Background
On August 1, 1944, Poland’s underground army, the AK (Home Army), launched the Warsaw Uprising. Their aim was simple: to liberate the city ahead of the Red Army’s arrival. Buoyed by news of Germany’s collapsing Eastern Front, the AK hoped that by seizing Warsaw they could prevent the future Sovietization of their country.
This did not go to plan. If many had harbored hopes that the Germans would relinquish Warsaw with only a token fight, they were soon proved wrong. Breaking the news of the insurgency to Hitler in Berlin, Himmler painted the Uprising as “a blessing” and an opportunity to finally erase Warsaw once and for all.
Later in the day, an order was issued: “Every inhabitant must be killed, no prisoners may be taken, Warsaw is to be razed to the ground and, in this way, a terrifying example is to be set for the rest of Europe.”
The early days of the Uprising saw the AK record several successes - however, not enough to dislodge the Germans from several key points. Regrouping, the Germans swiftly hit back.
The Wola Massacre
Previously a working class district with a population of around 85,000 residents, Wola’s western location was to prove its undoing.
With German command in the Bruhl Palace (close to Saxon Gardens in the center) encircled by the AK, a combat group was formed under the charge of SS-Gruppenführer Heinz Reinefarth. Proceeding down Wolska and Górczewska streets in Wola, this unit was tasked with punching a way through to link up with those that had been trapped. Along their way, they were to execute all civilians living in between.
After being strafed by the Luftwaffe on August 5, Wola then saw the German units advance through the district. Among these were an SS regiment under the notorious Oskar Dirlewanger, a convicted child molestor well-known for his sadism.
Though initially bogged down by Polish resistance, these units ground on ahead. In the process, tenements and factories were combed for civilians. Having been rounded-up, these captives were then led to pre-assigned execution sites where they were mown down with machine guns.
Afterwards, special detachments burned the corpses, having first stacked them on pyres.
Speaking previously to the press, the Rising Museum’s deputy director, Paweł Ukielski, reflected on what unfolded: “This was a very well organized and methodical action. In fact, I don’t really like using the term as ‘massacre’ for this suggests something wild and spontaneous. On the contrary, this was very well planned.”
The scale of the tragedy was bewildering. In a telephoned report on August 5, Reinefarth himself complained that his soldiers did not have enough ammunition to realize their aims.
In some respects, however, it was this that eventually led the brutalities to cease. “Although not formally, it’s likely that the order to execute everyone was to some extent rescinded after a few days,” Ukielski has said. In the gruesome black-and-white reality of war, historians have theorized that the German command recognized that it was unfeasible to carry out such mass killings of civilians while simultaneously engaging in fierce battle.
For many residents of Wola, this realization had come too late. Although precise figures remain unknown, most researchers agree that in one week approximately 50,000 civilians were slaughtered.
Aftermath
It remains a point of bitterness that no-one was ever prosecuted for their role in the Wola Massacre. For Poland’s post-war Communist leadership, memories of the Uprising were a thorn in their side. Framing it as a Western-led action, it wasn’t in their interests to pursue the perpetrators of those that had suppressed it.
As such, Reinefarth, became a successful lawyer and local politician, and was even appointed the Mayor of the West German town of Westerland on the island of Sylt in 1951.
Efforts were made by some West Germans to unmask the evils unleashed by him, but while these caused Reinefarth to lose local office, he continued to enjoy the spoils of a long judicial career.
Despite this whitewash, poetic justice caught up with some. Dirlewanger, whose unit was implicated in rape and looting, died in Allied captivity in 1945 - according to some unverified reports, he was killed by his Polish guards.
Remembrance
There is a tendency to mythologize the Uprising. Pathos and pride come inexorably entwined, and on August 1 that builds to a crescendo as Warsaw’s city center disappears under fluttering flags and a haze of red smoke.
Removed from the patriotic fervor increasingly associated with August 1, it is telling that commemorations for the Wola Massacre are lower in key, for it is on August 5 that the awful human cost is brought to the fore. Today celebrates not heroes, but commemorates the everyday people caught in the maelstrom of war.
