“I have an announcement from General Bor,” the AK officer croaked, his voice breaking with emotion. “This announcement is being read by officers in every sector of Warsaw still held by the AK.” The crowd fell silent as he unfolded a single sheet of paper and began to read. “All military operations of the AK in Warsaw shall cease immediately. All AK personnel will be afforded combatant status and will be under the control of the German Wehrmacht as prisoners of war under the terms of the Geneva Convention.”
The crowd instantly erupted into a cacophony of voices, some cheering and waving red-and-white AK flags, others shouting loudly that they’d been sold out.
The officer banged the iron rod against the drum again. When the crowd quieted down to a ripple of murmurs, he continued. “As military combatants—and not insurgents—you are ordered to march out of the city beginning at 0700 tomorrow, weapons shouldered, wearing AK armbands and carrying banners. At the city limits you will surrender your weapons to the German Wehrmacht and will be interned as prisoners of war according to the convention.”
The crowd broke into dozens of animated conversations, though less boisterous this time. Questions and opinions flew back and forth from group to group. Natalia recalled that the mysterious German officer had referred to her as a combatant and not an insurgent. She wondered if that helped explain his actions. Or, was he just someone doing a good deed?
“Natalia!” a familiar voice shouted.
She turned around and saw Zeeka pushing through the crowd with Hammer and Rabbit right behind her. Natalia hobbled toward her comrade-in-arms, whom she hadn’t seen in over a month. “My God, you’re still alive!”
“I’ve been in the Mokotow District,” Zeeka said breathlessly. “Colonel Stag sent me down there with Ula and Iza on a demolition mission. We were almost finished when we got surrounded…” Zeeka’s voice tailed off, but the look in her eyes told Natalia what had happened to the others. “I heard about Berta,” Zeeka added quickly.
Natalia nodded. The remorse was still there, though it now seemed as if it had happened a long time ago.
“These two have been looking all over for you,” Zeeka said. “By some miracle, I ran into them just a few minutes ago.”
Natalia dropped her crutch and reached out to Rabbit. The boy wrapped his arms around her while Hammer hung back, nodding and running a thick hand over his bald head. But she noticed that the big man’s eyes were moist.
Hammer picked the crutch off the ground and looked it over before handing it back to Natalia. “Nice crutch,” he grunted. “Did you steal it from the Germans?”
Natalia felt her face flush and absently touched the bandage on her forehead, thinking that someday she might tell the story… but not now. “I didn’t steal it, but the medic who taped my ankle probably did.”
Zeeka drew the four of them together, maneuvering away from the crowd. “I have something important to tell you,” she said lowering her voice. “Colonel Stag took me aside a few hours ago. He told me about the ceasefire and the terms of surrender.”
Natalia listened silently to her former Minerki unit leader, sensing that something important was coming next.
“I was desperately hoping that I could find all of you,” Zeeka said. “Colonel Stag has ordered me to gather a small group who are willing to try to escape.”
Natalia glanced at Hammer and Rabbit. Neither of them said a word, but they edged in closer.
Zeeka continued. “We’re not the only ones. Stag said there will be other groups, but we’re not to know who, and we are not to act together. Our instructions are to dispose of our weapons, armbands, badges—anything that would connect us with the AK—then blend in with the civilians as they’re evacuated from the city.”
Natalia instantly understood. “The AK is being disbanded,” she said.
Zeeka nodded. “Officially, that’s true. General Bor has saved our lives by negotiating combatant status for the AK. As insurgents we would be immediately executed. But the AK as an official fighting force is being disbanded. Those who surrender to the Wehrmacht can expect to be detained in POW camps until the war is over.”
“And then wind up in the hands of the Russians,” Hammer growled. “So, fuck ‘em, why surrender? We may as well continue to fight and die right here.”
Zeeka shook her head. “It’s the only way to save the civilian population. If the AK refuses to disband and surrender, the Germans will burn the city to the ground and everyone in it—women, children, old people, everyone. There is no other choice. The AK has to surrender and march out of the city.”
“But not all of us,” Natalia said.
Zeeka looked each one of them in the eye. “No, not all of us. My orders from Colonel Stag are to select a small group I can trust and who are willing to take the risk. If we’re successful in escaping, our orders are to lay low for several months, blend in with the local population and then make contact with designated AK cells and carry on the fight.” She paused. “You have to understand that if we’re caught by either the Germans or the Russians, we’ll be executed on the spot.”
Natalia glanced again at Rabbit and Hammer. They all looked at Zeeka and nodded.
Twenty-Two
GENERAL ANDREI KOVALENKO ordered his driver to halt at the midway point of the pontoon bridge over the frozen Vistula River. In the freezing cold he stepped out of the GAZ-11, braced against the wind and stared at the snowbound ruins of Warsaw. By now he was beyond the frustration that had gripped him for more than four months while his army was ordered to sit by idly. He was beyond trying to rationalize any tactical reason for the Red Army’s inaction when his vastly superior forces could have swept in at any time and crushed the Nazi bastards.
From his command post on the east bank of the Vistula last August, he had watched the destruction of the City Center and Old Town. He knew about the escape through the sewers of several thousand AK commandos. The poor bastards had continued their futile struggle through September, before the inevitable capitulation. And then the forced expulsion of the remaining citizens of Warsaw: more than four hundred thousand souls, who plodded out of their city under gunpoint to transit camps many kilometers away.
Then, for another three months, Kovalenko had watched the Nazis systematically destroy every remaining structure in Warsaw. While other Red Army units to the north and south overwhelmed the German Wehrmacht, pushing them westward across the plains of Poland, he continued to follow his orders, standing by while German tanks and flamethrowers laid waste to the city.
Kovalenko shivered in the cold, but he stood on the windswept bridge for another moment, gazing at the frozen rubble beyond the river. Then he got back in the car and ordered the driver to proceed into what was left of Warsaw.
By noon, a temporary command post was set up in the barely recognizable central square in Old Town. Nothing remained standing. The Royal Castle, home of Poland’s royalty for three hundred years had been leveled, together with St. John’s Cathedral, which had stood on the same site since the fourteenth century. The merchant houses and guild halls, the shops, cafés, art galleries and museums were reduced to piles of rubbish. The windblown, snow-covered streets were deserted and, save for a few stray dogs struggling through the snowdrifts, not a single sign of life remained.
Russian tanks, fitted with plows, had pushed back enough of the rubble to erect a headquarters tent. Diesel-powered generators and heaters were set up and a communications center established to serve notice that the Red Army was now in control of what little was left of Warsaw.