Christmas Eve ‘44 – sadness and hope in a time of darkness

Christmas Eve in ruin

Robinsons of Warsaw – that's how people are defined, who stayed in Warsaw after the fighting and hid in the ruins of the deserted city. Their lives were a daily, utmost conflict for survival. The existence in the ruins was reduced to being kept in absolute silence, moving only at night basements of ruined buildings, searching for food and waiting for the end of the war.

It is estimated that about a 1000 people were hiding after the fall of the Warsaw uprising and exile. How long did it last? You don't know that. The Robinsons have frequently joined groups to make it easier to cope with hard surviving conditions. Immediately after the collapse of the rallies, they were provided with food thanks to the supplies left in the cellars of Warsaw. Later, closer to winter, the situation deteriorated. – Food and equipment could be found in neighboring abandoned houses. At first, just after the end of the uprising, there was rather quite a few it. Then getting anything to eat was getting harder. They managed to find [Robinsons] too grits, salt and sugar... 150 kg of flour! Right away, Lubaszek made bread. They hid a twelve loafers for a rainy day. They took the remainder and the flour to a safe house. They besides checked where the wells were open to supply water. Surviving in specified conditions required quite a few cleverness and far-reaching reasoning – said Wacław Gluth-Nowowiejski, an insurgent and 1 of the Robinsons, a later author and journalist.

His account of Christmas in ruins is, however, laconic and sad. The hardest day for all hiding was Christmas Eve. – Their ears were caroling Germans, and they sat in silence, frequently crying like children – he described the Christmas night of those who decided to stay in destroyed Warsaw.

Christmas in exile

The destiny of insurgents and residents of the city forced to leave the capital was different. – The insurgents survived Christmas Eve 1944 in German POW camps, concentration camps, forced robots in the 3rd Reich industry, hospitals or exiled with the civilian population. Transports with displaced Warsawers were usually addressed to the regions of the General Government, which were most convenient for them from a logistical point of view, i.e. to central and confederate Poland. “The German authorities tried to settle those driven out primarily in agrarian areas. On the another hand, refugees usually tried to decision to cities and villages closer to Warsaw – explains Dr. Dariusz Zielonka from the Warsaw Uprising Museum.

Photograph from Stalag XI B/z in Bergen-Belsen. Inside barracks no. 198. In the foreground on the left the Christmas tree, on the right on the bunk reading the paper of Lt. Jan Głady "Bemol" from the company of the "Facery" Battalion "Gustaw". 24-26 December 1944.

From 340 to even 650 1000 people came through Dulag 121 (short from German Durchgangslager 121) – a German transitional camp created in the erstwhile Railway Workshops in Pruszkow for the expelled from the capital during the Warsaw Uprising and shortly after its completion. It operated from August 6, 1944 to January 16, 1945. – Its main function was to get as many people as possible capable of forced labour in the 3rd Reich. The prisoners were divided into 2 categories: capable and incapable to work. The segregation was brutally carried out by Arbeitsamt officers (the office of work) and Gestapo with the aid of German railwaymen. Nearly 70,000 people were deported from the Dulag 121 camp to concentration camps, including Auschwitz KL Gross Rosen, KL Stutthof, as described by Małgorzata Bojanowska, manager of the Dulag 121 Museum.

Christmas Eve at Auschwitz

Janina Iwanska was 14 years old erstwhile she went to Auschwitz from Dulag. She besides came here to spend the night of Christ's birth. “The mothers who went to work came on Christmas Eve after the rotation call and brought the Christmas tree. I don't know. They smuggled a small tree somewhere under the belt. We put them up like this oven was ending, so a small off the side, that everyone would sit on these furnaces and have as much heat. We sang carols together. These mothers brought any gifts to these small children, small pieces of paper made or something to eat," she recalled after the war. “I can’t tell you who it was now, but there was a celebrated vocalist singing with us who was in Auschwitz. [...] then we sang carols, at the end of the parent went, the children went to bed, and we, the older ones, owned and began to remember. [...] We started telling them that erstwhile we were at home, on Christmas Eve there were dumplings with cabbage and mushrooms, carp, noodles with poppy, herring, cabbage with peas, due to the fact that it was cooking too.”

The Christmas of the Lord behind the wires

In the accounts of Warsawists scattered around Poland and beyond, there is simply a unique ingenuity and care to give the Christmas Eve ‘44 as many features of average home holidays as possible under terrible conditions of existence. Christmas ornaments were made from what was at hand. Among the collections of the Museum of the Warsaw Uprising there was a Christmas tree ornament made in Oflag IX C Molsdorf. A 1.5 cm long jack was cut out of the sheet by tin and painted red. The ornament belonged to Lieutenant Dr Janina Kozłowska "Doctor Bronki" who served in the field infirmary at Solec Street in the uprising.

Christmas decorations were expected to cheer you up. Michał Tomasz Wojciuk, historian at the Warsaw Uprising Museum, writes: “On the Christmas tree in Stalag XI A Altengrabow were hanged cut from paper or from another material caricature of Germans from camp staff. Sylvettes of officers had exposed physical defects or characteristic objects associated with them, e.g. popular wachman kuternog with a bicycle which is its attribute. Sometimes the decorations gained patriotic pronunciation [...]. The Christmas tree in the barrack in the Molsdorf oflag was decorated by the women-prisoners with white and red signs from the uprising. The ornament of a tree or coniferous branch could be a wattage. The liaison and paramedic Krystyna Friedwald (from Chrostek's house) ››Mewa‹‹, who works in an aircraft mill close Berlin, remembers that she found a large branch of a coniferous tree she brought to the camp. She and her friends put her in a gap in the barracks. Insurgent paramedics had any more watts they used, arranging as a snow imitation.”

Sometimes, to give Christmas Eve a hard reality, 1 had to hazard life. A fifteen-year-old insurgent liaison Tadeusz Jarosz “Topacz”, imprisoned in the Voerde bei Wessel camp about 30 km from Essen, with his peer Witold Niewiedniski through a gap in the camp barrier they broke into a close forest, from where they brought a “little chojak” – as he recalled years later – which stood in the barracks.

The Christmas feast in captivity was "extended" as for the standards of stomachs accustomed to food consisting of moldy bread and tabloids, but provided that humanitarian packages reached the prisoners. "We have received the first packages from the global Red Cross. On Christmas Eve, we stood in a two-story area, and Captain Slawomir assured in military and optimistic terms: "We will shortly bring freedom to our country on bayonets. The mediocre man did not know, nor did we, that we had already been sold by our western allies cunningly to the fox Joseph Stalin, who tricked us. The Christmas Eve of the packages was besides rich for hungry stomachs and the end of the evening was pathetic,” said Wiesław Januszewski, ps. “John”, a Warsaw insurgent from the “Grafa” group.

Photograph from Stalag XI B/z in Bergen-Belsen. Christmas celebrations in barracks 198. Polish prisoners sharing a wafer. 24-26 December 1944.

However, the packages did not always scope behind camp wires. Many prisoners of war for Christmas food had to be adequate for mediocre food – pieces of bread, paving, potatoes in shell. Camp conditions during the sulfurous winter were highly difficult. The soldiers warmed themselves with their own bodies, sleeping tightly on each other. However, the harsh winter besides had positives. "Strong frosts have become our ally in the fight against insects. Bedlinen and clothing were carried out to frost, frozen vermin were easy escalated," 1 of the insurgents described.

In the Voerde bei Wessel camp, the prisoners did not receive packages from the Red Cross. So they made wishes, sharing bread cut into tiny slices. The moulded bread as a “gift” from the Germans was besides the only Christmas meal for the participants of the uprising in Oberlangen camp. "The camp's friends who, despite their hunger, had already organized food supplies came and shared with the fresh ones everything they had. caregiver from Śródmieście, Hanna Ławrynowicz ››Ewa Czerska‹‹ (from Lubeck's house), survived Christmas Eve 1944 in a carriage carrying the participants of the uprising from Bergen-Belsen to Molsdorf. Women shared pieces of bread and onions and sang carols. During the train halt they managed to get a branch of a coniferous tree. Although the hair was frozen to the walls of the car, the temper was elevated and solemn," writes historian Michał Tomasz Wojciuk.

Christmas on forced labour

Irena Dzienniak-Różewska, a liaison and paramedic from the Grey Lines, went to work in the Reich. She came here to spend Christmas Eve in 1944. Thanks to the resourcefulness of Christmas Eve’s local people, it proved abundant. But it was not without tears and longing for his homeland and the end of the war. “We were invited to 1 of the Polish families, very numerous. This Christmas Eve will be in my memory for the remainder of my life. Everyone dressed in their best things, a table covered in white sheets, and under it hay. All the treats on the table. any fish, salads, cake. Why all this?! Without cards, only buttons and ribbons could be obtained in the neighboring town, and here, on the table – even alcohol. It was most likely a moonshine. The host of the home went out in the evenings to friends of Poles working in neighboring villages at the Bauers and there he could get, for example, fat or meat. On this Christmas Eve only the Christmas tree was missing – just a fewer pine twigs, there was no wafer, so we shared bread. Everyone cried, wishing the war would end and happy to return home. We sang carols... And again, crying, which nobody was ashamed of," she recalled years later.

Often, however, forced workers spent Christmas accompaniment with bombs thrown in carpet raids on German cities. "We had a night raid on Hanover. We were sitting in the basement with the local population. They prayed, they cursed and cried. In the morning, we were driven to a town where we dug up the buried and cleaned up the debris. It was late erstwhile we sat down for Christmas Eve. The dinner was alternatively symbolic due to the fact that the Red Cross packages had not yet arrived. We shared bread crumbs that replaced the wafers. Then there were the Christmas carols we brought in with a small Christmas tree. There were no raids that night, only drunk voices came from the ground floor," 1 of the insurgents reported.

Christmas Eve 1944 in the countryside

Relatively the best conditions were those who went to the country from transition camps. In their accounts, the words of a good heart and hospitality given by locals frequently go through. There is, however, a deficiency of memories of the more hard ones associated with the request to adapt to the new, not easy agrarian life of war times. “In Sokolniki, for the first time in my life I met a Polish village. The basic food was potatoes and milk. Bread was a rarity, and meat was only eaten for Easter and Christmas. To this day I remember the taste of this agrarian bread, which was then a delicacy for me. Winter from the turn of 1944 to 1945 began early. The snow covered the earth with frost. Drelich clothes and shoes on a wooden sole did not supply protection against cold" - said the orderly Zofia Kowalska ps. “Mila”, who went to the village of Sokolniki. “The legs in the woodwork, the sharp winter, and I dressed as the August Uprising. Meanwhile, Christmas came. We wanted to express our gratitude to the villagers for their help. We've put on a pageant. Of course, they were patriotic. I did something like decorations and costumes. Warsaw insurgents besides came to the show with a carol.
God is born, and we in the world, in the trenches scattered,
The fame of Poland on bayonets is spread across space,
So they don't think they own Poles,
A The word became flesh and lived between us‹‹" – the insurgent paramedic recalled.

Nine-year-old Alicja Wolańska (née Kudzinowska-Wolk) remembers Christmas in the village close Miechów – in Zarogów: “This is where I spent the unforgettable cold and snowy Christmas and the Shepherd with the "Jędrześci" in the background. This is where I learned from your chief's daughter to make paper ornaments for Christmas trees, baubles, chains and hedgehogs. Here I besides learned the fact that only the mediocre know how to share their goods with akin poor.”

Photograph from Stalag XI B/z in Bergen-Belsen. Inside barracks 198 with prisoners' bunks. A decorated tree on the left. 24-26 December 1944.

Zofia Kępa left Warsaw on 8 September 1944 during a temporary ceasefire. She was driven to a transitional camp in Pruszków, where she was separated from her husband and sent to the village of Końskie, and then to the village of Kuźnica close Borkowice. There, both she and her five-month-old boy were warmly welcomed by the host household Antoni Zamarya. She spent her Christmas time in 1944: “At Christmas 1944, Helena brought bigos, bread, and something else, a small memory fails. On Christmas Eve, Anthony came with a wafer for all of us. Wishing we could finish our walk and our own house, he pulled out a bottle of vodka. We were all amazed and grateful. My roommates utilized to envy me for moving into specified good people. Antoni gave my kid to be baptized in a close parish in Ruski Broda, he made a tiny reception after baptism due to the fact that I could not afford it. I have received so much good from strangers.”

The wishes of freedom in the shadow of betrayal

In the accounts of the Warsawers from the holidays of 1944, tears that were shed during the Christmas night and 2 wishes most frequently made to each another at the Christmas table (or at least his substitute): return home and free Poland. These dreams came true, but only partially. The war was over, and people began returning to the ruined capital in the winter of 1945. However, this was not the beginning of free Poland, but the beginning of another enslavement for the next 45 years, sanctioned by the betrayal of allies at the Yalta conference.

Source:
Archives of Dulag Museum 121 and Warsaw Uprising Museum
Michał T. Wójciuk, “Insurgency Christmas Eve 1944”, Warsaw Uprising Museum
Wacław Gluth-Nowowiejski, "Don't die until tomorrow", Marginsy Publishing home 2019
‘Return route. Memories of insurgents", ed. I. Łukaszewska-Bułat, Warsaw 2005

Content consultation:
Dr Dariusz Zielonka, Museum of the Warsaw Uprising
Margaret Bojanowska, Dulag Museum 121