In an interview, Nowobilska outlined the harsh realities faced by the population in the Polish capital.
“We're not talking about war in itself. We're talking about the destruction of the civilian population, all because of one order given on August 1 by [top Nazi official Heinrich] Himmler that says: ‘We have to destroy every man, woman, and child’,” the historian told TVP World.
She noted that between 40,000 and 70,000 people were shot in just three days during the Wola massacre, the systematic slaughter of Polish civilians in the western district of Warsaw from August 5 to 12.
She said that 5 p.m. – the time the uprising broke out on August 1, 1944 – was rush hour, just as it is today. Civilians and insurgents, unaware of the uprising's timing, were caught in the chaos, leading to people finding themselves in the wrong neighborhood without the ability to return home, and children being separated from their families.
'Murder, rape and looting’
The historian pointed to a special German unit led by Oskar Dirlewanger, “one of the biggest sadists I've ever come across in any of my research”, whose sole purpose was to incite fear by murdering, raping, and looting.
She mentioned that after the first days of the uprising, the Germans concluded that the killings of civilians were moving “too slowly”, so the Nazis changed their strategy and started dragging people out of their homes and taking them to several spots around Wola to conduct a series of mass murders.
“These people would be taken in threes, fives, and just shot and just thrown upon this pile,” she said.
“Whole families disappeared, brothers, sisters, mothers, fathers, elderly. And we don't talk about this. We don't talk about what happened to these civilians,” Nowobilska added.
The historian also pointed to an excruciating dilemma faced by the insurgents as they saw their neighbors being used as human shields in front of German tanks. They had to choose whether to shoot at the enemy, putting their fellow countrymen lives at risk, or lay down their weapons.
