placed close to one another. Three nurses were shuffling about the room like ghosts.
“What happened?” Mrs D. asked one of the nurses.
“Your legs are hurt,” she answered nervously.
“What about my husband? Where is he? How is he?”
“I don’t know yet.”
Each word cut through Mrs D. like a sharp piece of glass. Only after two days did she learn that her husband had been brought to the hospital too. He had suffered serious general injuries.
New patients were being carried into the room, all of them victims of the bombing. They were placed however and wherever, and when the room became full the wounded were placed in corridors and halls. Every square centimeter was used up. Their groaning and moaning in delirium mingled in a macabre melody. The air smelled of blood and death.
Soon the hospital ran out of space, beds, and bedding. Patients were dying due to lack of medical assistance, dressings, and malnutrition. The sick were simply starving. Even though they could receive parcels from outside the hospital, from families or friends, not all parcels reached their receivers. Mrs D. had no relatives in Warsaw aside from her sister, who died in that tragic bombardment of the tenement on 27 September. She was starving at the beginning, but her situation improved after her husband left the hospital (four weeks before her).
[116] He was trying to obtain a benefit for fire victims from the Coordinating Commission. He also took minor loans and bought her food with that money. Mrs D. stayed in hospital until early January 1940. She was not entirely healthy upon discharge: even though she had recovered some use of her legs she was still unable to walk with confidence. She had to exercise and practice walking for quite a while. Due to her condition she could not even think about working.
The couple was completely bankrupt. They had no money to live on or to rent a flat. Consequently, they moved into a centre, where they lived surrounded by fire victims and refugees. Mrs D. separated their spot with a curtain from three sides, creating an illusion of having “their own room.” In that “room” she put a bed (a cot), a rather small chest (a substitute for a wardrobe), a table, and a washbasin. The centre was like a small town. It was a place where various characters, [. . .] traditions, personal ambitions, and cultural
