld like ghosts. The crowds hurrying from Ÿoliborz, Marymont, and Bielany exited the streetcars in silence and in silence hastened to board¶atbed trucks to transport them to the center of town. The trucks departed one after the other, shattering the silence with the din of their motors. You are reading copyrighted material published by Ohio University Press/Swallow Press. Unauthorized posting, copying, or distributing of this work except as permitted under U.S. copyright law is illegal and injures the author and publisher. Holy Week | 57 Farther down along Bonifraterska, now completely dead and deserted, the air had become even darker. From the windows of one of the far-off houses, sharp red tongues of ¤re writhed out of a massive cloud of black smoke. It was the Wednesday before Easter.||| Malecki ¤rst had to take care of company business forgotten amid the previous day’s confusion, after which he remained quite busy for the rest of the day, only returning home shortly before curfew. With all these matters to attend to, there had been no opportunity to go to the Makowskis in Mokotów. As dusk settled, the ¤res looked even more sinister than they had that morning. Buildings were now burning quite close to the place where the streetcars stopped. As Malecki stepped down from a horse-drawn platform wagon, he saw that the roof of the corner building at the intersection of Bonifraterska and Muranowska streets was on ¤re. The building was ¤ve stories high, and the¤re billowed and seethed high above the ground, turning everything dark with its thick smoke. The wind swept sparks onto the roofs of the houses closest to the walls, and a ¤re brigade was standing next to one of the houses most in danger. Tiny black silhouettes of people scurried over the roof amid the smoke and blaze. The battle still raged in Muranów. Machine guns and automatic ri¶es rattled, as time and again the earth was shaken by powerful detonations. The ¤res had been visible from Bielany throughout the day. While they did not look as ominous as at night, the clouds of smoke rising into the clear blue sky still served as a constant reminder of what was going on in town. Sounds of explosions could be heard there as well. Whether she was pretending or whether she had in fact overcome her attack of nerves, Irena behaved quite calmly compared to the preceding day. Anna had to take care of various household chores, and she was so successful in engaging Irena in everyday tri¶es that at times she seemed to forget entirely about her immediate troubles. Anna’s outward calm, however, was maintained through considerable effort. Although there was no reason...