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| Pan Misza, Michal Wasserman Wróblewski (3rd from the right) and Marian Spychalski* (2nd from the left) - After the Liberation of Warsaw - January 17, 1945. |
The Liberation of Warsaw
The line of four Willys jeeps was waiting at the edge of the snow-covered river. Between the breaking clouds, scraps of black sky, and a sliver of metallic moon. Franek, Misha’s driver and self-appointed guide and counsellor, was at the wheel of the first jeep, the flaps of his sheepskin hat pulled down over his ears.
‘Hurry up, man, before we freeze to death,’ he yelled. ‘We want to get across before there’s any light.’ Warsaw was still held by night, but at their backs, dawn was already a pale red line. Their brief was to send back a wireless message on the situation before the Polish infantry began to cross on foot at dawn.
Misha hauled up alongside Franek and pulled the door shut, but the cold wind still managed to whistle in through the gaps, the jeep rocking with its blows. He took his pistol from its holster. In front of them, the river shone white, a long and meandering plain of snow, far brighter than the wadding of clouds above.
His breath fogging and rising in front of his face, Franek leaned forward as the wheels bumped down onto the snow-covered surface of the river. Misha felt his muscles tense, but the ice held, half a winter in thickness. Sliding and jolting, they began to track across the rutted surface, four black shapes, no headlights, driving slowly, the engines’ noise low. Snow had softened the shapes of the burned-out army trucks and the frozen bodies of dead horses, as well as other debris, casting long shadows in the ghostly light. To their right, the broken girders of the Poniatowski Bridge rose up out of the ice at drunken angles.
‘Hard to believe,’ said Misha. ‘Here we are, the first to liberate Warsaw.
*Learn more about the collaboration between General Marian Spychalski and the Bricha movement. The initiative was spearheaded by Yitzhak "Antek" Zuckerman, the Deputy leader of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, and approved by Spychalski, who was then serving as the Vice-Minister of National Defense and Deputy Commander-in-Chief for Political-Educational Affairs (GZP).
In the wake of the Kielce pogrom, Spychalski ordered the opening of the Polish border to Jewish refugees, facilitating a mass exodus. This large-scale operation was overseen by several Polish officers, including Major Michał Rudawski, Major Michał Wróblewski (Wasserman), and Major Tadeusz Chorawik. The first two mentioned were Jews.
This action, which began on July 20, 1946, just weeks after the pogrom, enabled up to 175,000 Jews to leave Poland. The mission was commanded by General Gwideon Czerwiński and eventually wound down following diplomatic protests from the British government, which at the time oversaw the Mandate of Palestine and sought to limit Jewish immigration there.
Refugees were supposed to reach Mediterranean ports (in France, Italy, or Romania), and to board ships organized by Mossad LeAliyah Bet. The British Royal Navy responded with a massive maritime operation to stop them and arrested Holocaust survivors from 49 illegal ships. Approximately 66,000 people (called Maapilim) were kept in detention camps that had the structure of German concentration camps with armed guards on towers and a barbed fence around the camp.
Aftermath of Kielce pogrom - Cooperation of Irgun Ha-Bricha and Polish Army - Midnight border crossings - "Jews cross frontier with connivance of Polish and Czechoslovak border guards".
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| Several Polish officers, some of them Jews, were overseeing this gigantic operation - Major Michal Rudawski (first on the left), Major Michal Wroblewski (Wasserman), and Major Tadeusz Chorabik (first on the right). The first two mentioned were Jews. Here together with Luba Geller from Bricha. |
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| Fiction that is mostly non-fiction. |
