floor, on the balcony overlooking the square adjacent to the government buildings. The air defence zenitówka was firing fiercely during air-raids but after just several days the ammunition ran out and the soldiers left.
Mrs G. bravely stayed on her OPL post until 25 September. At approximately 4 p.m. that day Mrs G. was standing at the gate when she heard a drawn-out whistle of an air-raid siren. And the whirr of the aircraft engine mingled with the final tones of the siren. Bombers came flying low like dark clouds. Explosions of falling bombs kept piercing the air. The air-raid lasted several hours, until dusk. When Mrs G. went [86] out after the alarm had been called off she saw a ghastly scene. Flames and smoke were shooting into the sky from the roofs of neighbouring buildings. People were frantically and chaotically removing suitcases, bundles, and individual objects, throwing them over their shoulders or grabbing them and running away wherever they could. But when they got to the first street across from them, they saw smoldering ruins of destroyed tenements in front of them. People were dispersing, losing sight of one another on the way. “Where are you?” “Watch out for the child!” “Hurry up. This way. The coast is clear.” The piercing shouts echoed from afar. Mrs G. stood numbed by pain, as if paralysed.
It started again late in the evening. A fierce bombing began. Uuuuu-eeeeeeeee!—bombs were whistling, falling. Booom!—they exploded with a crack. The explosions must have been close because the walls of Mrs G.’s tenement shook from the impact as if they where about to fall apart. Suddenly, the walls of the gate trembled and Mrs G. was pushed several feet away. Shrapnel hit the tenement and flew into a flat on the second floor—the same from which the soldiers had fired at enemy aircrafts several days earlier.
Mrs G. fled. She got to the other side of the barricade with her family and a handful of neighbours. She hid in her friend’s shop on the next street. It must have taken half an hour to “cross” the barricade. Mrs G. climbed “stairs” made of protruding parts of iron beds and furniture as well as [bags of?] sand. She tripped, slid, and held onto sharp edges [87] to lift herself up. The red glow lit her way. Bullets whistled around her, drowning out the sound of her breath.
Mrs G. spent almost two days in her new “shelter.” After the last explosions had died down she returned home. She was dizzy, week from hunger, and distrustful. “Come what may. If only I could finally sleep my fill, wash myself, and rest,” she thought.
