Warsaw Insurrection, August 1944
This battle resembles the duel of Middle Age knights, fighting one by one, chest to chest, sword to sword rather than modern warfare.
Tanks advance slowly and laboriously. The whole situation is more or less on standstill. Only the number of the wounded and the dead is growing on each side. The importance of controlling the large communication avenues is obvious. One morning the German soldiers burst into the neighboring houses and pull Polish women out on the streets. Soldiers shout as usual. The difficulties of understanding are overcome by blows with the butt-end of rifles, occasionally with simple kicks of heavy boots. Women are pushed on top of the tanks.
Now the strange looking attack is in its way. Gray tanks with barrels of guns and at the open top women wearing their usual colorful dresses, blouses and scarfs. Soldiers grasp for some scarf and attach them to the gun barrels. Is it a masquerade, a lull in fighting? No, it is a sinister crime. Civilian women are put forcibly on the top of the tanks in order to prevent the insurgents shooting and throwing Molotov Cocktails. German tanks can progress easier and further, approaching the barricades very closely. Polish city defenders seeing their own women on top of the tanks hesitate shooting. Obviously the gun fire will first kill women. German heroes advance. Their tanks now touch barricades. There is no more time for hesitation. Poles with heavy heart open fire and throw Molotov Cocktails wounding and killing their own women but stopping the progress of the tanks. Many are set afire.
This was the way the German Kulturtrgers (ambassadors of culture and civilization as they liked to call themselves) were conducting the war. Did any Geneva Convention set the rules against using civilian women and putting them on the top of attacking tanks?
German soldiers jump from burning tanks, the only salvation for them is to pass over to the Polish side. Polish soldiers receive both: wounded crying women and their torturers, the German soldiers.
On the first line the Polish medical corp takes care of wounded, crying woman with torn blouses, dresses and wounded soldiers looking much less sure, much less arrogant than usual, some with visible fear. Women's legs and hands are riddled with holes from Polish bullets; German wounds are different, most of the time they were sitting inside of tanks protected by heavy armory.
"Let's save bandages for our own people!" - says somebody from civilian bystanders. "We have a shortage of everything. These murderers, bandits ... Let them bleed to death!" A young medical student, soldier of the Home Army and the assistant to the chief physician(Dr. Plocker) of a nearby field hospital (on Wilcza 9A) holds bandages and takes care of everybody lying on the street: women and German soldiers alike. Medicine and its representative, the Red Cross, does not know nationalities, it knows only one category of people: wounded and sick. All wounded are cared for and their bleeding is stopped.
While bandaging crying women, the young medical student comforts and reassures them. He tells them that everything will be all right. Under his caring hands and warm eyes wounded women feel better, feel reassured. The sight of clean bandages replacing bleeding wounds, definitely add to this reassurance. A cup of warm coffee in the nearby improvised field hospital will continue and complete this appeasement.
When the medical student approaches wounded German soldiers they look at him with hesitation. They wonder what kind of treatment to expect. It is true that he has a Red Cross band on his left arm but there is another white and red band above, the sign of a Polish soldier, a Polish bandit in German language. These bandits when caught by "ambassadors of culture and civilization" are killed on the spot. The white and red band very conveniently helps to differentiate these subversive elements. Don't all civilized nations try to neutralize bandits? Germans are just more efficient and instead of a lengthy trial, they administer justice promptly and efficiently. Any German soldier, a "good", regular army soldier, while spotting a white and red band bearer is a policeman, accuser, judge and executioner at the same time, and does not hesitate to administer his justice promptly and efficiently. However now, they are in the hands of these bandits. What else to expect than prompt execution? Fear, borderline with panic is more and more visible in soldiers' eyes. Nevertheless, the red cross soldier probably will not kill them. He does not have a gun but bandages in his hands. He examines them, cleans their wounds - not even in a rough, pain producing manner. Wounded soldiers expect at least that: harsh treatment, sharp pain from brusque surgical cleaning. They are astonished, somewhat embarrassed and definitely appeased. This gentle touch taking care of their wounds does not seem to be the forerunner of a prompt execution. At least not immediately. Each moment gained is very valuable in these circumstances. The Polish red cross soldier concentrates on wounds rather than wounded. It is easier this way. He sees torn muscles, bleeding vessels, destroyed skin. He applies pressure, cleans surrounded areas, roll the bandages. It is a much more interesting picture than the eyes of the wounded; anyhow he knows how to deal with skin, muscles and vessels. When accidentally he meet German soldiers' eyes - it ensues a totally neutral look on his part, a questioning, expecting, hesitant, and fearful look on the part of others. For them it is one more relief. It is true that they don't find in his look much pity and certainly no love, but they don't find hate either. Perhaps he is too busy? These exchanges don't last for a long time. It is simpler and easier for him to return to torn arms, hands, back and chests which are taken care in proper and efficient manner. Probably he is not quite sure how to deal with criminals, hard core flagrant criminals but dressed in regular Army uniform. Lack of time simplifies the matter. German soldiers are taken prisoners and the medical student returns to his field hospital.
This was the way the encounter took place between a red cross soldier and bent cross soldiers. Through men two symbols, two ideologies confronted one another: Red Cross and Bent Cross. The first being red on the background of the white and red Polish colors, the second being black on the background of the gray German soldier uniform. Rarely sign and color pinned on the cloth had more significance and meaning. Rarely two symbols represented more clearly and more directly the harsh, obvious, palpable reality of life and death, of compassion and brutal force.
Will these German soldiers be killed later on? No, because they are regular soldiers of the German Army and because the Poles are not "kulturtrgers", they are not ambassadors of culture and civilization, therefore they make the distinction between their enemies. Notorious murders and criminals, by any standards of civilized or non-civilized nations, the S.S. "elite" will be killed on the spot. However, the majority of the army, the regular soldiers will not be. They will be taken prisoners and kept as such until the end of the insurrection and therefore will have all chances to survive(unless they are killed by their own countrymen). Even if they participated directly in this hideous crime of pushing Polish women on the top of tanks - they are still given the benefit of the doubt. They are not professional killers, official uniformed murderers like their colleagues from the S.S..
Did the Poles realize that these regular soldiers were not much better than the S.S.? Did they realize that the German forces which attacked Warsaw were composed of various hard core criminal elements, even by German standards? Did they realize that even these "good", regular soldiers, members of Whermacht, by their cooperation and organizational support were at least guilty by association and quite often much more because they participated directly and personally in war crimes perpetrated on civilian populations? They were also shooting and killing all Polish combatants taken as prisoners of war, and they were forcibly putting Polish women on the top of their tanks before attacking insurgent positions. The list of crimes perpetrated by these "good", regular soldiers would be very long.
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