Marek Edelman - The Germans knew how to find the bunkers where people were hiding (103/145) скачать в хорошем качестве

Marek Edelman - The Germans knew how to find the bunkers where people were hiding (103/145)

To listen to more of Marek Edelman’s stories, go to the playlist:    • Marek Edelman - Recollecting my parents (1...   Marek Edelman (1919-2009) was the last surviving leader of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. He had remained in Poland following the Nazi defeat and was active in domestic and international politics while at the same time becoming one of Poland’s leading cardiologists. [Listeners: Anka Grupinska, Joanna Klara, Agnieszka Zuchowska, Joanna Szczesna; date recorded: 2003] TRANSCRIPT: As this went on we had to pass to another method of fighting - fighting, it was defence. We had to act in the night, taking them by surprise. We had to take them by surprise each time and that's why the regular army lost. But today, the best proof is, if you listen to the radio, then in Iraq, they're being taken by surprise, too, except that there they have equipment whereas we didn't have any. In our case, one shot in the night in the street was enough to scare away a patrol from that street for several hours because they didn't know what was behind this. This was the advantage we had over them. But they introduced listening devices because people were in bunkers, I mean they were hiding in cellars. We call them bunkers but they were ordinary cellars under five-storey houses. That's not a bunker at all. A bunker is made of cement, a thick roof. No. These were cellars where people hid and camouflaged the entrances. Some made little carts on rails by which bricks would be brought in, others did it differently, elsewhere the entrance was hidden behind wood. There were all kinds of ways of hiding the entrances which they couldn't find because they knew that those 60,000 people hadn't just vanished into thin air, they were still here somewhere. So they introduced these devices - they were probably the first - listening devices, long tubes about half a metre tall and at the top it looked like there was some fabric with a piece of tin resting on this fabric. The people in these cellars had to breathe, obviously, even when it was quiet, when they were asleep, someone would be turning from side to side in their sleep. This device must have been running on electricity, I can't say for certain and that bit of tin, that fabric were thin because I didn't have it in my hand but that's how it seemed, and when it began to vibrate... They didn't set it up when it was windy or raining which is interesting, although it didn't rain then but when it was windy, they didn't do it on those days. It obviously must have been too sensitive. And so they could find out where the people were. And if they didn't, the people couldn't stay in those cellars, the houses were on fire, it was hot, when there were no Germans, the people would come out, but if someone said there's a German around the corner then everybody would run back to the cellar and shut themselves in. Sometimes, a child would get left outside because it hadn't been quick enough and those Germans would give it sweets, tell us where mummy is, where's daddy? And the child would take them there. But that didn't happen often. That happened in the third courtyard at 30 Franciszkańska Street. A three-year-old child, he gave it a bag of sweets if it would show them where its mummy was. And it showed them. They took about 50 or 100 people from there. Interestingly, I saw it later myself, they didn't take everyone out of there because they must have killed some of them on the spot and then set fire to them, because there - what do you call those thick beams in the ceiling? Those thick beams had been set alight and there were people lying on these beams who'd been burned. They weren't completely burned, their legs were burned, their faces, they were charred. I don't think they were burned alive, I think they were shot dead first then they set them alight but they didn't burn them because those beams when I saw them, those beams were only smouldering. So that's how they found people, by using those listening devices. But just then, from 3 to 8 May, we had very good liaison because from around eight o'clock, perhaps earlier, they'd leave the ghetto, there'd be a patrol but that wasn't of any significance, and then we'd be in charge. So we had, we had on Franciszkańska, Anielewicz was on Miła, someone else was stationed somewhere else, so it was easy to stay in contact because we didn't have - if you don't have anything to shoot with, all you do is talk.