Executions in the ruins of the Warsaw Ghetto (1943–1944)
Although in the occupied General Government the former capital of Poland was degraded to the role of a provincial city, Warsaw still remained the centre of Polish political, intellectual and cultural life.
The discreet transport of convicts from Warsaw's prisons to places of execution located several kilometers from the city was a complicated and time-consuming operation.
Such executions took place on a larger scale during the great displacement operation in the ghetto (summer 1942), because in the conditions of general chaos, it was easy for Germans to hide the fact of the murder and to get rid of the victims' bodies unnoticeably.
[4][5] In the spring of 1943, the Germans finally shut down the Warsaw Ghetto by brutally suppressing the uprising which had been started by the Jewish resistance movement.
The management of the Warsaw Gestapo came to a conclusion that the ruins of the ghetto might turn out to be a convenient place to carry out secret executions of Poles – this time on a massive scale.
[6] From the point of view of the occupants, a number of factors spoke in favor of using the ruins of the ghetto as a place of mass executions.
The ghetto walls and numerous German posts completely isolated the "stone and brick desert" from the rest of the city.
Finally, in the summer of 1943, a German concentration camp – the so-called Konzentrationslager Warschau – began to operate in the area of the former ghetto (near Gęsia Street).
[10] Almost every day executions of several or a dozen Jews captured by the Germans on the "Aryan side", as well as Poles who hid them, took place there.
[15] The corpses of the murdered were burned[Comments 2] – most often on the grounds of the property at 45 Gęsia and 27 Pawia Streets or within the KL Warschau camp (on piles made of wooden parts of demolished houses or in the local crematorium).
[17] The information on German crimes provided to the outside by the members of the AK conspiracy employed as the Pawiak custodian staff was inevitably fragmented, so it is impossible to determine the exact dates and course of all the murders carried out in the ghetto ruins in the spring and summer of 1943.
While German repressions were usually directed against specific social or political groups, the terror perpetrated by Kutschera was basically used in a random manner.
Next to political prisoners arrested by the Gestapo, ordinary Warsaw residents who were accidentally detained during round-ups died in great numbers.
[26] However, while street executions naturally attracted public attention, the simultaneous action of secret elimination of hostages in the ruins of the ghetto took on a much larger scale.
[9] Dozens or even hundreds of prisoners of Pawiak or ordinary Warsaw citizens detained during round-ups were repeatedly killed in single executions.
Rumors spread later in prison that the execution was so horrible that one of the SS soldiers did not endure the mental stress and committed suicide.
[35] At the same time, according to the information provided by the underground cells operating in Pawiak, in November 1943, the Germans started to erase the traces of previous executions and evidence of crimes committed while the Warsaw Ghetto was still in existence.
Labour units composed of KL Warschau prisoners began to extract bodies from mass graves hidden in the former ghetto or in the Jewish cemetery under the supervision of the Germans.
[37] On February 1, 1944, soldiers of the "Pegasus" unit belonging to Kedyw AK carried out a successful attack on Kutschera in Ujazdów Avenue.
[42] In the spring of 1944, dozens or even hundreds of Pawiak prisoners or people brought from the city for execution were being killed almost daily.
[46][47] Six days later, 40 Jews captured in a hiding place at Grójecka Street and a few Poles who gave them shelter (Mieczysław Wolski and Władysław Marczak with their families) were shot in the ghetto.
Until the late evening hours, the glow over the crematorium of KL Warschau was visible in the city and the smell of burning bodies was evident.
[51] After the unsuccessful rebellion of the prisoners of Pawiak's third unit (a night from July 19 to 20, 1944), 154 (according to other sources – 173) unfortunate escapees were shot in the ruins of the ghetto.
[53] Before that, activities aimed at erasing the evidence of crimes committed in Warsaw had also been intensified (e.g. on June 8 the ruins of a house on Nowolipki Street, where executions were regularly carried out were blown up).
[57] It is difficult to determine, however, how many of the murdered were prisoners of KL Warschau (mostly Jews from various European countries) and how many were the residents of Warsaw or the surrounding towns shot in retaliation executions.
According to Władysław Bartoszewski's calculations – based mainly on estimates of underground reports of the Pawiak cells and covering only those executions in which it was possible to determine at least the approximate number of victims – about 9600 people were murdered in the ruins of the ghetto between May 7, 1943 and August 13, 1944.
[58] The following people were murdered in the ruins of the ghetto: Mikołaj Arciszewski (a journalist, cartoonist, head of one of the Soviet intelligence networks in Warsaw), Mieczysław Bilek (president of the underground Democratic Party, former President of Gdynia), Sławomir Bittner (company commander in the Home Army Battalion "Zośka"), Stanisław Chudoba (leader of the Polish Socialist Workers' Party), Tytus Czaki (one of the organizers of the Riflemen's Association, pre-war President of Brest and Włocławek), Hanna Czaki (daughter of Tytus, scout, liaison officer and secretary of the Information Department in the Information and Propaganda Bureau of the Home Army), Paweł Finder and Małgorzata Fornalska (leaders of the Polish Workers' Party), Tadeusz Hollender (poet, satirist, publicist), lieutenant Jan Hörl alias Frog (Home Army soldier, Silent Unseen/Cichociemny), Gustaw Kaleński (historian, archivist, captain of the Polish Army in retirement), Stefan Kapuściński (Silesian trade union and political activist), Mieczysław Kotarbiński (painter, graphic designer), dr Józef Lewicki (pedagogue, upbringing historian, lecturer at the Free Polish University in Warsaw), prof. Tadeusz Pruszkowski (painter, art critic, pedagogue), Emanuel Ringelblum (famous historian of Jewish origin), Colonel Józef Rosiek (inspector of the Warsaw Home Army), Stefan Sacha (president of the Main Board of the underground National Party), Wanda Józefa Maria Kirchmayer, second lieutenant of the Secret Military Organization.
[59] Dr Ludwig Hahn, the commander of the German security police and service in Warsaw, played a special role in the extermination operation.
