Cheri Vanden BergPO Top Contributor & Patron
Joined: 16 Oct 2011
Replies: 497
Back to top |
Posted: Thu Jan 16, 2014 9:11 pm
Post subject: Poland at the beginning of WWII (American witness)
From The Daily Ardmoreite newspaper, Ardmore, Oklahoma, USA December 28, 1939
Ardmore Visitor Tells of His Experiences During War in Poland
Clarence A. Brodeur Describes Suffering of Polish People After German Invasion and Declares Poland Has Not Given Up, But Still Lives.
“Through the red welter of her blood and the wreckage of her plans and hopes, the face of Poland shines. It is not tear-stained. It is grim and marked by suffering, but young. It bears the stamp of faith. Poland lives.”With these words Clarence A. Brodeur, who with Mrs. Brodeur, is visiting Mrs. Mabel Franklin Ocker, concluded an interview regarding experiences of himself and wife in Poland after the outbreak of the war. Brodeur, who is professor of fine arts at Vassar college, a famous girls' school, with Mrs. Brodeur went to Poland Last summer to paint and study folklore in the Tatra mountain region. The war ended their plans for a series of piano recitals and hastened their return to the United States. Here is the artist's graphic story:
Brodeur’s Story
We were caught by the war in Zakopane, but fortunately it was not touched by bombs or gunfire. I think the only town or village in all of Poland to escape without a shot. In a little personal visit from the Gestapo, we had all our emergency reserve of dollars confiscated, and when we finally set out in October, we had to leave behind everything except an overnight case, a typewriter and a knapsack containing a painting kit and lecture notes. We had spent all the time from Sept. 3 trying to get permission to leave, from the German authorities. At the end we abandoned hope of that, and got a ride through the mountains across the southern border, with a couple of German-speaking thugs who turned out to be Slovakian bootleggers. (Hard liquor is forbidden the troops, officers included, these men were doing a good business in contraband hooch, and because of their peculiar métier, were able to get us past the border patrols!) From the town of Poprad in Slovakia we got a train to Budapest; from there it was just a step through Yugoslavia to Genoa, and then home on the "Rex".
Every time we sought permission to leave the authorities—whether in Cracow, in Nowy Targ, or in Zakopane—we met the same response [from the Nazis]: “Why do you want to go? This is a beautiful country, especially in winter! Everything will be quiet as soon as we get this Jewish question settled. The Jews cause the war: as soon as we have them liquidated there will be peace everywhere". These officers - police and military - knew nothing of the war on the western front, that France and England were engaged against Germany. They were oblivious to the fact that studies of folklore or any kind of normal relationship with the Polish people were out of the question because of the chaos into which their lives had been plunged. They seemed to believe the notices they had posted on all the boardings in town, which stated blandly that fuehrer had sent his armies into Poland in order to bring peace and order to a harassed people. They were as courteous to the Poles as to us: some of them had obviously no liking for the task they had to do and were not happy about it. But the majority were completely convinced of the rightness of their cause, and the utter insanity of the rest of the world.
Promised Fuel and Food.
There would be plenty of fuel and food, they said, as soon as order and communications had been established, yet day by day we saw the huge trucks move up to the marketplace, the fields, or the storehouses, load up with butter and eggs, with freshly sacked potatoes or the grain, and then roll out of sight down the road. Day by day we watched the shopkeepers’ shelves grow emptier, until there was little but mustard and pickles left. We were given bread cards allowing each person one-half pound of bread, or slightly less of flour, per day: but the bakers had so little flour that during 19 days out of the month there was no bread. An individual could not buy flour at any time. (Then the authorities, in typically thorough fashion, posted notices stating that anyone caught using flour for baking purposes in the home would be shot!) The coal was hauled away, except for small reserves accessible only to military and civil officers, and woodcutting was so drastically restricted that innumerable people were without heat. We ourselves lived for three days in a room at a temperature of 38 degrees, and ate raw vegetables, before we could find a mountaineer with a small half-cord of green pine for sale. (Did you ever eat raw carrots or cabbage at six degrees above freezing? Try it sometime.)
Day after day we saw the flocks of 30 and 70 German bombers going over from Slovakia, either for Warsaw of for Llow [Lwów]. But the thing which wore on us most was the sight of the Polish people with their reassuring notices to read, about order and peace - they faced a future wholly insecure: their savings wiped out, their employment gone, their country's resources stolen wholesale; a future whose only sure concomitant is starvation. The parish priest at Nowy Targ had raised several acres of potatoes, with the aid of his peasant parishioners. These mountain people are apt to be improvident and winter's end always find some of them without food; so the good dominie put the crop in his cellar and doles it out in the lean season, when and where needed. This year he got his fields dug, the produce neatly packed - and the army's truck came in and hauled it off for the fuehrer....Peace and order: Relief from oppression.
The entire region was pilfered in the same way. The day we went to Nowy Targ, peasants from all the land around were bringing in their crops - mostly potatoes - to market at Zakopane. Wagon after wagon passed us. Those potatoes got to market, but no farther. The trucks were waiting for them; the next day not a potato could be bought in Zakopane!
German Excuses Interesting.
The cause for all this misery is quite apparent, but the German excuses for the war are interesting. The Jewish-guilty theory, which I have mentioned, is very ingenious. A Gestapo official explained to us that the Jews had run from Germany into Austria, taking with them vast amounts of German gold. And so Austria had to be conquered. But the Jews then ran into Czechoslovakia. Naturally that left but one course open to Germany: and when she look over the second country in order to liquidate the runaways, those unreasonable people fled again, carrying the gold into Poland. This, my dear children, is what sealed Poland's fate!
And yet we saw great posters plastered all over the city of Cracow, showing in the background a devastated Poland, while a mangled Polish soldier agonizingly points the finger at a shame-faced Chamberlain, and shouts: "England, this is thy deed!" England is the other official German scapegoat.
In view of this, it is hard to understand the venom behind the German chancellor's boast, on Sept. 1, that within two weeks there would not be a Pole alive in Poland. He did not make good the threat. But it was not for lack of effort. As long as the fighting lasted, the German attack was everywhere, most vicious against non-combatants. It was a merciless attack upon women and children and old people, without a shadow of excuse - unless pure terrorism be deemed excuse enough. And the war was engaged without warning.
On Sept. 1 at 5 a.m. we waked to the sounds of firing. We jumped into dressing-gowns, and found the landlady standing by the radio in the living room. "So you heard something?" she said. We nodded. It was about five miles away at the frontier posts, one to the southwest, and the other to the east. The heavier boom of artillery formed a background to the sharp rattle of machine-gun fire. The landlady turned to the radio: "This is Katowice calling. We are being bombed from the air. There is no other news. We continue with a program of recorded dance music".
We dressed and had breakfast. At 10 o'clock we listened to the German leader, declaring war from Berlin. Radio reports from Cracow and Warsaw showed that the 5 a.m. action had been simultaneous along the entire German and Slovak frontiers. About 11 o'clock we saw tanks and motorized infantry moving along the crest of the hill on the north side of town. By this time we could hear no more firing. It had taken them nearly six hours, with motorized units, to force the small border garrisons. The action moved around us and on toward Cracow, cutting off Zakopane, but leaving it unattacked.
Listened to Radio.
We went back to work, with the radio on Katowice except when London or Warsaw was giving bulletins. Katowice had little news except of its own struggle. Occasionally we would be informed of a fresh air raid, for the rest, it was recorded music, interrupted frequently by a melodious feminine voice giving out warnings in code. "Tu Karol, czekolada: piencdzieiat-jeden. dwadziesciaszese"..."Tu Karol, herbata, osiemdzieisat. dwanascie." It was a comical little voice, very proud of its job. We got to thinking of it as a friend.
On Sept. 4, at 5 o'clock in the morning we heard the station signal, and the lady announcer began with a routine announcement of a calm night, then an interruption. After a few moments the voice came on again, agitated: "Heavy bombardment from the air...this time a gas attack. Very urgent: Send gas antitoxin for 250,000 people. Send gas antitoxin..." The words ended in a scream, and silence. The station remained dead until the following afternoon, when the usual signal finally came. Our hopes rose. Then came the voice: "Hier Radio-Kattowitz, Deutsche sender."
On Sept. 18 we went to Cracow by motor. All along the road, and as far as we could see, scores of the peasants' homes had been burned to the ground, leaving nothing but the tiled stoves and the chimney. Some were burned by burning shells, but most of them, the peasants said, were set afire by the German soldiers, after they had taken what they wanted and chased the owners out. As we neared Cracow we saw that the fighting had been fiercer at Myslenice. Great chunks of mortar had been torn out of the stone buildings, windows in the remaining houses were shattered, and many more were burned to the ground. At this point, we saw a group of Jews, crying bitterly as they were led toward the woods by numbers of soldiers.
The suburbs of Cracow had been bombed, and the railroad station hit, but the historic city was not injured. The stores were already out of butter, sugar and flour. There were 2000 Polish prisoners in a camp nearby. They had been there six days, and had been given no food whatsoever by their captors. The women of Cracow, all who had anything to give, were walking the seven kilometers to supply them with a little food, and a few cigarettes. Later in Zakopane, we saw others who had been held prisoner at Tarnow and released after 11 days without food. The Poles had picked them up where they fell by the roadside, and nursed them back to strength; but they were still emaciated.
Fired Into Apartments.
On Oct, 20, during a second visit to Cracow, we talked with a university professor and his family, and with numerous other friends who had returned to the city. They told of the planes flying low over Cracow and machine-gunning into the apartment windows; and of their flight eastward. For three weeks they had wandered about, always dodging the airplanes with their machine-guns. Escape from the bombs was easier, but the machine-gunning was fatal. Both explosive and infected bullets were used. With the slightest wound from the latter, death was certain unless medical aid were available. People were milling about in great hordes, packing the roads, trying to escape. Often after a bomb struck, the wayside was littered with money, goods and corpses.
A former Vassar student was going east with her brother. They were dodging bombs, and ran into a forest with many others. The invading motorized infantry followed and hunted down all they could. This young woman was unhurt, but her brother was wounded by an explosive bullet. She remained with him, helpless, until he died two days later. Eventually she found her way back home. The fleeing civilians slept in the woods, in ditches, in the rain and cold, in the mud. They walked until their feet were covered with blisters. Their clothing in tatters, a few managed to get back. Thousands were killed; and many families still do not know where sons, daughters, wives or husbands may be.
The director of a sanitarium, a man of 65, was among those going eastward. At one time he found himself alone on the highway when a plane began flying low. He looked about for the cause, but he was alone, then he realized that he was being shot at. He ran across the field towards the woods, the plane pursuing him. In his flight he stumbled and fell on his face. The aviator must have thought he got his man, and flew away.
Killing Went on Constantly.
An American friend was trying to get to Llow [Lwów] on foot, during the first week of the war. Hiding in a ditch, he saw a plane swoop down and machine-gun a young lad herding cows. The gunner got the cows too and then proceeded after a farmer who was playing with his son. Father, son, and horse were killed. Every deed of this kind made the Poles realize how much was meant by the threat that every Pole would be dead within two weeks. This sort of killing went on constantly, as long as the war lasted, and was reported through all the different sources of information that we had. It is difficult for us to believe, those who have not seen it, but it is on the record. Julian Bryan, the American photographer has brought back and published irrefutable proof of it.
How long the intolerable hours of Poland's trial must endure, how much injustice and oppression must be added to her load, no one knows. But I do know this: Through the red welter of her blood, and the horrible wreckage of her plans and hopes, the face of Poland shines. It is not a tear-stained face. It is suffering, yet young. Poland lives!
|
|