remembering our roles: civilians as resisters during the warsaw uprising of 1944

8/14/2019 Remembering our Roles: Civilians as Resisters during the Warsaw Uprising of 1944

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Remembering Our

RolesCivilians as Resisters during the Warsaw Uprising of1944

Gregg Neville

12/6/08HST 483


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Within Polish circles there exists a controversy over the ways in which future generations

should remember the participation of the civilian population of Warsaw during the Uprising of

1944. It is a question of resistance, asking who was partaking in it and who was merely a

bystander caught amongst the horrors of war, and it has been answered by a push to show the

civilian as a resister, a true patriot of Poland. By examining the controversy over Polish national

identity, analyzing the depictions of the Uprising by Norman Davies and Wlodzimierz Borodziej,

and exploring the experiences of resistance fighters and civilians during the Warsaw Uprising of

1944, the development of the idea that all citizens of Warsaw were passionate members of the

resistance is seen to be an incomplete analysis of the complexities of everyday life within

Insurgent Warsaw.

The Warsaw Uprising of 1944 was a 63 day long insurrection against Nazi Occupation. It

was organized by the Polish Home Army, or the AK, which was the resistance arm of the Polish

Government in London. The AK was created by the Polish Government before the end of the

Nazi invasion in September 1939 in order to fight the enemy at home through clandestine

methods appropriate to an occupied country.1 The AK partook in resistance actions throughout

Polish occupation, but in the summer of 1944, as the Soviet Army marched to the western shore

of the Vistula River, on which Warsaw sits, the AK and Polish Government decided that with

Nazi defeat imminent, it should be they, not the Soviets, who freed their city. They hoped that

after the war this fact would aid their cause of establishing and controlling the fate of their city

and country. The Uprising began on August 1, 1944 and lasted until October 2, 1944. It can be

broken down into three phases that coincide with changing levels of support from civilians

including the first stage beginning with W-hour at which the Uprising began and was followed

by 4-5 days of excitement and high morale with hopes of victory, a second stage consisting of

1Norman Davies. Rising 44: The Battle for Warsaw. (New York: Penguin, 2003), 171.


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bombardment, siege, and lowering morale ending with a boost due to the Allied air drop on

September 17, and a third stage of deteriorating support and success on the ground, leading up to

the capitulation signing on October 2. While the AK held out for over two months against the

Nazi army, the siege coupled with an extreme lack of ammunition and weaponry led to the

Uprisings unfortunate end. The Soviet Army sat on the other side of the Vistula for much of the

Uprising, deciding not to come to the aid of the insurgents and not allowing the western Allies to

land air drop planes in Soviet territory, thus preventing the Allies from giving material support.

The western Allies themselves had given up Poland to a Soviet sphere of influence at the Tehran

Conference and were hesitant to anger the Soviets, who at the time were doing the brunt of the

fighting against the Nazis. Thus, as in many instances before in their history, the Polish people

were squeezed between the politics of the Great Powers and left to fend for themselves.

The development of the idea that all citizens of Warsaw were resisters has its foundations

in two aspects of Polish culture: a historical controversy over Polish national identity and a more

recent controversy over the place of collaboration and resistance within studies of Nazi Occupied

Poland as a whole.

The first aspect that shapes the question of citizen support for the Warsaw resistance is a

more generally historical question of Polish national identity. The national identity of the Poles

is shaped by one important assumption that Polands internal affairs are dominated by external

pressures and that Polands loss of independencecan only be explained by her geographic

position and the nature of her neighbors.2 The issue of external pressure has given rise to two

competing historical traditions amongst the Poles, a Romantic-Insurrectionary-Idealist Camp

and a Positivist-Conciliatory-Realist Camp.3 The Pole as a Resister national identity

2 Norman Davies. Heart of Europe: The Past in Polands Present. (New York: Oxford UniversityPress, 2001), 175.3 Davies. Heart of Europe, 175.


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championed by the Romantics is based in a tradition of insurgency throughout Polish history.

From the early 19th century until 1989, the Poles faced a never ending struggle for survival

against external forces seeking their domination. They faced off against the Russian, Austrian

and German empires in various uprisings and insurrections including the November Uprising of

1830-31, the Krakow Uprising of 1846, the January Uprising of 1863-64, and the Greater Poland

Uprisings of 1794, 1806, 1846, 1848, and 1918-19. Yet in between these battles there were often

many critics of the failed insurrections. These men pointed to the suicidal characteristics of many

of the insurrections and decided that the Polish cause could only be pursued within the reigning

systemAny attempt to resist the authorities, or change the system, would be counter-

productive.4This became the stance of the Positivist tradition whereby its adherents sought to

enact campaigns such as Organic Work, an idea for increasing skilled labor and education by

which the Positivists taught their compatriots to compete, if they were to stand any chance of

ultimate survival.5 Overtime these competing historical traditions have attempted to paint the

future of the struggle for Polish survival and independence in their own ways.

The second aspect of the civilians as resisters question settles around a more narrow

controversy over the perceived notion held by Polish Romantic proponents that Poles did not

collaborate with the Nazis. It is a controversy that is based in the age old Romantic-Positivist

struggle to frame the nations history. The Positivists argue that "traditionally" Poles have

discriminated against Jews and that thus because of this tradition, many, though not most,

Poles during the war were guilty of collaborating with the Nazis.6 While the controversy takes

many forms throughout Poland, its relevance to the Warsaw Uprising of 1944 is seen in relation

to the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising of 1943 and in the polarized sides that it brings to any history of

4 Ibid., 181.5 Ibid., 149.6 Justus Lawler, The Other Warsaw Uprising, Commonweal, 131 (2004), 18.


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the Uprising, the Positivist side searching for objective acknowledgement of collaboration and

Anti-Semitism and the Romantic side seeking to promote the Pole as a Resister identity and

not wanting to tarnish the Polish image by including past Anti-Semitism. Due to the close

proximity in the names, nature, time, and end results of the two Uprisings they are often

compared or confused and they often compete to be noticed. This is increasingly important due

to the relative lack of awareness about the Uprising of 1944 within the western world and the

predominance of the Ghetto Uprising in world consciousness due to the Holocaust. So while the

two Uprisings have many similarities they are often forced to find ways to separate themselves

from each other to stand out, such as Norman Daviess advocacy of renaming the 1944 Uprising

the Warsaw Rising of 1944.

Together, this controversy and the rise of the Polish Resister national identity have

created a situation where Romantic proponents, like Norman Davies, have taken a resistive

revisionist approach toward the Uprising in order to preserve their perceived traditional

perspectives of Polish national identity in the face of Positivist proponents, like Wlodzimierz

Borodziej, who have sought to show a more realistic portrayal of the Uprising. By using

Daviess account of the Uprising, Rising 44: The Battle for Warsaw, as a basis for the

Romantic approach and Borodziejs account of the Uprising, The Warsaw Uprising of 1944, as

a basis for the Positivist approach, one is able to gain a more complete picture of how this

national identity controversy comes to life amidst the question of whether or not all Poles within

Warsaw at the time of the Uprising can be said to have been resisting.

While Davies never states the Romantic idea that all Poles resisted during the Uprising

and, in fact, he cites sources to show that resistance was not universal throughout the population,

it is through the inherently revisionist tactic of non inclusion that he downplays the lack of


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support among civilians. Throughout the 635 pages that constitute Rising 44: The Battle for

Warsaw, he dedicates only four pages to the issue of whether or not civilians supported the

insurgency, two of which consist of a civilian primary source account expressing anger at the

resistance for starting the Uprising7, and yet this account is separated by a full hundred pages

from the two pages where Davies directly addresses the issue and placed firmly in a section

about a resistance officer communicating with the Soviet Army.8

The two pages that he does devote to the issue of civilian support present a very

intriguing glimpse into the way the Romantics try to warp their presentation of the Uprising.

The section begins with It is probably accurate to say that the majority of Varsovians felt

common cause with the insurgents, yet there was a significant sector which held aloof, seeking

merely to survive.9 Thus he begins objectively, stating a very Positivist view on civilian

participation. Yet, he ends the paragraph by making sure to point out that Nonetheless, one can

state with confidence that there was no substantial group of Varsovians actively prepared to assist

the Germans against the insurgents.10 This statement seems to attempt to take the reader away

from the idea that not everyone supported the resistance and reframe it to one where no one

supported the Germans. He follows this with a paragraph explaining that the Varsovians would

have been immensely afraid of the Germans killing them and thus trusted the resistance with

their survival more so than the Nazis, before giving the reader a citation of a primary radio

message claiming that the Uprising is a battle that is being carried on by the civilian population

as well as by the AK It is total warfare.11 This appears to begin a now contradictory,

Romantic view of civilian support. He explains a few details of civilian administration before

7 Davies. Rising 44, 288-91.8 Ibid., 386-7.9Ibid., 288.10Ibid.11 Davies. Rising 44, 288.


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claiming that It was their [the civilians] unstinting support that enabled the insurgents to keep

fighting.12He then wraps up with a Positivist secondary citation explaining that Whilst some

people treated the insurgents as faultless heroes, others regarded them as the instigators of their

suffering and the murderers of their families and children.13 The section is full of contradictions

beginning with an inability on his part to connect his idea that civilians feared the German

reprisals and thus didnt leave the city on one page and on the very next to make the Romantic

claim that Nonetheless, it is a simple fact that a large body of Varsovians chose to stay, and to

share the fate of the fighters.14 While he begins by stating that support for the Uprising was not

uniform, he seems to spend the next few paragraphs contradicting that statement, playing it down

and then allowing a secondary source to conclude for him. His writing appears to be objective

since he provides both sides, but its in his inability to conclude that resistance wasnt fully

supported with his own words that leaves the reader with the Romantic impression that the

civilians were all resisting, except a small insignificant minority.

Davies Romanticism in regard to the Uprising can also be seen in his glorification of the

Home Army and their ability. Since the insurgency constitutes the main body of his work and it

is his aim to spread the Resister national identity, it becomes apparent quickly that he gives it a

great status that is hard to justify, even for him, since he chooses not to cite nor back up his

claims. He claims that German sources soon reported that nothing resembling the Warsaw

Rising had been seen since Stalingrad and then making sure to point out the distinction that

Stalingrad had been contested by two professional armiesWarsaw was being contested by a

professional army and a dedicated band of irregulars.15 He gives no citation for these German

sources and yet is confident in comparing a 63 day insurrection with a six month siege that

12 Ibid., 290.13 Ibid., 291.14 Ibid., 290.15 Davies. Rising 44, 260.


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many have called the turning point of the war and the bloodiest battle in history. The German

sources which he chooses not to cite most likely include the SS Chief Heinrich Himmler who

said of the Uprising, This is the fiercest of our battles since the start of the war. It compares to

the street battles of Stalingrad.16 While Himmler is pointing out the similarities between the

individual micro-fighting that is occurring in the streets of Warsaw to the street battles that took

place during Stalingrad, Davies fails to make this distinction, instead leaving the reader with the

view that the Uprising is comparable and possibly even equal in stature to the Battle of

Stalingrad.

He then continues on in his pushing of the Romantic view of the members of the Home

Army by insinuating that Rokossovsky, the commander of the Soviet Army on the other side of

the Vistula River during the Uprising, was somehow afraid of the Home Army. He does this by

providing a citation of an interview with Rokossovsky in which the man says, The whole idea

that we are in any sense afraid of the AK [Home Army] is too idiotically absurd17 Davies then

points out that Such was the Soviet attitude towards the working of the Allied coalition. No one

in the outside world had ever suggested that the Home Army was something of which the Soviets

might be afraid.18 Davies leaves it at that, ending the section with those words, insinuating that

because Rokossovsky denied being afraid, even though no one accused him of being afraid, that

he was actually afraid because he brought it up. Its almost as if Davies knows he cant claim the

Soviets were afraid, but wants to, so he spins it until theres a possibility that one of the greatest

armies ever assembled and built to retake Europe from the Nazis was perhaps fearful of the

Polish Home Army, a besieged group of irregulars. Davies romantically glorifies the Home

Army, taking little time to mention the civilian population, instead focusing on great heroics of

16 Krystyna Wituska. Irene Tomaszewski, Inside a Gestapo Prison: The Letters of KrystynaWituska, 19421944, (Wayne State University Press, 2006), xxii.17 Davies. Rising 44, 323.18 Ibid.


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the insurgents and insinuating that the Germans respected and the Soviets feared them and

viewed them as something more than just an annoying thorn in their side blocking their

inevitable domination of Europe.

Wlodzimierz Borodziejs account of the Uprising, The Warsaw Uprising of 1944,

contains a more Positivist approach toward the question of civilian support for the resistance.

Borodziej takes a direct look at the role of the civilian population in the Uprising by including a

chapter dedicated solely to their place within the besieged city. He uses this chapter to explore

the role of civilians in the Uprising by looking at the response to the AK administration within

the city, the changing morale of civilians, and the conditions in which the civilians lived.

Borodziejs account examines the different attempts of the AK civilian administration to

govern the civilian population. He explains that civilians held the expectations that the

administration would provide the security and safety necessary to protect individuals within the

city.19 Yet, when it came to aspects of administration where civilian cooperation for the

betterment of the city was necessary, the AK found the population less helpful. It is hardly

conceivable that people who had amassed food supplies would now enthusiastically hand these

over to the administration. All attempts to make private property -even in the form of intact

housing- available to the community, that is, the administration, seemed to come up against

stalling and resistance.20 The civilians themselves, while likely to have supported the resistance

at high points in the Uprising, were not willing to jeopardize their own survival for that of their

fellow Varsovians. He points out that Requisitioning by the troops and the various police forces

certainly did not enhance the popularity of Uprising leadership.21 Borodziejs realistic look at

civilian interaction with the AK administration presents a much more disinterested populace that

19 Wlodzimierz Borodziej. The Warsaw Uprising of 1944. (Madison: University of WisconsinPress, 2001) ,131.20 Borodziej. The Warsaw Uprising of 1944 , 132.21 Ibid.


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appears more concerned with their own personal survival than with the following of AK policies

aimed at helping the cause of the Uprising.

He then presents an explanation of the ways in which overall civilian morale changed

throughout the Uprising. He argues that The attitude of the population can be said to have been

shaped directly and persistently by the course of events of the Uprising, undoubtedly, the mood

was best from August 1 to August 5.22 This position shows a changing opinion of support for

the resistance overtime. He points out that The crisis of trust [in AK leadership] began to

escalate in late August in the Old City, when several civilians wanted to persuade the military

leadership to surrender and preferred defecting to the German side to staying in the bombed

ruins.23This example shows how desperate some civilians were, considering they were willing

to face the unknown consequences of going over to the Germans. Borodziej provides the

example as part of a survey of deteriorating civilian support for the Uprising which he called

extremely ambivalent.24 He also goes on to say that according to the reports of the BIP [AK

Office for Information and Propaganda], an increase of pro-Soviet, sometimes also pro-

communist sympathies seemed to be quite widespread and was often linked with the harshest

criticism of their own leadership.25 He presents the changing morale of the civilian population

as the main force in changing support levels for the resistance and then goes on to explain why

morale was changing.

Borodziej argues that the changing morale and subsequent decline in civilian support of

the resistance originated from the harsh conditions of civilian life within the Uprising. He

explains how German advances cut off the central water supply in mid-August.26 This coupled

22 Ibid.23 Ibid., 133.24 Ibid.25 Borodziej. The Warsaw Uprising of 1944,133.26 Ibid.


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with hunger caused by declining food stores and rampant black marketeering, left the civilians

susceptible to disease.27 He points out that As of mid-August, the Uprising was constantly

plagued by illnesses-dysentery and typhus.28 And he sums up his views of the civilian role

during the Uprising by stating that In the last weeks, signs of exhaustion, hunger, thirst, disease,

stench, and poverty increased along with indications of rebellion and despair. Civilians tried to

force the Uprising leadership or even individual parts of troops to surrender.29 Borodziejs

Positivist approach toward the question leaves the reader with a sense that large sections of the

civilian population were against the AK, while making sure to point out that different parts of the

population experienced different forms of morale and support.

The Romantic perspective of Norman Davies and the Positivist perspective of

Wlodzimierz Borodziej establish two sides to the question of whether or not civilians supported

the resistance during the Uprising. While Davies presents the idea that only a small minority of

civilians didnt support the AK, Borodziej presents the idea that support for the resistance among

civilians was undecided and often varied from one group of civilians to another, pointing out that

the civilian population led to the surrender of the AK. By establishing a definition of resistance

and exploring the experiences and viewpoints of both resistance members and civilian witnesses,

the distinctions that can be made in the forms of resistance conducted by both groups make it

evident that the true role of civilians within the Uprising is often tied not immediately toward any

certain majority attitude of support or non support of the resistance, but instead to a need for

individual survival. This need for survival appears less Romantic than Davies and his supporters

would hope, but also shows less apathy for resistance causes than Borodziejs Positivist writings

would claim.

27 Ibid., 13428 Ibid., 133.29 Ibid., 136.


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When exploring ideas of resistance it is necessary to establish a clear definition of what

resistance is and means. For the purpose of understanding which civilians were or were not

partaking in resistance, the definition of resistance is any act which is carried out with the sole

intent to in some way benefit the cause of the AK. An example which can be used to clarify this

is the story of the mothers who brought their 13 year old sons to an AK officer so that they may

join the resistance in the beginning of September, halfway through the Uprising. The officer asks

the two mothers why they want their sons to join and they respond, I cant look after him at

home, hes always going off somewhere for hours at a time, and besides, I have no food for him.

Hell be fed in the army and learn proper manners.

30

One could argue that the mothers were

resisting by giving up their sons for the good of the Uprising and to help fight the Germans.

However, the mothers werent giving up their sons for the good of the AK cause, but instead for

the good of their sons and families. They couldnt feed their sons, nor could they watch over

them throughout the chaos of the Uprising. They helped to bolster the ranks of the AK only

because they wanted individual gains. This is not resistance, even if the mothers also supported

the AK. They were not directly trying to help its cause over their own. Thus as Wieviorka and

Tebinka say, Resistance is a commitment- a desire to participate in a concrete and collective

action against the occupier.31

When applying a definition of resistance to the acts of people within Warsaw it is

important to understand how many people were in the city and how the numbers of those

resisting changed over time as the situation on the ground became increasingly worse. Within

Warsaw during the Uprising, Davies puts the number of AK soldiers at 40,330.32 Borodziej says

30 W. Zagorski. Seventy Days: A Diary of the Warsaw Insurrection 1944. (London: FrederickMuller LTD, 1957), 150.31 Robert Gildea. Surviving Hitler and Mussolini: Daily Life in Occupied Europe. (New York:Berg Publishers, 2006), 153.32 Davies. Rising 44, 183.


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that The Rebels were alleged to have some 40,000 soldiers.but in fact had only 20,000 and

only minimal weapons and ammunition.33 Joanna Hansons The Civilian Population and the

Warsaw Uprising of 1944, considered by both Davies and Borodziej to be the definitive

reference for studying the civilian population of Warsaw during the Uprising, puts the population

of the city in August 1944 at around 900,000 people, with roughly 700,000 living on the German

side of the Vistula.34 Thus it can be said that depending on the source, anywhere from 3-6% of

the population of Warsaw in 1944 was part of the direct armed resistance, as associated with the

AK forces. Borodziej makes the point that After the surrender, the [German] Ninth Army

counted 216,000 Warsaw residents who had to leave the city and About 200,000 people had

fallen in battle and died, including 15,000 soldiers.35 Throughout the Uprising, the population

rapidly decreased and while participation with the resistance may have fluctuated over time due

to morale, the numbers of armed combatants could not have changed much due to the overall

lack of weapons. Therefore AK members would only have been able to be joined in resistance

by civilians contributing what they could in less direct ways. Firsthand accounts of these

resistance members provide a look into the question of civilian life and of how they view civilian

contributions to their efforts.

Early on, the views of civilians toward the AK were very positive and came with a sense

of possible victory and initial freedom from Nazi occupation. Zagorski, an AK officer points out

in his diary on the second day of the Uprising that, I suppose it wasnt, after all, to be wondered

at that people were in tears. Everyone wanted to do something, to help somehow. And today, in

our street, everything was shared, everything was free36 Another resistance member who

33 Borodziej. The Warsaw Uprising of 1944, 74.34 Joanna K.M. Hanson. The Civilian Population and the Warsaw Uprising of 1944. (New York:Cambridge Univsersity Press, 1982), 9.35 Borodziej. The Warsaw Uprising of 1944, 130.36 Zagorski. Seventy Days, 24.


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worked with a radio unit points out how "There were no strangers to be afraid of in the insurgent

city, only comrades in arms, and those in need of the protective depth of any entrance could

make a dash for it at any time."37 This atmosphere of companionship and common purpose

created a body of workers for the resistance that could carry out much needed every day jobs and

chores. Zagorski describes how civilians transformed a tailors shop for the resistance: Now

volunteers are mending and patching the rest of these uniforms, as there are still more people to

fit out, and they are all busy sewing. Next door to this shop more girls and women are making

arm-bands and washing and mending our laundry.38 Common jobs like this were small forms of

resistance that ordinary civilians could partake in for the betterment of the AK cause.

A more direct service that civilians performed for the AK came in the form of much

needed nursing. Another resistance officer explains how after being injured, They sent me to

the Home Army infirmaryNaturally it was a temporary hospital. Beds had been collected from

neighboring houses and local people assisted in its organization.39 And one nurse tells the story

of how she witnessed three seriously wounded soldiers fall on the battlefield and that the

resistance members thought the nurses should retrieve them, but some members thought there

was no chance they would make it. In the end Felix [AK officer] decided that we must choose,

that he would issue neither order nor recommendationSophie and I were determined to go.40

The nurses ended up making a try for it, but getting pinned down halfway to the soldiers, yet

their decision to go demonstrates the courage and acts of resistance some civilians were willing

to make.

37 Leokadia Rowinski. That the Nightengale Return: Memoir of the Polish Resistance, theWarsaw Uprising, and German P.O.W. Camps. (Jefferson, NC: McFarland and Company Inc.,1999), 79.38 Zagorski. Seventy Days, 38.39 Davies. Rising 44, 334.40 Davies. Rising 44, 382.


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As the Uprising wore on, civilian attitude began to change and anger began to be voiced

towards the resistance members. Zagorski begins seeing these tendencies in early September as

he says the resistance has now withdrawn entirely from the Powisle district, and the spirits of

the people of Warsaw, without light, water, food or medical aid, are low. Representatives of

some political parties and the civilian authorities have demanded a parley with the Germans to

save the rest of the town and the townsfolk.41 He comments a few days later on the way in

which civilians go about working for the resistance efforts: Its true that things are not always

done properly. Theres been a good deal of carelessness, of unfairness, of failure.some no

longer believe that we have any chances of holding out against the Germans even though it was

their faith which, earlier, made it possible for us to keep hold of our sector during the worst

fighting.42 One resistance member describes how his unit passed a half demolished house. An

older man emerged from the gate and pointing his hand at the rubble said bitterly: Look what

youve done!...We passed him without a word. What was there to say? He was not the only one

who felt that way, and we had heard similar complaints more than once.43 From the viewpoint

of the resistance members, the civilians were considered their close allies, always willing to help,

but as the days wore on, this view began to disappear and be replaced with a sense of resentment

from the populace for the AK having started the Uprising.

While in the eyes of the AK, civilians were more than eager to help out in their cause

through resistance, there were a large amount of civilians who found themselves victims of the

Uprising more than direct resisters. In the introduction to Miron Bialoszewskis memoir, a man

who would go on to become a famous poet, his translator describes how in Bialoszewskis

account the scurrying about of civilians and partisans alike in response to the natural instinct to

41 Zagorski. Seventy Days, 158.42 Ibid., 175.43 Davies. Rising 44, 368.


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flee in the face of overwhelming danger is a far cry from the pictures of dignified purposefulness

and heroic martyrdom which more pious studies of the Warsaw Uprising have presented.44 The

need for work during the Uprising by the resistance created what Bialoszewski explained as

drafts of civilian labor. Not exactly roundups, but, in case of need, passerby were stopped and

half commanded half requested to do such and such.Generally, people didnt refuse such tasks.

Although its not safe to speak of everyone.45 When it came to working for the resistance

forces, he describes how he saw a group of resistance members burying dead German soldiers

and how they began to dig a grave for them and look for workers. I was picked to be a helper. I

am ashamed to refuse. But I wish for an air raid right at that moment, so that others will have to

do it instead of me. And there is one.46 This appears to contradict general ideas about even

those civilians who appear to have directly helped the resistance by suggesting the possibility

that some civilians who helped out did so not out of a personal conviction to help, but instead in

fear of not fulfilling their duty in the eyes of others, which would prove their intentions to be less

a form of resistance and more a form of societal pressure. Bialoszewski also points out how men

hid out from having to work or serve the resistance without good reason, without explanations,

crouched down, practically curled up behind the barrel, behind the pillars, under the plank beds.

And didnt join.47 Civilian aid of the resistance through forms of work can be questioned by

examining the motives that drove them to do the acts of resistance or not, whether they are

resisting for social conformity reasons, or not resisting for fear of death.

The other factor in understanding the civilian role in supporting the resistance is seen in

the conditions that civilians endured throughout the Uprising. For many their entire experience

of the Uprising involved a fight for survival that included food, water, and healthcare shortages,

44 Miron Bialoszewski.A Memoir of the Warsaw Uprising. (Ann Arbor: Ardis, 1977), 17.45 Ibid., 166.46 Ibid., 26.47 Bialoszewski.A Memoir of the Warsaw Uprising, 71.


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living in crowded cellars, and hiding from bombings and firefights. Bialoszewski describes life

within the cellars as having been a continuous movement between parts of the underground

system in a perpetual need to avoid being bombed.48 He describes the endless panic and need to

move that drove many civilians like himself, you can keep on in a circle, calculating, pondering,

observing, fleeing.49 For some who found their homes bombed and their families killed, the

Uprising came to be seen as something the AK had foolishly undertaken and put the city in

danger by doing so. A telling part of Bialoszewskis account of the Uprising is when the

civilians are finally evacuated from the city and the feeling that he describes. It was believed

that nothing dreadful awaited us; people wanted to believe in that, because theyd had enough of

the uprising and of the war in general and of hatred and killing and dying. Suddenly everyone

wanted to live! To live! To walk! To go outside! To look around! At the sunlight. Normally.50

This is an exclamation of the feelings of some civilians after the trapped feeling of struggle and

need to survive that many endured within the confines of insurrectionist Warsaw and which

trumped any notions of resistance amongst many of them.

While the Romantics, like Norman Davies, would attempt to present a picture of civilian

contributions toward the Uprising and the resistance as widespread and part of a larger resister

identity of the Polish Nation, the Positivists, like Wlodzimierz Borodziej, seek to present a view

of large scale distrust and anger at those who initiated the unsuccessful Uprising in order to

promote the internal development of Poland over desperate gambles for survival. The idea that

all Poles were resisters developed within the Romantic view of Polish history and continues to be

promoted to this day, but the true nature of civilian support for resistance and participation within

the Uprising is by no means universal. While most civilians were sympathetic to the AK cause

48 Ibid., 70.49 Ibid., 178-9.50 Ibid., 208.


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and wished for the victory and freedom of their city, the downward spiraling success of the

Uprising left them struggling to survive and to maintain a rationale for the continued fight.

Resistance among the civilian population can most likely be placed somewhere between the

Romantic and Positivist views. Some civilians did resist directly, dedicating their lives and time

to nursing, sewing, digging, message running and other clandestine works. Of these some may

have had ulterior motives to participating in the resistive ways that they did such as social

pressure. However, a large portion was stuck fighting for their very survival with questions of

resistance a luxury that many did not have time for as they struggled to find food or shelter

among the chaos of the Uprising. While many of these civilians died during the Uprising, their

martyrdom and the labeling of them as resisters because they were victims of the Uprising

ignores the complexity of how they lived and the choices they made.

There is a scenario that occurred during the Uprising and in many other parts of Nazi

controlled Europe that can provide insight into the complexity of this event. During the

Uprising, it was well known that Germans would round up civilians and either strap them to their

tanks or march them in front of them as human shields. This horrific practice appeared in many

of the primary sources involved in this question. Zagorski describes his experience with it as,

We now saw German tanks moving along Ciepla Street, driving before them a large crowd of

civilians: men, women, old people and children. Driven by the rifle butts of the S.S. men

concealed behind them, these people moved up to the first barricade and began to dismantle it.

Our men withdrew without firing a shot.51 He would go on to order that his men shoot at the

crowd. The lad fired. A young woman with a baby in her arms fell to the ground. The crowd

scattered like a pane of glass shattered by a stone. The machine-guns of the tanks opened up.52

51 Zagorski. Seventy Days, 61.52 Ibid.


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The story is much the same throughout the sources. When engaged the Germans would quickly

slaughter their human shields and push on toward the resisters. The question is found in whether

or not these people who were massacred can be considered to have resisted. Leokadia Rowinski,

a resistance member, was forced to walk in front of these tanks once with a group of women.

She described how in her experience the Germans did not know Polish women. The ones on

and around the first tank kept shouting to the insurgents, urging them to shoot and not give up

their post! Their pleas were heard there were a few casualties, but no victory for the

Germans.53 If this romantic vision of such a scenario is true, it is these women who represent

resistance among the civilian population and deserve martyrdom. If we assign the title of

resistance to the innocent civilians who didnt cry out for death, who didnt fight back against the

Germans, we are ignoring the complexity of the situation. Their deaths are no less tragic and

their lack of resistance is not unpatriotic; instead the fear of immediate death was too high for

many of them and it was definitely a justifiable one. Not only do we risk exaggerating the role

of civilians in resistance by assigning all victims a resister title, but we also risk the danger of

including questionable personas. One man describes this when he explains that amongst those

driven forward as human shields in front of German tanks was Father T. That priest was a keen

anti-Semite and saw Hitler as the founder of the struggle against international Jewry.Yet at the

end, half dead and bleeding from his woundshe has found a place in Polish sympathies.54 The

parallels between civilian life during the Uprising and this scenario exist in the inherent

knowledge that in any life and death situation there are those who resist directly and cry out to

die for the cause and others who seek only to survive and are powerless in the face of death.

Whether martyr or victim, both deserve to have their stories heard and one is no more noble than

53 Rowinski. That the Nightengale Return, 77.54 Davies. Rising 44, 387.


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the other.

Works Sited

Bialoszewski, Miron.A Memoir of the Warsaw Uprising. Ann Arbor: Ardis, 1977.

Borodziej, Wlodzimierz. The Warsaw Uprising of 1944. Madison: University of WisconsinPress, 2001.

Davies, Norman.Heart of Europe: The Past in Polands Present. New York: Oxford University

Press, 2001.

Davies, Norman.Rising 44: The Battle for Warsaw. New York: Penguin, 2003.

Gildea, Robert. Surviving Hitler and Mussolini: Daily Life in Occupied Europe. New York: BergPublishers, 2006.


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Hanson, Joanna. The Civilian Population and the Warsaw Uprising of 1944. New York:

Cambridge University Press, 1982.

Lawler, Justin, The Other Warsaw Uprising, Commonweal, 131, 2004, 18

Rowinski,Leokadia. That the Nightingale Return: Memoir of the Polish resistance, the Warsaw

uprising, and German P.O.W. camps. Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland, c1999.

Wituska, Krystyna. Irene Tomaszewski,Inside a Gestapo Prison: The Letters of Krystyna

Wituska, 19421944, Wayne State University Press, 2006.

Zagorski, W. Seventy Days: A Diary of the Warsaw Insurrection 1944. London: Frederick Muller

LTD, 1957.

remembering our roles: civilians as resisters during the warsaw uprising of 1944

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