Eight Books for the 80th Anniversary of the Warsaw Uprising

warsaw_uprising_flash_gordon-wiki.jpeg, default, Young Home Army corporal reading graphic novel ‘Błysk Gordon – Królowa Błękitnej Magii’ during break in insurgent fighting, 1944, photo: Tadeusz Bukow, center, #000000

#language & literature

‘Thanks to the great understanding of cultural matters by Home Army soldiers, we managed to secure the largest private library in Warsaw, containing about 30,000 volumes, mainly in the field of Polish philology. The house containing the book collection is located on the front line. The books were transported to a safe place’, reported ‘Rzeczpospolita Polska’ on 24 August 1944. Tens of thousands of volumes, old prints and manuscripts from the book collection of Jan Michalski, a Warsaw Polish philologist and bibliophile, were saved that day.

A mosaic

Agnieszka Cubała, Wojciech Lada, Sebastian Pawlina, Magdalena Rigamonti, Michał Wójcik, Sylwia Zientek, “Przetrwać '44”, fot. Wielka Litera — ‘Przetrwać ‘44’ by Agnieszka Cubała, Wojciech Lada, Sebastian Pawlina, Magdalena Rigamonti, Michał Wójcik & Sylwia Zientek, photo: Wielka Litera

‘For memory will displace history’, predicts Michał Wójcik in the introduction to the publication Przetrwać ‘44 (Surviving ‘44). He also writes that what built us Poles as a society or nation over the past two centuries will be replaced not by collective memory but by the memory of individuals. These are the kinds of micro-stories contained in this volume: individual, yet multi-dimensional, clear or blurred in detail, torn, unfinished. Together they create a puzzle whose elements can be rearranged at will, yet the same image will be created – one full of pain, hope, sentiment and joy.

The memories of the nurse Basia Kruszewska, married name Chrzanowska (alias Małgosia Dębińska), came to life thanks to Agnieszka Cubała’s story. The author of many books about the Warsaw Uprising also looked at the fate of Wojciech Mencel, an athlete, soldier, dandy and almost forgotten poet of the so-called Columbus generation. Sylwia Ziętek discussed a topic close to her heart – works of art plundered during the war. The return to its homeland of Aleksander Gierymski’s Żydówka z pomarańczami (Jewish Woman With Oranges) was probably followed by all of Poland, but not everyone knows the circumstances of saving Bolesław Leśmian’s manuscripts, taken from their apartment by his wife, Zofia Chylińska. This Paris-educated artist abandoned her paintings while escaping from burning Warsaw so that only black and white photos of them in the pre-war press remain.

In a truly journalistic style, Michał Wójcik recalls the story of the difficult friendship of Jan Moor-Jankowski and Witold Kruczek, who together wanted to trick history, and also reveals the backstage Polish-German negotiations in the face of the appearance of a common enemy on the horizon – the Soviets. Wojciech Lada’s stories about the bloody ‘Sęp’ (Vulture) gang terrorizing the inhabitants of Dolny Czerniaków district [of Warsaw] or a German in Polish captivity sound like a ready-made script for a good movie. How different is the tone of this historian’s account of the Żoliborz children’s newspaper or the puppet theatre in Powiśle (neighbourhood in Warsaw, ed). Sebastian Pawlina plays on the reader’s emotions in a similar way, contrasting essays about burning manuscripts and people saving books (including Jan Zachwatowicz, for whom ‘the whole of Warsaw was a library […]’) and about prisoners of war forced to bury the bodies of their brothers.

These ten very different and incredible stories conclude with Magdalena Rigamonti’s interview with Krystyna Zachwatowicz-Wajda. This Warsaw Uprising liaison’s account of the smell of burning and rubble, of the obsession with access to water, and of her father, who smuggled out measuring drawings of monuments and film plates with photos of Warsaw, thanks to which the reconstruction of the capital was possible, is, above all, a lesson in memory.

Agnieszka Cubała, Wojciech Lada, Sebastian Pawlina, Magdalena Rigamonti, Michał Wójcik and Sylwia Zientek, Przetrwać ‘44, Wielka Litera Publishers, Warsaw 2024, 384 pages.

Herstories

Maria Paszyńska, “Dziewczyny ze Słowaka”, fot. Znak Literanova — ‘Dziewczyny ze Słowaka’ by Maria Paszyńska, photo: Znak Literanova

In her above-mentioned conversation with Rigamonti, Zachwatowicz-Wajda mentions the untold story of women who waited for their children and husbands during the uprising. Another herstorical thread is taken up by Maria Paszyńska in her book, filling the gap in stories about the insurgents. The fictionalized Dziewczyny ze Słowaka (The Girls from Słowak) is another side of the story of Alek, Zośka and Rudy – the heroes of Kamienie na Szaniec (Stones for the Rampart) by Aleksander Kamiński – well known to all schoolchildren. This time, the main focus is on the graduates of Juliusz Słowacki Middle and Secondary School in Warsaw: Halina Cieszyńska, Adriana Kłosińska née Zawadzka (‘Malwa’), Ewa Matuszewska (‘Mewa’), Natalia Sendys (‘Zyta’), Anna Smoleńska (‘Hania’), Janina Staniewicz (‘Janka’, ‘Gozdawa’), Wanda Sygietyńska (‘Wirska’, ‘Wanda Biała’), Jadwiga Śliwińska née Gadomska (‘Astra’, ‘Dziunia’ to her friends), Hanna Szapiro (‘Hanka’) and many others.

Paszyńska – who also graduated from this same school – depicts her protagonists not only as students of the Słowak or later as nurses, liaison officers and girl scouts. These are girls who experience their first loves and friendships, learn trust and responsibility. They are teachers (Helena Kasperowiczowa née Firewicz organizes clandestine education), enthusiasts (‘Mewa’ is a glider pilot) and artists (Hanka Brzezińska sings for hospital patients who cannot be evacuated; Anka Smoleńska is credited as the creator of the Fighting Poland sign painted on walls during the occupation). They fight for freedom despite fear and maintain their dignity in the face of brutal torture. Although The Girls from Słowak is a novel, the author made every effort to get to know the fate of high school graduates in as much depth as possible. Perhaps some of the issues sound quite naive, but she managed to reflect the mood pervasive among young people, which we know well from documentary accounts of the uprising. Paszyńska’s vivid language is full of energy, and the girls’ stories stay with the reader for a long time.

Maria Paszyńska, Dziewczyny ze Słowaka, Znak Literanova Publishers, Kraków 2024, 400 pages.

Picture(sque)

Jan Madejski, Sławomir Czuba, Roman Kucharski, Maciej Czaplicki, “Powstanie Warszawskie, tom I. Komiks paragrafowy”, fot. IPN / Muzeum Powstania Warszawskiego — ‘Powstanie Warszawskie, tom I. Komiks paragrafowy’ by Jan Madejski, Sławomir Czuba, Roman Kucharski & Maciej Czaplicki, photo: IPN / Muzeum Powstania Warszawskiego

In one of the preserved photos of the uprising, a young corporal of the Home Army smiles while reading the graphic novel Błysk Gordon i królowa Błękitnej Magii (Flash Gordon: The Witch Queen of Mongo) by Alex Raymond. This fourth book from the popular American comic-book series was one of three that were published in pre-war Poland. These were not translations as we know them today but adaptations. Although Janina Sujkowska’s translation of the texts of the comic-book bubbles (1938) of the above-mentioned version of the superhero’s adventures was close to the original, it was written in a continuous version. In turn, the same story reprinted in the fanzine Kwazar (Quasar) had to be done without the original illustrations (the drawings were created by an editorial artist). Either way, pocket picture novels allowed the insurgents to forget about the brutal reality of the war for a moment.

Witold Janik, Sławomir Czuba, “Powstanie Warszawskie, Tom II. Komiks paragrafowy”, wkładka historyczna Michał Komuda, Karol Mazur, Michał Wójcik, opracowanie graficzne Maciej Czaplicki, autor ilustracji Roman Kucharski, fot. IPN / Muzeum Powstania Warszawskiego — ‘Powstanie Warszawskie, Tom II. Komiks paragrafowy’ by Witold Janik & Sławomir Czuba, historical insert by Michał Komuda, Karol Mazur & Michał Wójcik, graphic design by Maciej Czaplicki, author of illustrations Roman Kucharski, photo: IPN / Muzeum Powstania Warszawskiego

Comic books, a literary genre that has been underestimated for decades, have recently been gaining in popularity. Following the voice of the current generation, the Institute of National Remembrance and the Warsaw Uprising Museum publishers have proposed a two-volume work Powstanie Warszawskie. Komiks paragrafowy (The Warsaw Uprising: A Comic Gamebook). Its main protagonists are 17-year-old Zosia, aka ‘Oczko’ (Little Eye), and 15-year-old Janek, aka ‘Wydra’ (Otter), whose fate in the uprising largely depends on the reader. It is they who decide on the development of the action: they can go to the indicated picture, shaping the course of events, or start reading from the beginning, creating a different story each time. The authors of the texts make both the course of the fighting and the everyday life of civilians more accessible to the reader, and Roman Kucharski’s dynamic illustrations allow us to feel at least a little of the emotions accompanying the participants of the uprising.

Jan Madejski, Sławomir Czuba, Roman Kucharski and Maciej Czaplicki, Powstanie Warszawskie, tom I. Komiks paragrafowy, published by the Institute of National Remembrance and the Warsaw Uprising Museum, Warsaw 2022, 112 pages.
Witold Janik and Sławomir Czuba, Powstanie Warszawskie. Tom II. Komiks paragrafowy, historical insert by Michał Komuda, Karol Mazur and Michał Wójcik, graphic design by Maciej Czaplicki, illustrated by Roman Kucharski, published by the Institute of National Remembrance and Warsaw Uprising Museum, Warsaw 2023, 112 pages.

Starring

Soldiers of the Capital! Today I have given the order you’ve been waiting for to fight openly against Poland’s eternal enemy, the German invader. After nearly five years of uninterrupted and tough fighting conducted underground, today you stand with weapons in your hands to restore Freedom to your Homeland and to mete out exemplary punishment on German criminals for the terror and crimes they have committed on Polish soil.

We remember Tadeusz Bór-Komorowski mainly for this very decision to start the Warsaw Uprising on 1 August 1944. However, on the same date he wrote in his memoir:

On the day of the outbreak of the uprising, at nine o'clock in the morning, I came to say goodbye to my wife. It wasn’t a very happy day. My son Adaś had a fever of about 40 degrees. I left my wife a gold watch and a gold ducat, which we once got as a present for our happiness together. I told her that the uprising would start at five in the afternoon, so she should stay at home.

A note dated 3 October, the day after the capitulation of the capital, read:

Silence fell over the ruins of the city. After 63 days of battle, it rang ominously in my ears. […] I am holding a number of meetings with a government delegate and political representatives. I don’t even have time to go to my own apartment. I don’t know if it exists or if I should take at least some underwear from there with me.

It existed, the tenement was not demolished. He took a small trunk with underwear and a warm coat from the apartment. He also took the rest of his clothes, not for himself but for his friends. We can get to know this private self of the Home Army commander – husband, father, son, friend – thanks to the book published by Fundacja Ośrodka KARTA (KARTA Centre Foundation). Decyzje ‘Bora’ (Bór’s Decisions) is a unique publication in that it combines biography, autobiography and a montage of testimonies, but it is extremely coherent and surprising. This is not the commander we knew: a count deprived of his fortune, a brave cavalryman, an Olympian – the head of the equestrian team – apparently devoid of charisma but commanding respect, a commandant and leader and finally a politician sensitive to social issues.

Jan Nowak-Jeziorański said that ‘Bór’ had ‘not a shred of narrative talent’ and ‘did not know how to talk about his experiences and feelings’. Thanks to a skilful assembly of facts, this (auto)biography counters that. This fascinating portrait richly illustrated with archival photos is a multi-voiced story about the backstage of the Warsaw Uprising (reported almost day by day) and shows the unknown face of a man who – as the publisher assures us – ‘naturally comes down from the pedestal on his own’.

Decyzje ‘Bora’. (Auto)biografia Tadeusza Komorowskiego, published by Ośrodek KARTA, Warsaw 2023, 512 pages.

In the background

Agnieszka Cubala, “Zwyczajni '44”, fot. Wielka Litera — ‘Zwyczajni ‘44’ by Agnieszka Cubala, photo: Wielka Litera

History likes heroes and remembers heroic deeds, fighting with a rifle on one’s shoulder. It forgets about the fear, sacrifice and loyalty of civilians. Agnieszka Cubała fills this blank page and tries to capture what was happening in the background of the main events. She thus talks about cultural life in the shadow of war, about the support provided to soldiers, about hiding and about the personal ends of the world of the inhabitants of Warsaw. The characters she describes are not anonymous. These are respected poets and writers, actors, artists, athletes, scientists: Czesław Miłosz, Marek Hłasko, Nina Andrycz, Eryk Lipiński, Jadwiga Jędrzejowska, Władysław Tatarkiewicz and many others. She calls them ‘ordinary’ in order to ‘emphasize that, in the face of the drama of the capital in 1944, they were equal – precisely as civilians’. She wonders whether they can also be counted among the Warsaw insurgents.

The author met many of them while working on her previous books: Artyści ‘44 (Artists ‘44), Warszawskie Dzieci ’44 (Warsaw Children ‘44) and Igrzyska życia i śmierci (The Games of Life and Death). This time she decided to delve deeper into their stories, answer the questions that bothered her and check on the missing clues. In these 25 mini-portraits, sometimes barely sketches, she also creates her own image as a researcher, a careful observer and an insatiable reader. Particularly interesting are those fragments in which Cubała confronts her past readings, Miron Białoszewski’s Pamiętnik z powstania warszawskiego (Diary from the Warsaw Uprising) or Anna Świrszczyńska’s poems. Re-reading these works brings out new content and contexts.

Agnieszka Cubała, Zwyczajni ‘44. Ludność cywilna w powstaniu warszawskim, published by Wielka Litera, Warsaw 2024, 320 pages.

Symbol

Sebastian Pawlina, “Barykady 44. Nadzieja i wspólnota”, fot. Znak Horyzont — ‘Barykady ‘44. Nadzieja i wspólnota’ by Sebastian Pawlina, photo: Znak Horyzont

They already existed in ancient times – for example, barriers built by women stood in the way of Pyrrhus, king of Epirus, attempting to conquer Sparta. ‘Barricades’ as a word was born on 12 May 1588 during the wars of religion in France. From the very beginning, they were the foundation for the fight for the future, a symbol of rebellion, ideals and unity. Sometimes they were divisive. They also constantly appear in reports and titles of insurgent memoirs. And it was they, the Warsaw ramparts, that became the hero of Sebastian Pawlina’s extremely captivating story. This is what the author writes about the construction of one of the barricades:

Within a few hours, the obstacle was ready. Over one and a half metres high, made of sidewalk slabs stacked on top of each other, it closed the outlets of both streets to Bankowy Square. They were separated by Głuszyński’s corner tenement house, which stood between them. […] Now the tenement house and the palace were to be adjacent to symbols of revolutionary and insurrectionary architecture, far from the classicist harmony that characterized both buildings but full of anxiety and uncertainty about the next day. The thing about barricades is that, although they can be built quickly, they can disappear in a fraction of a second.

They were created under supervision or spontaneously. ‘Warsaw was strewn with them – corpses and barricades’, sums up Pawlina. They were created from practically everything: overturned trams and cars, broken furniture, coffins from a nearby funeral home, stones, boxes filled with sand, and those placed in windows – from books. And above all, from hope and faith in victory. Michał Rusinek, a writer and participant of the Warsaw Uprising, remembered the young woman’s scream-summons: ‘Everyone to the barricades!’ He wrote that at the sound of this word ‘all faces turned pale, regardless of age, views and diversity of judgment’. Photographer and poet Stefan ‘Ster’ Rassalski recalled that ‘space was shrinking rapidly, and freedom was protected only by a barricade’. Pawlina excellently combines all the notes, accounts, testimonies and opinions of historians, creating an unconventional image of the insurgent capital from the perspective of the barricades. It recalls the words of Roman Oryshchenko, the coordinator of the Council of Maidan Self-Defense in Kyiv, which perfectly reflect the nature of the book Barykady ‘44 (Barricades ‘44): ‘a barricade is not really a pile of boards, stones, bags of sand or snow but the people who stand there’.

Sebastian Pawlina, Barykady ‘44. Nadzieja i wspólnota, published by Znak Horyzont, Kraków 2024, 496 pages.

Stories from obituaries

Aneta Anna Czarnecka, “Warszawskie nekrologi prasowe 1939-45”, fot. Avalon — ‘Warszawskie nekrologi prasowe 1939–1945’ by Aneta Anna Czarnecka, photo: Avalon

‘He died heroically on the barricade’, ‘he was hit by a bullet while serving meals to soldiers on 31 August 1944, he died at his post’, ‘she was a brave distributor, a brave courier, an excellent organizer of communications and above all a wonderful person’ – these are excerpts from obituaries appearing in the insurgent press. Aneta Anna Czarnecka takes up this thread, usually ignored by researchers, and creates something like a book of remembrance. She analyses obituaries from the Warsaw period of war and occupation, especially those from the Warsaw Uprising. She pays attention to both the language and the literary quality of the notices, as well as their sociological and historical dimension. The author bases her observations on rich source material not only from the wartime press but also from reports, diaries and accounts from the time.

A characteristic feature of insurgent obituaries are pseudonyms hiding the true identity of the deceased and testifying to the conspiratorial nature of their activities. The exact circumstances of death are often provided: date, time, place related to the function they performed. The positive character traits of the deceased person are emphasized, as well as their devotion to their homeland. The word ‘died’ itself occurs sporadically – more often it is terms such as ‘fell’, ‘perished’, ‘passed away’. Significantly, information about burial is rarely found. A terrifying picture of human suffering, helplessness, but also courage and respect emerges from Warszawskie nekrologi prasowe 1939–1945 (Warsaw Press Obituaries 1939–1945).

Aneta A. Czarnecka, Warszawskie nekrologi prasowe 1939–1945. Wybór – analiza – opracowanie, published by Wydawnictwo Avalon, Kraków 2024, 528 pages.

Colours of the uprising

Picture display

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‘Kolor Powstania 1944. 100 najważniejszych fotografii walczącej Warszawy’, photo: PIW

Picture image

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What if we could see the vivid red of insurgent armbands or orange-yellow flames reaching into the azure sky? Spot the pale pink bow in the hair of a girl from the photography of Eugeniusz ‘Brok’ Lokajski? Distinguish the shades of green of trees bathed in the sharp August sun or the milder October sun? Why colourise photos from the Warsaw Uprising at all? This question is answered by Chris Niedenthal, who selected one hundred retouched and colorized frames from the archives of the Warsaw Uprising Museum:

Such a photograph seems more contemporary, truer, more alive. A colour image is dynamic and makes it possible to see more. It opens a different world to us. Even if we knew a given photo before, its colour version allows us to see new details, facial expressions, gestures, objects and characters in the background. We can finally see the full reality – what the world looked like back then. As if we were there.

People have been trying to achieve the natural perception of the world in colour since the invention of photography. Colouring daguerreotypes, especially portraits, was already practiced in the early 1840s, thus reflecting the realistic nature of the image or emphasising the importance of the figure, for example with gilding. However, black and white have always been more metaphorical, reflective and universal. Today, they are mainly associated with historical or artistic photography. These two perspectives are combined by Marina Amaral, a Brazilian artist professionally involved in retouching, colourisation and restoration, who, in addition to iconic colour portraits of Churchill and Maria Skłodowska-Curie, also has colour images of Auschwitz prisoners in her oeuvre.

Photos from the Warsaw Uprising are all shades of black and white. Only a few frames – such as those taken by Ewa Faryaszewska – were recorded in colour. The Warsaw Uprising Museum entrusted the colourisation to professionals. Graphic designers from the Orka Studio received detailed guidelines regarding the colours of the façades of tenement houses and the insurgents’ attire, preceded by in-depth analyses of texts from the era and consultations with historians. Sometimes, however, you had to trust your intuition, as in the case of the pink bow in the girl’s hair. Chris Niedenthal prepared a reporter’s timeline of the fighting, sometimes choosing non-obvious frames. They are usually neither perfectly composed nor sharp or well exposed – it is in these imperfections that haste, fear and agitation are best seen. These historical testimonies are accompanied by Grzegorz Sołtysiak’s texts, making those events and fragments of memories of Warsaw soldiers and civilians accessible. As museum director Jan Ołdakowski argues, Kolor Powstania Warszawskiego ‘44 (The Colour of the 1944 Warsaw Uprising) may be of particular interest to young readers who, after discovering the similarity of their emotions and needs to those of the insurgents, will understand that ‘history is still alive and full of moving, up-to-date narratives’.

Kolor Powstania 1944. 100 najważniejszych fotografii walczącej Warszawy, published by Muzeum Powstania Warszawskiego and Państwowy Instytut Wydawniczy, Warsaw 2024, 244 pages.

Translated from Polish by Michał Abel Pelczar

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