| A Polish Academic Information Center Exhibit |
| The 1994 Warsaw Uprising - An assertion of sovereignty and hope. |
Attacks decimate the civilian population
September 19, 1944
To-day, I am left all alone. There are human corpses everywhere. I run between and over them - I run but without direction.
Are Mary and Mother alive? What happened to Ziuta and little Tomasz?
All day the artillery shelled us, then three air raids finished off the lower Zoliborz. The German have advanced with several tanks and are demolishing the houses, setting them afire, machine-gunning women and children. Lots of corpses.
I run, stoop, crouch - avoid death. I run through the basement of the Glass Block - lots of corpses there - in the laundry room lie many wounded children - maybe 30. No one has dressed their wounds - who' got the mind for it - the shock of despair and fear has conquered all. The first aid station has withdrawn.
Yet, I am hungry! I search among the rubbish. I find nothing edible - just dust, smoke and the smell of the explosive.
Where is Mary and why did she not escape with me. I left behind all my drawings, it's all lost.
I am alone. Death is everywhere. What do the powerful in the world know of this. Bolek also jumped out of the window, but where is he?
From the diary of Leopold Buczkowski
transl: Peter K. Gessner
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