Women constituted nearly 30% of the participants of the uprising. Young nurses, messengers and ... soldiers hand in hand with men fought for the liberation of their beloved capital.
Although the uprising is still associated mainly with brave, young boys who heroically gave their lives for their homeland, we cannot forget about women, or rather girls who joined the action. Young nurses, liaison officers, but also female soldiers fought for free Poland. It turns out that war is not only a "male matter". Agnieszka Cubała in the latest book Women `44 notes:
When we think about the Warsaw Uprising, most often we have before our eyes the image of heroic, good-looking boys, who, even when in the greatest trouble, reply boorously:"It's bullshit!"; commanders rated at least ambiguously; bloody fights, in which badly armed insurgents faced Germans who had a whole arsenal of various weapons, including airplanes and an armored train, and children with gasoline bottles ran to the tanks and beautiful girls who treat the wounded with a radiant smile, carry reports or they cook a soup called spit .
However, it is a very romantic, idealized image created mainly by men. During the fights, women performed various functions and struggled with many, sometimes prosaic problems. Some of them wanted to join the fighting units, but ... they were reduced to the role of girls delivering reinforcements. Some people couldn't hide their anger and disappointment.
Women for… gags?
Women played a significant role in the uprising. Most often they acted as nurses, serviced field kitchens (which they were often not satisfied with), were liaison officers, but also miners and bombers. Initially, the vast majority of them did not have access to weapons, so they could only wait passively for developments to develop. The feeling of inactivity and powerlessness must have been overwhelming. Often men tried to reduce them to the role of… waitresses. In the book Women '44 we find a description of how some soldiers treated women. When the commandant of "Ena" was seriously injured and was treated by the girls from her unit, they were interrupted by the angry lieutenant "Ryś" with the words:
- There are so many women in one room and there is no one downstairs to serve dinner! He shouted. - What is this cleaning ?! There should be no such neglect in the insurgent army!
The women did not hide their irritation. The commandant assured the lieutenant that they would come down to help soon, but first they had to dress her wounds.
Uprising women often had experience in the ranks of the Home Army.
Obviously, attitudes towards women were very varied. Some men appreciated their hard work and extraordinary dedication. However, these negative emotions were often imprinted on the memory.
Anna Jakubowska ps. Paulinka recalled that when the fighting broke out, she wanted to join the boys from the unit. However, she met a doctor she knew, who said:- "Oh," Paulinka ", I'm so glad that you are here. I am organizing a sanitary point, you will help me. ”
Agnieszka Cubała emphasizes:
She wasn't thrilled - she wanted to join the boys from the ward. But an order is an order!
Many of the girls were quite disappointed:
"Kama" also wanted to join the action. When she reported to "Mirski" with a request to be assigned a specific task, she heard that she was assigned the role of a liaison-authorizing officer. Despite her great disappointment, she went with a friend to the Karol and Maria children's hospital, where in the great kitchen she had to prepare sandwiches with marmalade and coffee. All this had to be brought to the guys on the barricades later.
I felt like a soldier
Many women were eager to fight. Agnieszka Cubała reports:
Liaison officer Halina Chlistunoff-Cieszkowska, ps. Alika, recalled that when she and a few of her friends couldn't get to her focus, she was terribly depressed.
"We were terribly worried. I began to fear that I would not have time to participate in the uprising at all . Anyway, we were all terrified that the uprising would take place without us. ”
However, they did not always receive a new assignment, they often searched for tasks themselves and thus ended up in field kitchens.
The problem with enlisting in combat operations was faced, among others, by Jadwiga Podrygałło, ps. Isia, Puppy, Stray. She had a lot of experience before the uprising - she was one of the best liaisons of "Disk". When she noticed the gathering of boys, she decided to join them. She didn't look like her age, so no one believed she'd finished the school cadet school. As a standard, she was sent to a combat hospital. However, it quickly demonstrated its combat value during a fire. Eventually, she was accepted into the 24 "Narew" companies of the "Kryska" group as a liaison for special tasks.
Janina Forbertówna
It is worth emphasizing that many women who were nurses or liaison officers, in fact, acted on the front line, often risking and losing their lives. However, they had no weapons and therefore were not classified as soldiers. Most of them, however, felt that they were. How else to call a liaison officer who, despite serious wounds, still fulfills the task? And this was the case with, for example, Romana Zdziarska pseud. Romek. Years later, she recalled:
The earth is pulsating, groaning desperately, failing, but warm. And it becomes some kind of sticky, and therefore very close. It seems to me that I am lying in a meadow with a storm raging above me. I am trying to turn on my back to see what is happening to the sky and I cannot. I remember there's probably a book somewhere nearby and need to take it home. I reach out and, with great pain, the awareness of reality returns to me. I already know where I am, I also know that I am alive. Slowly I begin to test my strength, lifting myself a bit on my left healthy arm and unfortunately falling on my face, puking the blood that is flooding my eyes now. (...) For over four hours I spoke gently to my torn members, ordering them to submit to their will. Until finally a miracle happened, I got up and staggered in the direction of Bonifraterska Street.
The job was done.
Minerki, shovel, women with a gun
Women also found themselves in such roles. When Barbara Matys-Wysiadecka, ps. Baśka-Bomba and her friends were sent to an engineer task and were not treated too seriously. The head of Wojskowych Zakłady Wydawnicze greeted them with a laugh and said: - I needed sappers, I thought that there would be mustachioed guys in shovels.
Agnieszka Cubała notes:
However, when the girls quickly and efficiently assembled a box of gammon (English drop grenades), everyone began to look at them with respect and appreciation.
Women fought and died for a free Poland
The young miners took part in the attack on the building of Polska Akcyjna Spółka Telefoniczna, sometimes even provided fire support. The girls had an additional advantage - apart from efficient soldier operation, they were able to provide medical assistance, which often saved lives.
Among the women fighting the uprising with weapons in their hands was Wanda Traczyk-Stawska, pseud. Donut. The desire to reach for a gun appeared as a form of revenge, as as a student she was a direct witness of the brutal and long execution of Poles:
This moment changed my life, my attitude, all my plans. I fell into such despair and fury that I decided to stop studying, not to go to secret classes anymore, but to pick up a gun, learn to shoot perfectly, throw a grenade and find myself in a firing squad.
She was very determined and achieved her goal. She served as a liaison-shooter within the Guard Division of the Military Publishing Plant, the disposition division of Antoni Chruściel, pseudonym Fitter. For her merits, she was awarded, inter alia, The Cross of Valor.
However, it is worth remembering that each work for the insurgents was extremely important and deserves our appreciation and memory. Being in decaying Warsaw in itself required inhuman courage. Teresa Wilska even mentioned:
I am not sure what requires more dedication (...) - throwing bottles at tanks, fighting with a rifle in hand or standing calmly by a collapsed kitchen and cooking a pot of soup that is constantly covered with rubble, and waiting only the next bomb will crash everything. I admire the work of nurses and doctors the most. Assisting and doing operations in gruesome conditions. Take the wounded out of the burning hospitals and stay with them when all the able to move are gone, when the Germans will come in a moment. Wait for certain death and calmly comfort the sick ...
Source:
The article is based on the book Women `44. Real stories of women in the Warsaw Uprising , which has just been released on the market by the publishing house Prószyński i S-ka