An interview with Leon Dąbrowski, a resident of Bolesławiec, veteran and participant in the Warsaw Uprising.
Boleslawiec.org: Is Warsaw your hometown?
Leon Dąbrowski: I was born in Grabów nad Pilicą in 1925. I was a year and a half old when my mother died. My father died when I was nine. I was raised by relatives. That is how I ended up in Warsaw.
B.org: How old were you when the war began?
L.D.: I was fourteen in 1939. I was attending school. When the war broke out, I was in Warsaw. Seeing what was happening, seeing the roundups and persecution, young people began to organize. I then joined the Kiliński Unit.
B.org: Was it a unit of volunteers?
L.D.:Yes. They were all volunteers. No one forced anyone. Our organization was assigned to guard the main post office building. I performed that task for about a month, and then we were transferred to Grzybowska Street, where there was a hospital.
B.org: Did the uprising take Warsaw’s residents by surprise?
L.D.:The residents expected an uprising. However, the exact moment when the order was to be given was kept secret. It was a conspiracy, and it could not be made public.
B.org: How do you remember the beginning of the uprising?
L.D.:It was sunny and very warm, hot. There was little food and problems with water. It was difficult. We had few weapons. Some came from the underground, and sometimes they were taken from the Germans. The Allies made supply drops, but the Germans intercepted many of them because some parts of the city were completely occupied by the Germans. We counted on help from the West, but they left us on our own.
B.org: Help did not come from the East either.
L.D.:I remember an incident at the site of today’s Warsaw Uprising Square. There was a tall sixteen-story building there, called a “skyscraper.” The Germans set up an observation tower on it. When the insurgents captured the building, they hung out the Polish flag. Many insurgents saw shells being fired toward that flag. The shells came from across the Vistula, from the direction of Warsaw-Praga, where Soviet soldiers were stationed...
B.org: What stayed in your memory?
L.D.:The fact that children took part in the uprising. Even twelve-year-olds carried messages. I also remember standing guard in a cellar. I heard some rustling and tilted my head to see what was happening. A shot was fired straight at the spot where my head had been. I was very lucky then.
B.org: The fighting lasted two months before the uprising fell.
L.D.:Everyone thought the uprising would last a few days, but we defended ourselves for sixty-three days. The moment of capitulation was the worst for us. Surrendering and handing over our weapons. The Germans stood there, while we were bitterly disappointed.
B.org: What happened to you then?
L.D.:We ended up in a prisoner-of-war camp. The Germans escorted us to Ożarów, where we spent the night. Then they transported us to a camp in Langsdorf, that is, Łambinowice, in the former Opole Voivodeship. Later they moved us to a camp deeper inside Germany. It was a multinational camp. The Americans liberated us in April 1945. I remember that the Americans were friendly toward the Poles.
B.org: For some time now, there has been a debate over whether the Warsaw Uprising was needed at all.
L.D.:Was the uprising needed? I agree with those who say that it was not needed. But was the Second World War needed? Were those revolutions needed? The Greater Poland and Silesian uprisings, and so on? We were oppressed at every turn. When a gendarme came along, people were afraid and ran away so they would not encounter him. We were young and fought because of that enemy.
B.org: Thank you for the interview.
Marcin Zabawa