The declaration was so unexpected, so sudden that everybody lost their heads even before they were hit with German shrapnel.
Nobody believed that the Germans would start a war. Not after Poland, France, and England had signed the treaty. Thus, all the greater was the surprise of [4] those two-legged creatures that squirm all over the city and listen to amateur politicians perorating here and there. Despite everything they still believe that the Germans will retreat. Because such thinking comes easiest.
6 September 1939 Only a Varsovian knows this date. And only a Varsovian knows what it means.
“The Polish Government has been forced to leave Warsaw. All men capable of bearing arms should leave the city with the troops.”3
I have packed my backpack. My canteen is on my belt. I’m ready to leave. But I’m still here. I’m putting off my departure. Cars are still parked outside the DOK.4 I’m going to wait until they leave. The street is packed with hundreds, even thousands of people passing by. These individuals are no longer human beings. These are merely brainless, heartless [5], thoughtless, and listless automata on human legs. Thousands of these creatures are passing through this narrow street, Przejazd Street, in the same direction. Thousands of feet are stomping down on the stones as if to beat them into the ground, stones which have already been crushed under the weight of the escapees.
They are no longer human.
They are just thousands of legs moving, flashing before my eyes. Thousands of feet in boots or shoes. Thousands of long or short legs wrapped in rags or dressed in pants. Just legs. Legs carrying bodies. Fleeing.
From what? From the unknown. Where to? Into the unknown.
Mortified, frozen faces lit up by the red glow of fire passed by all night long. The faces of people. Thousands of people fleeing this city now doomed to death.
