were whispering about the current events. Suddenly they heard a hum, growing closer, intensifying. Mrs G. ran to the gate door and peeked out onto the street through a tiny pane that the tenement superintendent would use to check who was coming in. It was pitch dark. Not a living soul. Mrs G. listened in and now she could clearly make out a rhythmic sound of wheels and hoof beats. After several minutes the first military formation came out of the dark, followed by another, a third, a tenth. The carts passed by in an endless line, each seating a few soldiers. Mrs G. stood by the small window, as if hypnotized for hours. She finally went outside the gate at the crack of dawn. Carts were passing, appearing [. . .] from beyond the western horizon and filling the dead silence with some menacing [. . .]. Mrs G. examined the soldiers—they looked awfully tired and resigned. “Where to?” she asked one of them. “East,” he said. Another one added, “Warsaw’s lost.”
It was long after midday when the last army cart passed Mrs G.’s tenement. That day the following news spread over Warsaw: Poles were leaving the capital and concentrating their troops on the Bug River to form the main frontline there.
The situation changed at a dizzying speed. New orders for the population kept coming “from the top.” On 7 September the radio retracted Colonel Umiastowski’s appeal. The Warsaw mayor Stefan Starzyński called on refugees [85] to return as they were needed for the defence of Warsaw. The Germans were on the foreground of the capital and Varsovians were called on to defend the city. Those who heard the appeal of the Warsaw mayor Starzyński on their way and could still turn back did return. Mrs G.’s husband came back after several days.
The city was buzzing with preparations for defence. Streets were dug up with trenches for barricades. Men, women, the young, the old, and children—everybody was digging. Outside Mrs G.’s tenement a large, half-storey barricade was erected—a “stronghold” made of iron beds, furniture, and many other heavy objects. Mrs G. did not dig street trenches, but still zealously fulfilled her duties as an OPL member. In the meantime her “service” was becoming increasing difficult. She had more and more duties as the tenement had rapidly become almost completely deserted. The reason was as follows. Soldiers came to Mrs G.’s tenement and put a zenitówka396 on the second
