Security surgery. There were so many of them that they took up all the space upstairs and it was necessary to empty the waiting room. Hence, all those who had sought shelter there had to go out onto the street. Mrs H. ran along the walls, stooping to avoid the hail of shrapnel, and hid at gates whenever it got particularly dangerous. That air-raid lasted quite long. And when Mrs H. was coming back home she saw many men carrying wounded, burned, or dead people on stretchers.
Whenever Mrs H. was at home during an air-raid alarm, she woud go down to the gate or the hall on the ground floor. She avoided the shelter. “[It evoked f]ear [in me]. It smelled of death to me. [It] scared [me],” says Mrs H.
Mrs H.’s husband left Warsaw on 6 September. All male residents of their tenement left with her husband, the OPL commandant being the only one to remain.
Mrs H. bravely endured her loneliness, filling her time with personal and social matters. The scope of her functions in the OPL broadened. Her activity became more concrete and entailed more responsibility.
The first refugees from Łódź showed up at Mrs H.’s tenement around 10 September. The summarily elected Help Committee took care of them—it organised a kitchen for them and was trying to find them places to sleep. Mrs H. was not an active member of the Help Committee, but she often cooked [for the refugees] using her private food supply and provided help to individual refugees.
Days passed. Then the tragic day of 25 September came. It was 11 a.m. Mrs H. was busy at home. Suddenly, the sound of [50] sirens drove her out of her flat. She ran downstairs into the hall of the right, front staircase. A few dozen people had gathered there: residents and chance pedestrians. Mrs H. was talking with her young neighbour when, led by an instinctive force, she moved into the adjoining entryway. As soon as she had crossed the threshold, an earsplitting explosion shook the tenement. An aerial bomb flew in a curve through the front window on the first floor into the hall [of the right staircase], hitting the very spot where she had been standing just a moment earlier. An avalanche of debris came down with enormous force, burying the group of people who had taken shelter there. The survivors immediately ran to their rescue. Unmindful of her own safety, Mrs H. removed the debris, pulled the wounded from under the layer of bricks, brought them water, revived them, cleaned their wounds, and helped transport them to the surgery in
