In the Ruins of Warsaw Streets
by Severin Gabriel
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Book Summary Information
Author: Severin GabrielEdition: Paperback
Audio: Polish (Original Language); English (Unknown); English (Published)
Published: 2005-12
ISBN: 9652293350
Number of pages: 128
Publisher: Gefen Publishing House
Book Reviews of In the Ruins of Warsaw Streets
Book Review: A Jewish Perspective on the Warsaw Uprising and the Three-Month Aftermath
Summary: 4 Stars
The cold-blooded Soviet betrayal of the Warsaw Uprising not only turned a few-day liberation action into a 63-day agony whose defeat was foregone, costing the lives of 250,000 Varsovians, but also provided an additional three months for the Germans to pillage and complete the total destruction of Warsaw. Gabriel describes his experiences during the Uprising and provides a seldom-told account of survival amidst Warsaw's ruins afterwards.
Some commentators (e. g., Jan T. Gross) have disingenuously accused Poles of being readily willing to incur the German-imposed death penalty for black marketeering, but seldom for hiding Jews. First of all, the Poles had to either get food illegally or face starvation. Second, one is much more likely to get away with a verboten object than with a human stowaway. Third, and as confirmed by Gabriel, getting caught black marketeering didn't necessarily mean death: "Shortly before our meeting, she [Mrs. Dabrowska] had been released from Auschwitz, where she had been held for having smuggled meat into Warsaw." (p. 58).
Gabriel certainly doesn't make light of the death penalty Poles faced. While hiding at a Polish estate some 50 km from Warsaw, he saw the smoke of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising and commented: "Yes, Jews were fighting there for their honor and I was sitting comfortably, endangering every member of the Stankiewicz family. I would not say a word. He was endangering himself and his family. We constantly heard about Poles being shot for hiding Jews, but for a long time Mr. Stankiewicz was indifferent to these reports. Finally, one evening he said to me, `Mr. Wladek, believe me, for the last six months I haven't been able to sleep--my nerves can't stand the strain. I didn't want you to lose a roof over your head during the winter, but I can't put you up any longer.'" (p. 56)
So Gabriel returned to Warsaw, and eventually went through the Uprising. In common with many others, he described the devastation wrought by the "roaring cow" or "cupboard" (nebelwerfer), the "Fat Berthas", and, of course, the bombers. He observed the fact that belated Soviet airdrops had no parachutes (pp. 29-30). After the Uprising, he saw the Germans pillage and burn Warsaw's remaining buildings. He even had a dramatic shootout with the Germans (p. 64).
Finally, Gabriel places the Germans' conduct after the Uprising in broader context: "Damn them. What are they doing? All this is history repeating itself; after the occupation of territories of western Poland they had deported the Jews and had plundered their property; after the liquidation of the ghettos they had done the same; and here they are, looting once more, plundering and destroying, after having driven out the Poles of Warsaw." (p. 85)
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