On August 1, 1944, at one o'clock in the afternoon, Halina gave birth to Staś. Her husband ran to the uprising. She - terribly sore and exhausted - was left alone. With a seventy-year-old father and baby in care. When the world was falling apart, she had only one goal:save her child.
In an equally tragic situation as the aforementioned Halina Wiśniewska, one of the heroes of Anna Herbich's book "Girls from the Uprising" , there were many women. In apocalyptic Warsaw, in musty, crowded cellars, without water and food, they had to support the lives of their newborn children. It was an extremely difficult challenge, as it is known that man in this period of his life is the most fragile. However, the insurgent mothers had no choice - they had to survive.
Here they die, here they are born ...
It was not too bad in the first days of August. One of the participants of the uprising, a liaison officer and nurse Hanna Kramar-Mintkiewicz, recalled how surprised the insurgents reacted to the miracle of birth in the fire of fighting:
In the beginning, there was one great enthusiasm. Anyway, in one house in Mokotów, a girl was born and we ran there to see this baby, because it was so contrasting for us, they die here, they are born here.
The photo shows Halina Wiśniewska with her son Staś, born on August 1, 1944, in the ruins of Warsaw in 1945.
The joy did not last long, however. It was impossible to hide the painful reality and tragic prospects. Young mothers knew it was the worst that awaited them.
And yet, it is impossible to find in the Uprising reports any information that one of them collapsed under the weight of circumstances. The reason is explained in simple terms by Irena Herbich, the heroine of Anna Herbich's book and her grandmother at the same time:
The most important was Jacuś, which I was carrying in my arms. I promised myself that I would do anything to save this child. That he just had to survive. It gave me strength. I felt that I had a task to concentrate on. Maybe that's why I didn't lose my head in all this (quoted after:"Girls from the Uprising").
Anything as long as they survive
Not only mothers cared for their babies. If they lacked care, because they died in collapsed cellars, or were separated from the child, scouts took over the role of caretakers.
Warsaw was falling into ruins, and the civilian population hiding in the cellars of tenement houses was only getting harder and harder ...
Zofia Nikiel, commander of the Scout Sanitary Service of the capital city of Warsaw, mentioned this in her report:
Our boss had a hard life with us, I admit, because (...) one of our patrols went on some action and, returning downstairs for a bomb, found a baby alive , a [healthy] baby. The girls took the baby and brought:"Commander, we have a baby". Well, then - "our baby". We brought them back, at the corner of Marszałkowska and Złota Streets there was a scout childcare point and until the end of the Uprising we did everything we could so that our baby had milk.
This is not all. After all, the found child had nothing but what it was wearing. Scout girls, even though they were often very young girls, were well aware of the child's needs. Traveling through the destroyed Warsaw, they stubbornly looked into the ruins where there used to be fabric shops. They found bales of various materials for bandages. Taking care of the baby, they did not neglect his wardrobe:
We had a flannel, took it, cut it into jackets. Therefore, sitting next to our boss, instead of waiting idly, we sewed jackets. As our boss [saw]:"What are you guys doing ?!" "We sew jackets."
The article was based, among others, on the book by Anna Herbich "Girls from the Uprising" (Znak Horyzont 2014).
"I'm the sanitary manager of the Warsaw Uprising, and you sew jackets for babies ?!" In his mentality it [did not fit]. Maybe we lacked imagination. We were different, he had a different approach. In any case, we continued sewing the jackets, but not next to him, only one patrol was always sitting by him, and the other was sewing the jacket somewhere. In any case, until the end of the Uprising our baby wore fresh jackets.
Changing without diapers and washing without water
The girl scouts did not limit their help only to this one child. Until the very end of the uprising, the "clothes factory" was operating at its best and provided children in need with jackets, diapers and other necessary textiles.
Especially with diapers in the uprising there was a huge problem. When the water stopped flowing from the water pipes, it became practically impossible to wash diapers . The problem was serious considering that not changing regularly leads to chafes, skin diseases and other equally unpleasant consequences. After all, in the conditions of war, there was no question of treating any infections.
Mothers, although well aware of it, could do little. Halina Wiśniewska, one of the protagonists of Anna Herbich's book "Girls from the Uprising", who gave birth on August 1, described this problem as follows:
It was so dark in the basement that I could barely see him when I was changing my son. For this I used torn sheets, cloths, some pillowcases. Everything that was suitable for diapers was yelling. What was not suitable also. The sister carried these things from the apartment between the bombings. The dirty "diapers" were simply thrown away. There was no question of washing in these conditions.
When the uprising collapsed, civilians, including old men and little children, left Warsaw under the barrels of German rifles.
Also, the extremely valuable water in the conditions of the emergence of water could not be used carelessly for thorough washing of the baby during changing. Often the mother had only a minimum amount of water to water herself, the child and then wash the infant.
"They must survive"
I have a contemporary dilemma - breastfeeding or from a bottle - to ladies who gave birth just before or during the uprising, it was simply a stranger. They fed the baby with everything they could. At the end of the fighting, their children did not even cry. They were so hungry that they didn't have the strength to do it.
If the young mother was lucky, trauma, hunger or health problems did not stop her after giving birth to food. Feeding a baby to the breast was the best solution, after all, there were no clean bottles. Even if we found them, there was usually nothing to fill them.
However, when the mother did not have food, it was necessary to look for alternatives, which was done, among others, by the Military Social Service. One of the members of this formation, Krystyna Zachwatowicz-Wajda, recalled her insurrectionary tasks as follows:
It was a campaign conducted by the Military Social Service, and I was moved to see a poster at the Warsaw Uprising Museum about the milk I was collecting. Usually the three of us went because we had to carry sacks.
We were just going around the houses. I think the pass was also there to make our action more credible. We asked for powdered milk, nutrients, semolina for babies born during the Uprising or when the Uprising found them.
We collected it, it was carried on the point, I don't remember right now where and it was then distributed to the little children. It was a big problem in the Uprising. After all, there were no possibilities, Warsaw was a completely closed city.
It was impossible to live without water, and standing in line to the well was deadly. It was possible to die from a bullet at any moment ... (the photo is in the collection of the Warsaw Uprising Museum, author:Joachim Joachimczyk, p. "Joachim").
Secret Cows
According to various reports, cows provided invaluable services to newborn residents of Warsaw. These animals, instead of ending up in a cauldron like insurgent horses, provided the babies with milk. Especially sick and injured children needed him to regain strength.
Doctors did their best to somehow organize food supplies for their youngest patients. Halina Szwykowska, the half-war rapporteur during the uprising, recalled these efforts after the war:
It turned out that Dr. Barański was organizing food, sanitary products, medicines and milk for the children who were in the hospital. His efforts, among other things, we found out about it in the last days of the Uprising was that was a great secret on Żelazna Street.
I don't know how it was possible to keep her from the boys. Somehow it happened that she was not turned into meat. The cow gave milk to children from the children's section of the hospital, which was bombed in September and moved elsewhere.
Irena Herbich, the grandmother of the author of the book "Girls from the Uprising", tried to save the life of her little child during the fights.
As August passed, things got worse. The help from the bleeding insurgents was weakening due to the dwindling reserves. The hungry and thirsty mothers lost their nourishment, and the children became weaker and weaker. Despite this, the women did not lose hope. They could always count on the help of other Warsaw residents. One of the civil reports states:
There was a pediatrician in our basement. When I lost my food, he advised me what to do. Well, I made some flour and sugar from our modest supplies and gave it to the baby with a spoon.
The situation that happened to mothers and their newborn children was perfectly summed up by platoon team Wanda Traczyk-Stawska. Besides, the terrible situation of children, the youngest ones, babies. [...] I remember the civilian population as the main heroine of the Uprising - she said. Nothing more, nothing less.
Sources:
Basic:
- A. Herbich, Girls from the Uprising , Horizon 2014 sign.
Complementary:
- Archive of Oral History of the National Museum in Warsaw, testimony of Hanna Chomiszczak [access:December 21, 2014].
- Archive of Oral History of the MPW, testimony of Zofia Janina Gajewska [access:21/12/2014].
- Archive of Oral History of the National Museum in Warsaw, testimony by Zofia Gordon [access:21/12/2014].
- Archive of Oral History of the National Museum in Warsaw, testimony by Balbina Ignaczewska [access:December 21, 2014].
- Archive of Oral History of the MPW, testimony of Halina Korycka [access:December 21, 2014].
- Archive of Oral History of the National Museum in Warsaw, testimony by Hanna Kramar-Mintkiewicz [access:21/12/2014].
- Archive of Oral History of the National Museum in Warsaw, testimony by Zofia Nikiel [access:21.12.2014].
- Archive of Oral History of the MPW, testimony of Halina Szwykowska [access:21/12/2014].
- Archive of Oral History of the National Museum in Warsaw, testimony by Wanda Traczyk-Stawska [access:21/12/2014].
- Archive of Oral History of the MPW, testimony by Krystyna Zachwatowicz-Wajda [access:21/12/2014].