{"id":137915,"date":"2023-09-22T13:55:22","date_gmt":"2023-09-22T11:55:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/izbapamieci.muzeumwarszawy.pl\/?page_id=137915"},"modified":"2023-09-29T09:43:58","modified_gmt":"2023-09-29T07:43:58","slug":"voices-of-memory-transcripts","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/izbapamieci.muzeumwarszawy.pl\/en\/exhibitions\/voices-of-memory-transcripts\/","title":{"rendered":"Voices of Memory \u2013 transcripts"},"content":{"rendered":"

Transcripts for the audio-visual installation Voices of Memory<\/em><\/a> by Krzysztof Wodiczko.<\/p>\n

\n

1.<\/h2>\n

My childhood, spent in a tenement house at 73 Leszno Street, is this part of my life that, to this day, I keep re-living again and again in my dreams. Probably because that is when I lost what was most precious in my life\u2014my Father and my toys, which were very pretty.<\/p>\n

I believe it was the day when the Uprising broke out, but I\u2019m not sure, it might have been the day after. We had to abandon my paradise; we were thrown out of our home and had to cross to the adjacent street through a hole in the wall of the neighbouring courtyard. One could not use the gateway anymore, due to the risk of being shot dead. I remember it so clearly\u2014squeezing through this hole in the wall at the neighbouring courtyard. I wanted to see it years later\u2014for a long time, there was a mark left by the hole in this wall. From then on, we roamed the streets, shelters, basements. And what I described in my diary written when I got older, what made such an impression on me\u2014I saw half of a tenement, a cross-section of a tenement building, and all the apartments were in a condition as if they had been abandoned at the very last moment by people fleeing into basements. If I were to go into details\u2014I saw there a kid\u2019s bike, my greatest dream. I didn\u2019t have a bike like that so it caught my attention. But I also saw a kitchen with a pastry board, so, clearly, people had simply been taken by surprise by what had happened.<\/p>\n

2.<\/h2>\n

Like I said, Father left on 9 August, the night between 9 and 10 August, together with insurgents, but he never made it to the Chojn\u00f3w Forest. On the way, the insurgents were caught in several skirmishes and father was killed in one of them. We didn\u2019t know, anyway\u2014those who reached the Forest and who could provide any information after the Uprising saw Father falling down, but everyone was falling to escape the gunfire, only when they gathered after the skirmish, Father didn\u2019t show up. I have no grave of my Father. All I have is his name on the Wall of Remembrance at the Museum of Warsaw Rising. We waited all night with my mum and, more or less, practically until the morning\u2014as one could pass through basements to adjacent buildings\u2014we had some information: they are already at number 9 on S\u0119koci\u0144ska. True, we could hear the gunshots and yelling. They are at number 7, right, they are at number 5. A moment later, lots of screaming at our place, and: Vykhodit! \u2013 followed by cursing. The soldiers of the Kaminski Brigade still wore Russian uniforms and used Russian weapons. They forced us out of the basement and searched us. A lot of tugging, poking, and a command to stand against the wall. Machine gun opposite us. They\u2019ll finish us off. No. A change of order. They continue to search us, and take what they please\u2014everyone coming out of the basement had some sort of a bundle of belongings.<\/p>\n

3.<\/h2>\n

My grandma perished on 24 September 1944 in the district of Mokot\u00f3w, Warsaw, on her way to get milk for her one-year-old daughter. She was very engaged in the activities related to the Uprising. She was close to \u201cBaszta\u201d Home Army Regiment\u2014her brother was one of its commanders. She wanted to be more involved, but she had a baby, so she was torn. Every time she went out to get milk, she would stop at the headquarters, trying to help as much as she could. And on that particular day, 24 September, she was killed when a bomb exploded in the street, at the corner of Kazimierzowska and Krasickiego, not far from where the Polish National Television building stands today. It so happened that on that day the \u201cBaszta\u201d Regiment unit of her brother, Maciej Rembowski, received an order to retreat from Mokot\u00f3w. And the uncle saw his sister\u2019s\u2014and my grandma\u2019s\u2014body and the bodies of other victims of the explosion next to the bomb crater. Alas, he could not bury my grandma, nor could he stop by her corpse for a while\u2014he was given an order to retreat as quickly as possible from the location where they had been stationed. I don\u2019t think he ever came to terms with this dramatic experience, with the emotional toll of leaving his sister\u2019s body there. After the war, the uncle took part in the exhumations of civilians in Warsaw. He identified his sister\u2019s body and her remains were buried in a mass grave at the Pow\u0105zki Military Cemetery in Warsaw.<\/p>\n

4.<\/h2>\n

My father was in a hospital at the time, right there on D\u0142uga Street, and the tank\u2014people say \u201ctank\u201d even though in fact it was a transporter of explosives, really, the kind used to knock through barricades. The tank exploded precisely on Kili\u0144skiego Street. Father was in the part of the building close to the explosion, in this room. It was one of a few stories he shared at a time when I was still in high school. He must have plucked up the courage, or perhaps he got emotional\u2014normally, he wouldn\u2019t say a word about the Uprising, and now, all of a sudden, he talked about human remains and blood dripping down the doorframe of the room he was in, after this explosion.<\/p>\n

5.<\/h2>\n

People must know the truth about the Uprising\u2014the Uprising broke out not because an order had been given, but because the civilians came to the conclusion they must rescue their children. Right before the outbreak, on 27 and 28 July, the Germans issued a decree calling for 100,000 Varsovians to show up to build fortifications. That is when all of Warsaw realised that the Germans were going to fight for Warsaw with the Soviets and that the city would be razed to the ground.<\/p>\n

6.<\/h2>\n

I shall quote General Polko, who once said: \u201cThe Germans had been prepping the Varsovians for the Uprising for five years.\u201d And I am prone to agree with that, cause when you look at what was going on in Warsaw during the occupation\u2014the killings, the Pawiak Prison, Szucha Avenue, Skaryszewska Street, public executions\u2014I do understand that there was a fierce opposition to all that among young people. Father always used to say that the Uprising was pointless on one hand, as there was too much bloodshed, but he would add: \u201cThere was a time when we would all have gone to fight anyway.\u201d<\/p>\n

7.<\/h2>\n

German gendarmes began to select people out of this group. A German approached me and pointed at me to move. A group was formed there already\u2014young people, men and women. This woman caught the German by the hand. She told him that this was my baby, and she handed the baby to me. He pushed her away, but she came back, and that\u2019s when he tore my dress\u2014I had a dress made of a veil, as it were, and so he grabbed me by the neckline and pulled hard. He tore the dress all the way down to my waist. He pulled my breast out of my bra, to put it bluntly, and kept pressing to check if it was indeed my baby. There was no milk, of course, since it wasn\u2019t my baby, that\u2019s understood. That is when this woman, Ms Niezgoda to be precise, knelt down and began to kiss this German. She kissed his boots. He pushed her away, and then waved his hand to let me know I could stay with them, in the group they had brought from Leszno Street.<\/p>\n

8.<\/h2>\n

I joined the Gray Ranks [Szare Szeregi]\u2014my mum signed me up, she had to grant her permission as I was too young. I don\u2019t think an 11-year old was normally accepted to join the Scouts, but mum managed to sign me up somehow\u2014she went there to vouch for me, she asked them to let me join the Scouting Association, the Gray Ranks, in the first days of the Uprising. Older girl scouts ran what I called the \u2018lodgings\u2019. I didn\u2019t sleep with my family any more, and we were given tasks, orders, letters. We distributed these letters while we toured the basements, crossing under buildings\u2014practically the entire civilian population was there, underground. And I kept asking which building it is, which street, to get to know where I was. We also delivered papers. So, this bag was supposed to be full almost all the time, because people also gave us their correspondence. And it turned out that aside from this correspondence, aside from exchanging newspapers to letters, people must have been grateful for what we did, because I was getting quite a lot of food as a gift. And that is how I turned into a provider for my siblings, for my nanny.<\/p>\n

9.<\/h2>\n

Granny and her neighbours were driven out of their apartments to a square where the executions were taking place. Granny begged them to let her go. She gave them all her gold\u2026. Gold watch, gold jewellery she was wearing, all that hoping she\u2019d be\u2026 that she wouldn\u2019t be shot dead, that she\u2019d be set free. Alas, the jewellery was confiscated. First, three children were shot dead. Granny held one child with one hand, and the remaining two with the other hand. Next, they shot at her. She was hit several times and she collapsed, and then other people kept falling over on top of her. Just like that, she was lying under a pile of corpses. After some time, at dusk, she felt movement in her tummy, and realised the baby was alive. She managed to crawl out from under the bodies and she hid somewhere in the area. There, she bumped into her neighbour who had survived, too. Alas, yet again Germans captured those who had survived and chased them to St Adalbert Church, which was the place where they held all the survivors. Grandma was lying there, in front of the altar, bleeding. Then, she was led on foot from St Adalbert Church to the Dulag 121 transit camp in Pruszk\u00f3w.<\/p>\n

10.<\/h2>\n

I still remember that. And it\u2019s a tad annoying\u2014so many years have passed, and yet you remember it as if it had happened yesterday. It\u2019s a miracle I remained sane.<\/p>\n

11.<\/h2>\n

There are many things I remember\u2014the white staircase, for example, we used to run down this staircase at night to reach the shelter. I kept dreaming about this staircase until I turned 16. Basically, before I turned 16, I dreamt about the war all the time, without a break.<\/p>\n

12.<\/h2>\n

On 5 August, when the units reached the area of Radomska Street, people sitting in the basement heard banging on the gate, loud pounding. Nobody wanted to move, everyone was scared. And so, my Father and the janitor of this building, a certain Mr Dedek, decided to go there. Father went. Next, they heard a bang, a gunshot, more gunshots. Then they barged in\u2014I think these were Russian units in German service\u2014and began to rob hand watches and, in the end, they gave an order to leave the basement. And when people came out of the basement and reached the gate, my cousin saw my Father and the janitor lying on the ground. She stopped, she wanted to do something, but they pushed her away. That\u2019s what happened, that was it. We didn\u2019t know what happened with Father\u2019s body. In 1945, my mum got a message about a planned exhumation of those who had perished in Ochota. All the bodies of the fallen were buried in a huge pit next to St Jacob Church, close to Narutowicza Square.<\/p>\n

13.<\/h2>\n

I was ordered to throw hand grenades\u2014the Germans, running down Foksal Street, ran right under our windows and continued to Chmielna Street. We were not allowed to hit the target directly, or to lean out of the window, because we risked being shot. We were to throw the grenades onto the pavement, through the window, so that a German running close to the wall in order to hide was sure to get hit. It was a slaughterhouse\u2014the German commander must have been a moron as he told them to run in groups. And we would\u2026 my grenades\u2026 well, we killed them, and a short while later another group was coming. And another order, another attack, and the same situation all over again. I decided to take a peek out of the window, to make sure that I threw the grenades the right way, that I was efficient. And so I leaned out of the window, and I started to cry, because I saw terrible suffering of those who were torn apart by my grenades but still alive. It was the first time when I saw Germans as human beings and I realised what an atrocious thing a war is, what people are capable of doing to one another.<\/p>\n

14.<\/h2>\n

I entered St Lawrence Church. It was wide open, easy to get in. There are some traces\u2014a priest was murdered in the church, so I see it all. The nave\u2014this is truly gruesome, but if you want the truth, then let it be\u2014 I saw, probably in the sacristy, a fragment of human skull with hair. It was smashed, clearly, and stuck, as if someone glued it on. It was enough to make me feel queasy. But I kept walking, albeit lingering, as if I wanted to push away the moment I reached this place. A little bit longer. I was afraid it would all turn out to be true. I entered. The ditch was rather long. I didn\u2019t have to walk all the way, as I remembered where this group had been standing, my parents and me. Right at this spot. I looked into the pitch. There was a book from the Health Fund, it was black on one side, but it was there, in the ditch, from the summer of 1944 until spring 1945. Nobody took it, nobody touched it, nobody saw it, or perhaps someone did see it. There were even photos of my parents. But the book was wet through and through, and when it dried out, the photos fell apart. As if it was a post-mortem cremation. I reached for the book and picked it up. And there it is, there it is. A trajectory of the bullet that went not only through that Health Fund book, but also through my father\u2019s chest.<\/p>\n

15.<\/h2>\n

The recollection of aunt Marysia\u2014Maria Goetzen \u2018Maja\u2019\u2014is very sad. For her, the Uprising equals the tragedy of death, wounds, suffering, and, above all, the sewers. First of all, the sewer through which the young girl fled the Old Town\u2014it was such a traumatic experience for her, the girl from the recollection. It came as a surprise to me that the experience of walking in a sewer could change the perception of the entire Uprising, of what she had remembered from it. The whole recollection is full of despair. It still hurts today. She left the sewer on Warecka Street. Right in front of her house. It was lucky for her\u2014she could take a bath straight away, she had access to water. But the experience was so deep that it left its mark in her psyche until the very end<\/p>\n

16.<\/h2>\n

We found out about my Father\u2019s death, my Mum and I, when we were sitting in front of the house on an April day. It was then that my uncle, who was a witness to what had happened to Father, decided to share it with Mum. Once he said what he had to say, there was a moment when my mum got numb, she could not believe it. Sometime later, she started crying. She spoke: \u201cHe was such a decent human being.\u201d There was not much I could do, but I tried to be a support for her, somehow. I hugged her and we wept together.<\/p>\n

17.<\/h2>\n

My dad wasn\u2019t even 16 when he joined the insurgents. He had been through rather tough experiences during the occupation. Then, the Uprising\u2014Wola, Star\u00f3wka, Czerniak\u00f3w. He was wounded twice, stuck under the rubble once. He swam across the Vistula to the other side. But he told us about it all literally half a year before his passing. He avoided the subject. Even while talking to the uncles or cousins who also took active part in the Uprising as soldiers in the \u201cZo\u015bka\u201d battalion, he tried not to touch upon the subject with his family. He avoided it, pure and simple. As if it was a huge trauma for him, a great tragedy he didn\u2019t want to re-live ever again. Dad didn\u2019t speak about the Uprising. He wanted to protect us. Perhaps he wanted to shield us from potential consequences\u2014in the 1970s, or early 1980s, the memory of the Uprising, the Home Army, and the insurgents was not something to shout about. Even while talking to elderly people, he would lower his voice whenever they raised these subjects. I think it was a hard time for him, these were traumatic experiences he didn\u2019t want to recall. He simply wanted to forget about it. He wanted not to think about it. He used to say that no one from his unit had survived. When he bumped into a friend in Koszalin, he reacted: \u201cIt\u2019s a miracle that yet another one of us is still alive.\u201d Like I said, he covered the toughest combat trail\u2014Wola, Star\u00f3wka, \u015ar\u00f3dmie\u015bcie, Czerniak\u00f3w. He was wounded twice, he was buried under the rubble once, he swam across the Vistula with the help of the collapsed spans from the Poniatowski Bridge. Half a year before his passing he said that if it weren\u2019t for the cables hanging from the collapsed bridge, he wouldn\u2019t have made it to the other side, he wouldn\u2019t save his life.<\/p>\n

18.<\/h2>\n

Then the impression I shall never forget, after the Germans had driven us out of the basement, and they shot at us, shot us in the legs as we were resurfacing onto the ground level. In a crowd of people, in the dark, I spotted a man\u2014I wanted to save myself and so I said to him: \u201cPlease take us with you.\u201d I can still see him in front of my eyes, even today tears well up in my eyes when I talk about it. He knelt next to me and said that he used to have a son, just like me, and that the Germans shot his son dead, and that he doesn\u2019t have a home either, that he has nowhere to go.<\/p>\n

19.<\/h2>\n

It\u2019s difficult to comprehend what it was like, it\u2019s difficult to imagine. No way. Somebody asks: \u201cDid your mother look back while you were fleeing?\u201d. I say: \u201cGod, who\u2019d pay attention to that?\u201d This was a matter of seconds\u2014I turn back, I see a path to the embankment behind me, so I run. I can see it all, but I can\u2019t hear a thing. As if my ears stopped working, while my eyes were working still. I\u2019m on top of the embankment already, I take a few steps, and that\u2019s when a bullet hits me. It wasn\u2019t a machine gun, just a regular gun\u2014I was hit when I was on the top already. The impact was so strong that anyone would fall over. I collapsed and rolled down to the other side, where I was no longer visible from the street. They must have been convinced Wiesio was dead. I\u2019m not sure when I regained consciousness. I start battling through barbed wire\u2014now, there is a concrete fence there, but back then there were some wooden poles and a barbed wire. The wire was a bit overexerted, that is why I managed to break through it. It was easy to get stuck when passing through barbed wire, my jacket got stuck. I am running, and running\u2014I don\u2019t say I was walking anymore, I\u2019m running. As if I wanted to get as far away as possible, or perhaps I realised they\u2019d look for me, they\u2019d go and check if I was lying there. I think about it now, when I\u2019m cool and composed, but I have no idea what I was thinking back then. I acted like a well-trained dog, guided by instinct.<\/p>\n

20.<\/h2>\n

My childhood, as I remember it, was full of vivid accounts from this war. I remember, for example, from my childhood, that I felt resentment towards contemporary Germans, to such an extent that I\u2019d spit on German cars. When I saw a Trabant with German registration plates and a DDR sticker, I would spit on its windshield as a sign of utter contempt for the enemy. Today I know it was silly, but back then I registered this message, having heared all the wartime stories, and having watched movies about WW2. The war felt very close to me. Now I feel different about the Germans living today and I can\u2019t possibly blame them for what their grandfathers or great-grandfathers had done. What is important though, is that they should remember about the past, too.<\/p>\n

21.<\/h2>\n

What I have noticed about my family\u2014while telling us about the wartime, they never incited hatred towards Germans in my generation, in my cousins and myself. They talked about Hitler. They talked about the crimes of the Nazis, but they never spoke ill of the Germans living today. I find it very curious, but I believe this is the only way not to endow the future generations with hatred\u2014despite the most gruesome experiences, one may still build a future together with the worst enemy from the past.<\/p>\n

22.<\/h2>\n

My Father said loud and clear that the Uprising had to break out. There was no other way\u2014the war front was close and everybody was getting ready for an uprising throughout the occupation. No order could have stopped that. And the joy of the first days, hanging out the banners, white-and-red flags\u2014that was something that spurred Father on until the end of his life. It must have been such a joyous experience for him, despite all the atrocities that followed.<\/p>\n

23.<\/h2>\n

It was an illusion, nothing more than a wishful thinking; it wasn\u2019t real, it was just a hope. And I, as a 10-year-old citizen of Poland and resident of Warsaw, realised what were the chances of success of the Uprising which was about to break out. It was an illusion, an unspeakable naivety\u2014the Home Army, spurred on by officers and by the propaganda, had this dream of armed struggle, at last, for the past five years fuelled a desire for revenge. The Uprising was to feed into all those dreams, the yearning for reaching an inner peace, at the very least\u2014we fulfilled our duty, we did attack, we shall win. In reality, it was doomed from the very start.<\/p>\n

24.<\/h2>\n

The underground passages had been marked out before the Uprising. Our flat\u2014we lived at 31 Marsza\u0142kowska Street\u2014was close to the Church of the Holiest Saviour, and on the third day of the Uprising we descended into the basement. We were connected to Mokotowska Steet\u2014there were blocks of apartments there, too, so one could pass through there. We were the first ones to go out in the street, and so we stayed, waiting for dusk, for darkness, so that it is calmer and safer to move around, but it was still daylight so it would take too long. A German officer came and told us to walk back from this, let\u2019s call it third or fourth courtyard, via the passages, all the way back to Marsza\u0142kowska, opposite today\u2019s Luna Cinema. We enter the street through a gate, and the very same officer is there, in the gateway, the one who told us to go from the spot where we had waited to resurface on Mokotowska Street. There was a selection\u2014men to one side, they were held there. We were told to cross to the other side of Marsza\u0142kowska, in front of the Luna Cinema, and then walk towards Litewska Street, and then Szucha Avenue. Anyway, while the insurgent combat was in full swing there, the women and children formed a separate group. The German stood on some box and announced that tanks would arrive any minute now, and that women were to stand between the tanks, on top of the tanks, to sit on the tanks, and then five tanks would enter Piusa Street. \u201cWe\u2019re going there, the tanks\u2019 task is to recapture the Germans held captive by the insurgents from a small PAST unit. If the action succeeds, you will be reunited with your husbands and brothers.\u201d The Germans with rifles were walking around, helmets on their heads, tearing kerchiefs off women\u2019s heads and putting them on. Some of the women were on the tanks already. There were a lot of Germans between the tanks. As we know, the operation failed. The insurgents had a huge dilemma. A lot of women were set on fire, burned on the tanks because, actually, the insurgents didn’t know what to do\u2014the only weapons at their disposal were bottles of petrol, and there were women on the tanks.<\/p>\n

25.<\/h2>\n

You will never come across this sort of courage or love that the Varsovians demonstrated [during the Uprising]. I don\u2019t even mention how they looked after us, how they all made efforts, as if we were all their own children. Women would bring all the necessary things, above all water, as our girls could not cope with it all. We\u2014that is, it must be said, Polish women, Warsaw girls. To me, I am no hero, because I had a gun, but all these liaisons, nurses, they had no weapons, and they had to go out there, they had to take a huge risk cause if they\u2019d been caught, they\u2019d not only be murdered, they\u2019d be raped, they\u2019d be toys in the hands of the perpetrators. After all, it was Reinefarth, the entire unit made up of ruthless murderers.<\/p>\n

26.<\/h2>\n

The diary, anonymous at first, was hidden in a cigarette case, folded up in four, partially soaked with water. We found out who the author was\u2014Zbigniew Wro\u0144ski, platoon sergeant, cadet Zbigniew Wro\u0144ski, alias \u2018Kret\u2019 [a mole]. A soldier in the \u201cGrenade\u201d Artillery Group. The diary entry goes like this: \u201cWe entered Belgijska Street. We saw piles of burnt bodies of women and children.\u201d On one of the following pages of the diary, this young boy, probably aged 19 at the time, writes: \u201cWe no longer took them captive.\u201d<\/p>\n

27.<\/h2>\n

I remember the stories of my aunt, Janka Szafra\u0144ska, sister-in-law of my other grandma\u2014she was a nurse in Czerniak\u00f3w, but before she got to Czerniak\u00f3w, in the first days of the Uprising, she had been a nurse in a hospital at 55 Mokotowska Street in \u015ar\u00f3dmie\u015bcie Po\u0142udniowe district. It was the largest hospital there. I remember one dramatic story she used to tell, about an 18-year-old boy, an insurgent, badly wounded, on his deathbed really. The aunt asked him for his last wish, and he said \u201cI wish for free Poland.\u201d<\/p>\n

28.<\/h2>\n

At some point, I joined the underground Scouting Association, the so-called Gray Ranks. I was convinced by my friends, so I became a member, a Scout. And I was an active member. One of my friends, when he heard I\u2019d joined the Gray Ranks, said he wanted to join, too. He must have told his parents about it, for his father called me and asked me for a meeting. He said: \u201cTadziu, I beg of you, don\u2019t let Krzy\u015b join the Gray Ranks. One of you two must survive. Someone has to rebuild this country, rebuild Poland after the war, so perhaps you shouldn\u2019t let Krzy\u015b join.\u201d And so I told Krzy\u015b that I don\u2019t agree to him joining the Gray Ranks.<\/p>\n

29.<\/h2>\n

I\u2019ve just read, not long ago, a recollection of my grandma\u2019s brother, of the one who perished, the brother from the \u201eBaszta\u201d Regiment unit who stumbled across his sister\u2019s body. He was the unit\u2019s commander, and they were retreating from Mokot\u00f3w, and he found his sister\u2019s body, but since he was the head of this unit, and they were in the middle of an operation, he couldn\u2019t bury her, nor make a sign of a cross on her forehead. He couldn\u2019t come to terms with this fact for the rest of his life. Anyway, there is a very curious sentence in his recollections\u2014he writes about the Uprising as something that could not have been stopped, but he leaves the assessment of it to future generations. I think my uncle was simply aware that the aftermath of the Uprising, the death of 200,000 people could only be assessed years later.<\/p>\n

30.<\/h2>\n

When they killed my grandpa, grandpa fell over and so did my 11-year-old sister. I was 5 at the time. I realised they were dead, but I wasn\u2019t sure if they were asleep or not. I hid underneath them\u2014grandpa lying on his back, my sister on her side. That\u2019s how I hid. There was light\u2014I used to tell my mum it was sunshine, but it was the moon, huge on that very night. It was a moon-lit night. I felt suddenly I was starving, and the woman who had a house with a gate there\u2014we were on the pavement\u2014saw there was a child there. She didn\u2019t know what child, she just knew there was a child. I couldn\u2019t get up\u2014she asked me not to get up, as Germans were firing machine guns from the opposite side. There was a post office there, and they captured it. She told me not to get up, only to pick up what she was throwing at me. And she would throw down at me sugar cubes, on this pavement, on the road.<\/p>\n

31.<\/h2>\n

We were chased towards Bia\u0142obrzeska Street, and then down Bia\u0142obrzeska towards Opaczewska. Everything was aflame. There were corpses lying around. We walked down the burning street. On the way, yet another stop, another search, jerking, beating. To \u201cZieleniak\u201d, the market place on Gr\u00f3jecka Street. Today, it\u2019s Gr\u00f3jecka and Banacha Streets, that\u2019s right. In front of the building which survived, opposite the entrance to \u201cZieleniak\u201d, the market place, the building which had not burnt down, there was a pile of bodies. We were chased to \u201cZieleniak\u201d. It was full of residents of Warsaw who had been brought there before us. It was almost noon, on a hot day, and not a drop of water. In the crowd lying on the ground there, because there was only bare soil at that place after all, there were the Kami\u0144ski Brigade men\u2014drunk, of course. They picked the women they liked and pulled them to the school building nearby. That\u2019s where they raped and murdered the women.<\/p>\n

32.<\/h2>\n

Our mothers, our fathers, this whole defenceless civilian population\u2014it was thanks to them that the Uprising lasted 63 days. We would have surrendered on day one, as we did not capture even one building. The first day was a complete disaster, we were scattered, we didn\u2019t have enough weapons, no munition, we didn\u2019t have anything to stop the Germans, to inflict any losses on their part. They didn\u2019t suffer any losses. It was thanks to the civilians who dressed our wounds all night, fed us, showed us which way to go.<\/p>\n

33.<\/h2>\n

It is a crime of sorts\u2014the decision to start the Uprising. We proclaim it a crime, this decision. It is very easy to justify that\u2014the number of victims, the estimated 200,000 and the city in ruins. No one can object this argumentation, as these are the tragic facts. However, drawing conclusions from these facts is not altogether easy in a society that feeds itself on the tradition of the defeated. As the song goes: \u201cToday is a day of blood and glory, may it be a day of resurrection. A white eagle, thrilled by this hope, is calling to us from up high: Rise up, Poland. Throw off the chains. Today is your triumph or your demise!\u201d Clearly, they did consider the option it would end in demise.<\/p>\n

34.<\/h2>\n

It hurts me when people say the Uprising was uncalled for. That is was a bad decision.<\/p>\n

35.<\/h2>\n

They led us down M\u0142ynarska Street to Wolska Street. A guy in German uniform stuck to me, a guy with a rifle\u2014they were leading the procession\u2014he simply stuck to me. Of course, he immediately pulled out my Father\u2019s watch chain and his watch from my bag, and then he noticed a wedding ring on my finger. My hands were swollen, the ring was stuck on my finger, but he wouldn\u2019t let go\u2014off with it. I couldn\u2019t pull it off for the world. An elderly woman\u2014I had never seen her before\u2014pulled out a bottle of water from her bag. She poured some on my hand, because she must have felt he was really ready to kill me to get this ring.<\/p>\n

36.<\/h2>\n

The door closed and the train moved. We didn\u2019t know where, or what for. Nobody informed us. We were treated like cattle. The train was heading somewhere. We travelled all day and all night. The next day, in the evening (it was the night of 11\/12 August) the train reached the ramp in Auschwitz-Birkenau. The door opened. And the yelling, again: \u201cGet off, quick!\u201d and then the families were separated. Men to one side, women to the other. Screaming, wailing, cries to high heaven\u2014like I said, families were being separated. Older kids, older boys like myself, don\u2019t want to go, right, they don\u2019t\u2026 Me too, I squatted a little, during the selection, and I followed my mum, I wanted to be with mum, right. I had no idea where I was. The first glance I caught when the door of the carriage opened, before I was pushed out, I saw a line of SS-men with dogs. Right next to us, people were being separated, women from men. The roofs of the barracks were dimly lit, as it was dark, but the camp was always lit, not well-lit, but lit still. Two massive chimneys on the side, and a flame coming out of them, several-metres high. There was smoke and stench, terrible stench, it was hard to breathe. Then I was already pushed down. I went to the women\u2019s camp in a crown of women and children.<\/p>\n

37.<\/h2>\n

Marysia Cyra\u0144ska, sister of my sister-in-law, W\u0142adek\u2019s wife. Marysia is dead now, even though she was more or less my age. She was 10 or 11 years old. She never married, never had children, because she was scarred. She testified in court, soon after the war had ended; she gave a testimony\u2014how she was lying, wounded, and pretended to be dead. An \u2018expert\u2019 was walking round, and if someone was still breathing, he finished them off. She held her breath, and he stamped on her back in his big boots, and she later testified that she saw that someone was breathing and he finished them off. And I wrote down something like that: \u201cPerhaps it was my father, wounded, still alive, breathing, only unconscious. Who knows?\u201d And she, with this experience, this trauma, never wanted to have children, never wanted to marry. And now she\u2019s dead.<\/p>\n

38.<\/h2>\n

These corpses, I walked on these corpses, grandpa walked on these corpses with me. This is me, aged 10, 12\u2014my mum couldn\u2019t leave me alone at home because I saw corpses everywhere. I had such trauma. My psyche was programmed that way\u2014whenever I stayed alone in the flat, even in bright daylight, I saw corpses everywhere. This fear, the fear of corpses, has left me only after my mum passed away. I was twenty-something at the time, mum was 54. My mum walked with me everywhere\u2014to the basement, upstairs. I was afraid to go anywhere, even at twenty years old.<\/p>\n

39.<\/h2>\n

After the war, we would go to the Military Cemetery to commemorate the insurgents buried there\u2014hundreds, thousands of people. We were in a state of mental confusion about the Uprising back then. It was all hush-hush. We didn\u2019t know about many things. The entire effort of commemorating the insurgents was focused on the Military Cemetery, the Wola Massacre was something marginal, barely spoken of. Many years later people began to write about it, talk about it, record it, and it became part of public awareness in Warsaw.<\/p>\n

40.<\/h2>\n

To me, it is shocking that young people who go to school, learn history, watch movies, [don\u2019t know?] how horrible a war is, what Hitler had done, and how abhorrent the idea of fascism is. Also, a very important thing\u2014that patriotism is not about waving a flag and shouting: \u201cDeath to enemies!\u201d. Patriotism is about making sure there is no war, about looking after the compatriots, fellow citizens. It is about being the first one, providing that you are strong enough, to help those who fall.<\/p>\n

\n

Wartime stories and experiences in conversation with Krzysztof Wodiczko were shared by:<\/h3>\n

Bohdan Bartnikowski, Helena Bu\u0142garska, El\u017cbieta Gutowska-Niedzia\u0142ek, Tomasz Karasi\u0144ski, Wies\u0142aw K\u0119pi\u0144ski, El\u017cbieta Leszczy\u0144ska, Monika Lurie, Stanis\u0142aw Maliszewski, Stefan Nies\u0142uchowski, Tadeusz Rolke, \u0141ucjan Soko\u0142owski, Jadwiga Szcz\u0119\u015bcik-Parucka, Krzysztof Szlifirski, Wanda Traczyk-Stawska.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Transcripts for the audio-visual installation Voices of Memory by Krzysztof Wodiczko. 1. My childhood, spent in a tenement house at 73 Leszno Street, is this part of my life that, to this day, I keep re-living again and again in my dreams. Probably because that is when I lost what was most precious in my […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":137778,"parent":14512,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-137915","page","type-page","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nVoices of Memory | Hall of Remembrance at the Warsaw Insurgents Cemetery<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\""Voices of Memory" by Krzysztof Wodiczko: audio-visual installation commemorates the victims of the Warsaw Uprising and tells the tragic stories of the civilian population of Warsaw in 1944.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/izbapamieci.muzeumwarszawy.pl\/en\/exhibitions\/voices-of-memory-transcripts\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" 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