25 September 1939

From eight to six p.m., that is, for ten hours, ten centuries, you could hear only the whir of engines, the whistle of falling bombs — that maddening, piercing whine, as if the highest note had suddenly leapt off the scale. And then the blast. You felt relief after the blast. Even though it meant that a building had been turned into rubble and that several hundred people had been killed, you then relaxed.





We are still alive. Our turn had not come yet.






A new dawn comes and you wait again. Life's a gamble. Hit or miss. Life or death.

But later no one even cared. Death was a given. It was just a matter of time.

I survived the war.

I survived that horrible month. A gruesome month of blood, corpses, and death. A month of fire.

You cannot describe it. Nor can you imagine it. You have to experience it — and survive or die. I survived. I know neither how nor when. I do not know why. Why am I alive when hundreds of thousands of healthy, creative, and worthy people were killed? I do not know how I survived in the middle of that hell, in that sea of fire, in the hail of bombs and shrapnel, on the hottest stretch of the frontline.














The shock had no chance to subside, for the sheer devastation the Nazis inflicted revealed itself when the sun rose.















26 September, 1939

26 September 1939! What a gruesome date!

I walked out into the strangely, unnaturally silent street. How weird! No whine of falling bombs. No crack of bursting bombs. No swish of shrapnel. Just corpses, corpses, corpses everywhere ...

Rotting and stinking human and equine corpses lying unburied for three weeks. Crows had left them untouched because they too had abandoned this city doomed to annihilation. Yes, even those creatures that feed on death had left.









Over the streets, buildings, and ruins of this once beautiful city there now reigned a single, all-powerful ruler — Death.






She was lurking in the unexploded shells. She was ready to suddenly fall down on you in the form of a brick. Or bury you under a collapsing wall.

You knew this was Her kingdom. Oh, you knew it!







Rubble, bricks, and bullets on the street. Whole streets strewn with corpses.





The colour red flashed before your eyes at every step.








Raw red. Blood red. You could not see any buildings. There were no buildings. There were only corpses, corpses of buildings. Red and jagged edges of destroyed walls and foundations. Bloodied with brick dust — rent asunder, dead.




Sticking out above all that, up from under the rubble, from under the eerily twisted veins of coils and wires, is a dead leg. Its only moving part is the pant leg fluttering in the wind.

Who knows whence and why this wind has come to us — to the dead. A skeleton. A skeleton of a building — as if eaten clean of its flesh. Roofless. It looks out with its hollow, burnt, blackened eye sockets of windows. Blackened by fire and smoke, its walls did not hide its interior. They did not obscure what was behind them. The naked corpse of a girl reveals shapely, young body. Its womb and full breasts are pallid, but woundless, flawless. Except the hip, where you can see a small spot. That's where the shrapnel entered. And those eyes! Those eyes!! Staring as if ripped open in deathly pain and fear. Bottomless eyes with all the pain and fear of death preserved in them. The eyes of a human. Alive and testifying to death. They will exist as long as there are wars. Another corpse nearby. The corpse of a man covered with bricks and plaster and stained with blood. A corpse which a mighty force had impaled with a burning beam. A big piece of charred wood sticks out through the stomach and chest. And the
clothes and the body are charred, too. Only the face, which is looking to the heavens, as if crying out for vengeance and punishment, is intact. It is blind because its eye sockets and mouth are covered with a black mass—blood. The
dried blood has filled all the pockets, all the creases and wrinkles in the face. Dante [Alighieri] is dead and he will not rise from the dead, but if he were alive, even he would be unable to render or depict these thousands of corpses — of people, horses, and buildings lying motionless, naked, uncovered, and terrifying in their mute accusation. They all seem to be imploring the Earth and sky with one and the same question:






Why? In the name of what? By what right?







All Saints' Day came. Hundreds and thousands of candles were burning on every square, on every unpaved spot, along the sidewalks, on the streets, and in the ruins of buildings.

Thousands of people were intoning: "For the soul of ..."

But nobody lit candles for the corpses of the buildings. Silent and motionless, their skeletons stood empty and torn apart all the way down to their basements, exposing their red, gaping wounds, from which wires along with power, gas, and water mains were spilling out like intestines or veins.

And then a strange, if not a miraculous, paradoxical thing happened! Snow fell. And it was white! Over so many corpses and so many rivulets of hot, red blood, white snow now fell. Such is the work of Mother Nature. So it has to be. Such is the law.











In the first entry, the diarist describes Nazi air assaults with detached horror — anonymous suffering he has somehow escaped.

The second entry shatters this detachment as the destruction becomes tangible and overwhelming.

By the third, tragedy strikes intimately: Rachela, the diarist’s lover, is among those claimed by the same relentless shelling.









17 October, 1939

“... Several hundred people were killed during the shelling of the city. Including Rachela ...”
“Yours.. R.”


We are suffering and our blood is being spilled. But it is nothing. Future generations will pay dearly for the shame and infamy the German nation has brought upon itself. Every German will blush at the thought of the twentieth century. For this madness must come to an end. The blindfold that this band of criminals has put over the nation's eyes will inevitably fall, and then a single resounding, sustained cry will come from the mouths of 80 million people, one that will last for centuries:

“Führer, Sieger des Judenkrieg, account for what you have done! Why have you fooled us? Why have you lied, oppressed, and murdered us? Why have you brought the leprosy of dishonesty and inhumanity upon us? Be condemned, be damned forever as a criminal and murderer! Die and vanish like a festering sore that has left an ugly mark on a healthy body!”





The day will come when an anguished mankind will cry out:

“Hitler! Stand trial! Explain yourself, and your deeds! Why do you keep silent? You, the author of the fascist ideology of blood, torture, and the fist — why do you keep silent? Away, murderer!” 








This cry will break the criminal. It will crush, trample, and torment this non-human, this creator with the likeness of a human, but made exclusively of murder and rage. He will disappear forever, never to be mentioned again.

Rain. An unpleasant autumn drizzle taps at the window panes, patters on the window sills, and sobs. The clock has come to its aid ... with its monotonous, incessant ticking. The bust of Voltaire on the bookcase, ever the same and smiling mysteriously, seems to be content. Like a malevolent satyr it enjoys the misery of the world. It seems to give orders to the rain from the height of the bookcase in the small, distant room. And the rain obeys. It patters and sobs. No wonder. The long-expected foul autumn weather has come. The soaked, rain-drenched city dissolves in the fog outside the window. It is
nothing like the same, yet already so distant, world — that of last summer. So recent, but so distant. The light from the street lamp mixes with the shadows to form violet streaks and reflections in the dark room I know so well, but
which seems so novel. It is already dark. Pitch black. And yet not every night is like this. The pine forest which I know so well and of which I have so many memories suddenly appears before my eyes in the darkness. I can see the shapely figure and the delicate, subtle features of my summer queen — Rachela. Her face looks just as I saw it that last time. I also remember that
glowing night not so long ago — and the beauty of the forest's terrifying majesty. That last night. The night of love. The night when we knew only love and thought about nothing else.

I could swear with clear conscience that the creature next to me is not human. This petite figure in a white dress is not Rachela, but a Nymph. She has walked up out of the river and she is luring me back. The clothes left on the bank have melted and disappeared in the faint glow. They have blended in with the green of the grass. You can only see two bodies glimmering, as if cast in silver, glistening with droplets of water, and silently chasing each other. Naked and refreshed, we step out onto the bank. Light. The grey light warns us about the oncoming sunrise. Rachela throws her arms around my neck. Her petite shapely body embraces me tightly. I feel her two breasts protruding and her warm, supple body pressed against mine. We hear the rhythm of our hearts now beating as one, how it's now one heart beating evenly in our chests. We stand pressed against each other, embraced. Her lips are suddenly so close, so temping and enticing...

It happened. That was our first and last kiss. Blushing, Rachela grabbed her dress and ran into the forest. From between the trees her naked back flashed at me. Not knowing what I was doing I called out.




— Come back!




And her voice answered from the forest (or maybe I imagined it; maybe it was just the rustle of trees).







— Remember!






... A golden sun rose from beyond the river ...

Yes, Rachela. I remember. I remember what we promised to each other and I shall fight for this idea until I die. And even after my death. As long as I can and longer. I will fight, though without you. You are gone. But I will fight thinking of you, in your name, and for you. I will fight under your banner, under the banner of Culture and Love.




I shall fight for culture and humanitarianism in word and deed. I will fight against barbarity, atrocity, murderous wars, and fascism. I promise this to you, Rachela. I promise to fight and win, or to contribute to victory. I swear.

























While the entry ends with the diarist’s promise to resist, carrying the memory of lost love, the next entries center on the brutality of the occupation. Resistance now means survival—under constant humiliation, violence, and deprivation. The intimate grief becomes collective anguish as daily life descends into cruelty, terror, and suffering.







October 1939 — January 1939

A red flag with a swastika on Warsaw’s City Hall.

The first car with German officers. Their green uniforms and flat caps are an eyesore not only because of their novely, but also because of their hostility. They are to blame for the changes all around us. A tall, elegant, handsome officer turns over an unexploded cannonball meant to have sprayed shrapnel, and paints the name of its manufacturer and its serial number. He then looks down the destroyed, ruined street, with the red outlines on both sides marking what used to be the sidewalks. He pulls out a small camera and takes a commemorative war picture aus Warschau."

But he's nagged by the question: "Wieso ist hier noch so viel Menschen?" Are we in the wrong place?"

An endless wave of helmets spiked with rifles. The ceaseless, steady stomping, its rhythm so strange after the earlier events. And the endlessly flowing, triumphant "Horst Wessel Lied." [The Nazi anthem]


Armbands with the Star of David.


A dark room. Windows boarded up or covered with carpets. No panes. No plaster on the ceiling. Crumbling walls. At the table in the centre of the room a few people are packing razor blades. Heaps of razor blades. Tissue papers piling up. Red. White fingers wriggling like snakes on the table. Chaos. All is spinning, the table too. Fingers running across the table. Tissue papers flying. Scissors cutting. Fingers. Tissue papers. Scissors. Fingers. Tissue papers. Scissors. Fingers. Tissue papers. Razor blades. Fingers. Blood.

The doorbell rings. Somebody rushes in. Silent whispers. Secrets.

— The Germans are conducting a search. Hide.

The men disappear behind the door.

Heaps of razor blades. Tissue papers piling up. Red. White. Fingers wriggling like snakes on the table. Chaos. All is spinning, the table too. Fingers running across the table. Tissue papers flying. Razor blades cutting. Fingers. Tissue papers. Razor blades. Fingers. Tissue papers. Razor blades. Fingers. Blood.









The doorbell rings. Somebody enters [the stairwell]. Heavy footsteps. Suddenly the door opens-loudly and without a knock. A German. A green uniform. Red tissue papers on the table. Red blood dripping.

“Was ist hier? Was macht Man?” What is it? What is going on here?

“Wir packen Rasierklingen.” We are packing razor blades.

“Ah, so. Rasierklingen. Rasierklingen. Rasie...” Oh, yes. Razor blades. Razor blades. Razor...




He walks over. A heavy, fat, soft paw grabs a razor blade from the heap. Steel. Blood. Silent contentment. They give him a pack of ten razor blades.



“Wo sind die Männer?” Where are the men?

“There are no men here. Keine Männer. Auf wiedersen.”

A refugee centre. There are 115 people in a prayer room. Military cots set up by the walls. New white floorboards. A spot sometimes disrupts their whiteness. A sick, old man. His eyes wide open, as if surprised by everything going on around him. His beard covers his chest. Long hair, dark, almost blue-black. Long strands fall onto his shoulders.

You can see the sidewalk through the tall windows. And shoes. Boots. Feet. Walking. Flashing past. And suddenly everything disappears. A crack. A shot. A distant scream. Three pairs of feet in high boots. A bang on the door. Three officers enter the centre. People silently press up against the wall. The children are crying. The Germans do not like it.

“Alle Kinder raus!” All children out! They order.

Commotion, running, and the patter of feet for a brief moment-and then silence. You can hear only the ticking of the old clock with a pendulum and an iron face skillfully crafted by an unknown master dozens of years ago. Apparently, the silent hum of this museum piece bothers the Germans too. Several dozen pairs of terrified eyes look into the black barrel of the revolver slowly rising to the level of



— the stomach
— the chest
— the head




It rises even higher, reaching the clock's face. A crack. Another one. Soon a fifth. The whole magazine of the revolver has been pumped into this sinful clock. Sinful, because it bothered the officials. The pendulum is still swaying back and forth like a blind or drunk person. Silence. And then a drunken animal scream cuts through the silence like lightning cuts the dark sky. “Raus von hier! Verfluchte Juden! D.... Raus!!!” Get out of here! Damned Jews. Get out!!! The door is blocked. These representatives of a European nation, die Kulturträger [“culture spreader”], are standing by the door with revolvers in their hands. Representatives of a savage, fascist band. The windows spring open as if automatically. People begin fleeing through the windows to escape the bullets flying one after another and only narrowly missing their heads.




Rushing.
A head.
A leg.
Somebody collapses.
A hand.
A pane.
Clang.
It breaks.
A head.
A gash.Blood.
Blood. Emptiness.





Three large figures are standing in the door. Green ones. A fourth one, black, is lying on the cot. His eyes wide open as if surprised by everything that is going on. His beard covers his chest. Long, dark hair. Almost blue-black. Long strands fall onto the shoulders. A crack.

A man is lying on a cot. His open eyes still have that expression of unspeakable surprise. His beard covers his chest. Blood flows down the long strands of his hair, drips onto the floor, and forms a large puddle.

A truck. Germans. A round-up for forced labour. The truck is half-full of people. It is still not enough. Ten, fifteen more.

An old grey-haired man with a cane. He walks slowly down the sidewalk. His cane taps unevenly on the sidewalk. He walks on and finally spots them. He quickly lifts his shaking hand to his hat. His grey hair falls in disarray. But he was not fast enough. A thin leather horsewhip lashes his face. A red welt. Another German runs up, snatches his cane, and hits the old man over the head with it. A body lying on the street. The cane broken in two. A German calls a passer-by with a Red Cross armband, who walks over, kneels, and lifts the lying man's head.



“Dieser Leute braucht schon keine Hilfe.”  These people no longer need any help.

His hands are covered in blood.






And that German wore such light yellow gloves... Walls across streets.

A wacha [inspection point located at the Ghetto gate]. A gendarme stands at the crossroads. It is snowing. A crowd of people on the sidewalk. Bare heads. Their terrified eyes stare at the gendarme, at the master of life and death. They are waiting for him to gesture and finally let them cross the street. He makes a strange, vague movement with his hand holding the horsewhip. In a wave the crowd rushes forward to
reach the other side.

“Halt! Zurück!”

The people bow resignedly and return. This spectacle is repeated three times before the gracious dictator finally lets them reach the opposite sidewalk. The first rows have reached the sidewalk and they are now running down the street, making room for the next people. The last ones are almost at the sidewalk, but they have been too slow.






A crack.
A shot.
Two bodies lying
on the street.
Two Jews fewer
in the world.





The wall. The ghetto border. I can see both sides from the window. Low in the wall is a drain hole, large enough for a child to fit into. Two soldiers stand in the corner by the wall. A mother approaches with her child from the Jewish side, from the ghetto. This child, aged six, is the provider for the whole family. This old man, aged six, smuggles food for his family through the gutter. Equipped with money and a sack, the child kneels and hegins squeezing through the hole. Having squeezed in its head, the child looks around and meets the eyes of the awaiting soldiers.

The child twists and wrestles wanting to go back, but the mother pushes him by the legs to the other side, to the other side — to get food.
...

Somebody is sitting up against the wall on the street. A grey figure. It sometimes sits silently, sometimes begs, sometimes just watches the passers-by. Yet hunger never leaves its eyes. Mortal hunger. Its legs are getting thicker and thicker. These are not legs, but enormous blocks of flesh swollen due to starvation. They are swollen logs. It is a macabre, living example of elephantiasis pedis. And this enormous mass of flesh is one festering, swollen wound. Swarms of flies fly around it. They land and drink the trickling blood and pus. An unaccustomed person automatically averts his gaze from this sight. But it cannot be done. The head becomes motionless. The muscles grow taut. The eyelids become too short to cover the eyes. The wound remains. The whole street is a wound. The ghetto is a stinking, festering wound. The sun is a wound. It will not let you ignore it. Having managed to overcome this frozen inertia, you fling yourself into the crowd to look, to listen, to forget, so as not to see the wound anymore. And the crowd absorbs everything. It transforms everything into one wave, one drop in this sea of people. It spins and circles aimlessly, restlessly and without direction. It leads you in front of shop windows where you can see: bread, bikes, hats, and postage stamps. A barbershop. A perfumery. A café. A butcher's store. Everything dances a horrible can-can, a terrible danse macabre [dance of death] before your eyes. Everything spins, fidgets, and circles in a vicious circle, only to subside, stop, mix, and form a festering open wound once again. And your lips automatically start to form a scream for help, for rescue.






S.O.S.!
S.O.S.!
S.O.S.! S.O.S.!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Help!
Help!
Help!
HELP!!
HELP!!!

Animals! Damn this!





































Pleas for help transform into fantasies of vengeance. The diarist, emptied of human sentiment by the unrelenting terror surrounding him, no longer recognizes mercy or love as his own.






October 1939 — January 1939

Homo sum, nihil humani a me alienum puto. [“I am a human being, I consider nothing that is human alien to me.”] It is a lie. Human feelings are already alien to me. Love is alien. Mercy is alien. My heart jumps for joy at the sight of an obituary: “er fünfter und letter Sohne gefallen für Vaterland.”

The obituary of the first son even said: “für Führer und Vaterland. In stolzen Trauer—Mutter.”

Quite moving. No? I am going to cry. What? If I could, I would give you more than one chance to show your mercy. I would give you not ten, not one hundred, and not one thousand, but millions of mothers signing their sons' obituaries with the words “in stolzen Trauer.” I would multiply her sons. I would give her not seven, but seventy sons. But I would let her live. Perfectly calm, I would single-handedly shoot or slaughter thousands of people: young people, sons, husbands, brothers, fathers fighting für Führer und Vaterland. After work I would go à la recherche du temps perdu for their slaughter and for a glass of wine.








Text and document: An eyewitness account of the German invasion of Poland in 1939, during which Warsaw suffered heavy air attacks and artillery bombardment at the hands of the Nazi forces. A ghetto resident penned their account in four separate entries in 1939. It was contained in the Oyneg Shabes Archive.

Video: Montage of clips from a German propaganda film, “LIBERATION OF FREE CITY OF DANZIG & INVASION OF POLAND.” Courtesy Internet Archive


The Ringelblum Archive 
Life Amid Destruction
Bearing Witness 
Research Guide 

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Contact  This work has been made possible due to the gracious support of the Holocaust Legacy Foundation and the Northeastern University Department of Jewish Studies.