I tried to drive past but the road was impassable for a vehicle. I backed away, parked the car, then continued on foot.
I had still not reached the Rynek when I came across a troop of Polish soldiers attempting to put out a fire that had started inside a shop. I knew the shop: I had visited it many times. I went around the men, keeping my distance, covering my mouth and nose with a part of my sleeve, but then suddenly a familiar voice shouted, ‘Krystyna!’
It was Tomasz, his hair tousled and his face and arms blackened by the smoke. He was in his army uniform, but he had removed his jacket and was working in his shirt sleeves with the other men. Of course I rushed to him and we embraced as if we had not seen each other in years. I could hardly believe my luck in finding him here, so close to the house where we had lived. We had to raise our voices to make ourselves heard, because of the many different noises around us: distant and near-distant explosions, bells ringing, people shouting, the roar of flames and, all too often, the horrible, hollow fracturing noise as yet another of Kraków’s old wooden-framed buildings collapsed when the fires ate away at the interiors. The fires were spreading, apparently unstoppably, all along the street.
He shouted, ‘Krystyna, it’s not safe for you. The Germans are already entering the city.’
‘If it’s not safe for me it’s not safe for you.’
‘I have to be here. I’m under orders. You must get out immediately. Do you still have the car?’ I waved back vaguely in the direction of where I had left it. The street now was choked with smoke. ‘Then use it. Warsaw has already fallen to the Germans. They’ll have Kraków before today is out. Do you have enough fuel in the car to get to Tarnów? The Germans have not reached there yet. My parents and some of the servants have already gone to Tarnów.’
‘I want to be with you, Tomasz. Not with them.’
‘I know, I understand. But my father is well known there. You’ll be able to buy petrol in Tarnów. I’ve heard some of the senior officers saying that there is going to be a Polish government in exile in Romania, and there will be transport from Lwów. So you must get to Lwów as quickly as you can.’
‘Not without you,’ I said.
‘I’ll come later. We will be withdrawing soon.’
‘Come now!’ I said loudly, desperately, against the racket of a fire appliance rushing past.
‘You can see I can’t!’ he shouted, indicating his squad of men. ‘I have a duty. But there’s a plan – tonight our brigades are going to regroup and head south. Mine is one of them, so I will meet you in Lwów. Not straight away, but in a few days. Use the people you know in the Air Force.’
‘Tomasz, my love! What is happening here? Have you been to your house?’
‘The house has been abandoned for now. Three of the servants stayed to try to take care of the place, but I told them this morning to flee – the rest have gone to Lublin. Everyone else is in Tarnów. They should be safe there.’
He kept glancing across to the blaze while he spoke, obviously torn between talking to me and carrying out his duty.
There were two more gigantic explosions, somewhere behind us, in the next street, terrifyingly close to where we were standing. Glass in many windows burst out and cascaded down into the street. I was left breathless and frightened by the sheer violence of the explosions.
‘Those bombs landed in Floriańska!’ Tomasz shouted hoarsely – Floriańska was the name of the main street leading from the Gate to the Rynek, where his parents’ house was situated. ‘I’ll have to take the men over there!’
He left me, clambered back over the rubble to the blazing shop and gave hurried orders to the two NCOs working with the troops. Then Tomasz grabbed my hand and we ran through the plumes of swirling smoke, hindered by the piles of rubble on the road, much of which was still burning. I realized we had reached the Rynek, the market-place in the centre of the Old Town. Miraculously, the beautiful Cloth Hall, the Sukiennice, was not damaged, although thick smoke was surging around it. We hurried past the medieval building, looking for the count’s house. Then we halted.
Tomasz stood beside me, staring forward.
In all the chaos there was a moment of seeming stillness. Across the Rynek, on the far side, three houses were burning out of control. The one in the centre of the three was the count’s house: the glorious townhouse, with its ancient windows, carved gables, timbered walls, built at least three hundred years before, was engulfed. There was something unreal, grotesque about the sight – I looked away, glanced at the sky, so blue and clear beyond the thick coils of smoke rising from all parts of the city. My eyes were streaming with tears, and I could barely breathe.
‘It’s gone,’ Tomasz said.
‘Your home.’ It was all I could manage to say.
‘No!’ He turned towards me and placed both his arms around me, pulling me against his chest. ‘Not my home. The place I lived. The place you lived. Ever since you were there with me I have wanted only one thing and that is to be able to leave that house.’
Part of the roof collapsed down into the flames below, sending up a huge display of sparks and a thick burst of grey smoke.
‘It’s over, Tomasz.’
‘I love my parents but I loathed the life they led.’
‘Their way of life brought us together,’ I said.
‘Yes, of course. They meant well then, but I hated what they said to you.’
‘Are you sure there’s no one trapped inside there?’ I said, watching the flames grow higher. The building next door to it looked as if it too were about to collapse.
‘I searched the place this morning. No one was inside and all the rooms were closed.’ He was already stepping back, away from the blaze. A loud explosion went off in the street beyond the count’s house, making us both turn away instinctively, throwing our hands up to protect our heads, but although we saw pieces of wreckage flying in the air, and a rising ball of fire, the blast somehow did not strike us. ‘It’s the end, Krystyna. That life we had has gone. As soon as this war is over we will be together.’
A formation of German aircraft appeared overhead, high and silhouetted black against the afternoon sky. They were Junkers Ju-87 Stukas, the Nazis’ dreaded dive-bombers. They appeared to be circling. Their engines throbbed above the sounds of the inferno in the town. One by one the aircraft turned away from the formation, went into a steep dive and flew at a horrible speed directly towards the ground. There were sirens on each aircraft, set to howl – an unspeakable wailing noise which added an element of deliberate and sadistic terrorizing. The dive-bombers were aiming themselves at the buildings by the river, half a kilometre away from where we were standing. No one on the ground was firing back at them. The lovely old city was at their mercy, and they had none of that.
Tomasz seized my wrist and we began running, retracing our steps. Broken glass and shattered masonry was all around. Within a minute we reached the place where the shop had been, but in the short time we were away the building had been almost completely destroyed. The squad of soldiers had disappeared.
Tomasz looked alarmed.
‘I have to find them,’ he said.
‘They could be anywhere,’ I said, because I had a sudden irrational urge to make him flee with me.
‘No – we have orders. This street, and the one beyond.’
‘Come with me, Tomasz. This is hell.’
‘I can’t abandon my men!’
‘Yes, you can. The Polish cause is lost. There’s nothing to fight for any more. The Nazis will move in and round up everyone who has been in the army.’
‘We fight to the end.’
Another explosion, somewhere at the far side of the Rynek, made Tomasz take me in his arms and we kissed deeply for the first time since we had met that day. For a few seconds, in that closed world of love, it felt bizarrely as if life was about to revert to normal. Everything receded. But moments later we heard again the sound of German aero engines. Another flight of dive-bombers appeared above us, now only
intermittently visible through the thickening columns of smoke. They were already circling, preparing another deadly attack.
‘Quickly, Krystyna!’ Tomasz shouted, thrusting me away from him. ‘Go now!’
‘What about you?’
‘We’ll meet in Lwów. Just get there as soon as you can!’
So we parted. My last glimpse of Tomasz was as he ran in search of his troop, keeping his head down, along the ruined street, zigzagging around the heaps of wreckage. The howling of the dive-bombers was closer now so I ran too, away from the Old Town and towards where I had left the car. Rubble from a building collapse had crashed over the engine compartment, and the front windshield was cracked, but otherwise it seemed to be more or less undamaged. I pushed away what rubble I could with my hands. The engine started at the first attempt. I had to drive forward through a mess of broken glass. I ignored it, swung the steering wheel around then accelerated away. A heavy door frame had been blown into the street, and I did not notice it until too late. The car shook violently as I drove across it. A horrible scraping noise sounded from beneath the car, then stopped. The car lurched on. There was an explosion somewhere close, but I could not see where it was – almost immediately a Stuka passed directly above my car, low and close, at the bottom of its dive as it levelled out and climbed away. It passed so near me that I could see, as in a still photograph, the metal rack where the bomb had been carried, the black of the tyres in their streamlined covers, the mottled green camouflage and a glimpse of the swastika on the fin as the plane turned sharply and banked low across the town. It headed towards the west.
I leaned away from my steering wheel to stare at the aircraft, not watching where I was driving. It was suddenly no longer an enemy aircraft, but just an aircraft. The fascination I always felt for planes gripped me. I wondered what it was like to fly a Stuka, how it might feel to peel away from a formation, aim down at some target on the ground, dive headlong at full speed, the siren screaming, the aircraft shaking with the stress of the dive—–
The car had started to veer. It banged and swerved as it collided with the paving stones at the side of the road. I wrenched the steering wheel, straightening the car. I drove with no direction in mind, only to escape the worst of the bombing. The steering was heavy and sluggish and the ride of the car was unstable – I assumed at least one of the tyres had been punctured. I checked the fuel gauge: only a few litres remained. I had no idea how far it was to Tarnów, nor even if the roads were safe to drive on.
When I saw some German battle tanks to the south of me, arrayed in a broad flank, heading towards the city with their peculiar and threatening motion, I swung away from them as quickly as I could.
I continued to skirt around the city, but now I had changed my mind. It made no sense to drive to another city, when I had an aircraft that I could use. I headed for the airstrip, trusting that the Germans would not yet be there. The car’s engine was making a loud clattering sound, presumably because of the damage I caused when I drove across the door frame. It was difficult to keep the car headed straight forward. I saw no point in halting to try to find out what was wrong.
There was hardly any other traffic on the road. I saw one column of Polish army trucks, but they took no notice of me.
I reached the airstrip. As soon as I drove in from the road, turned into the familiar field, I was struck by how normal it felt. Everything was just as I had left it. I went straight to the Czapla I had been flying earlier in the day, started the engine and taxied it back to the hangar. Here I filled the petrol tank to the top, then made everything as secure as I could. I wasted no time. As soon as the aircraft was fuelled I searched in the tiny office for every map of Poland I could find, filled a bottle with water for myself and then took off.
The aircraft was equipped with a radio so when I was in the air I switched on, scanning for incoming signals. The usual frequencies were silent, an ominous sign. Knowing that I should at least inform my superior officer I used the standard communication channel and filed my flight plan. No response.
The day was coming to an end and it was dusk by the time I reached the Lwów sector. I located the military airfield, radioed down for permission to land and received it at once. The controller’s voice on the radio-telephone was professional, calm. He courteously repeated the identification signals that I would see displayed on the runway approach, then signed off.
That, I think, was for me the last reminder of the order and peace that had once existed in my home country. I landed the Czapla, taxied it as instructed to an air force hangar. When I climbed out of the cockpit, shaking out my hair from under the leather flying helmet, the maintenance men working there stared at me in surprise. Where I normally flew, people were used to me. Here I was among strangers.
I was by this time tired and hungry, not having had any kind of break since the morning. When I had made sure the plane was secure, the wheels chocked, the engine correctly closed down, the controls equalized, I went to the duty office to report in.
Here I learned several alarming facts, the first of which was that late in the day several divisions of the German Army had made a lightning attack, moving in on Lwów from the south and setting up a cordon around the southern limits. A full attack was expected before first light the next day – there were no Polish ground troops anywhere near to repulse them. The tentative plans to set up a rendezvous point in Lwów for the government in exile had been abandoned.
All service personnel and members of the civil service and diplomatic corps were to be evacuated even further to the south and east, initially to Czernowice, in the shadow of the Karpathian mountains.
But – Lwów was where Tomasz and I had planned to meet! I felt panic rising. He was still somewhere in Kraków Province, with the Nazis sweeping all before them.
As if all this were not upheaval enough there were many reports that the Soviet Union had invaded Poland in the north. Some rumours said that the Russians had invaded on ‘our side’, to fight the Germans on our behalf. That idea was dismissed with the cynical distrust that Poles have always held for both Russians and Germans: if the Soviet Union was invading, they were not going to do us any favours. Events of course were to prove us right.
While I was still trying to absorb this welter of unwelcome information I was suddenly informed that because of the emergency I had ceased to be a civilian and was now commissioned as a Flying Officer in the Polish Air Force. This meant I was under direct orders from any superior officer, not just the informal ‘requests’ I had been receiving from the top brass I had been ferrying around.
The first such order I received came from the duty officer who broke the news to me. He said I was to fly immediately to Czernowice in a two-engined plane, carrying several diplomats as passengers, then return to Lwów before daybreak to collect more.
It was impossible. I was practically in a state of physical collapse. I pleaded to be allowed a few hours’ sleep. The officer then insinuated that if I had problems with night flying then he would understand, and transfer me to clerical ground duties for which I would be more suitable. I angrily brandished my log book in his face, showing the dozens of flights I had carried out in the past few days. I said I could not fly safely, day or night, on the ragged edge of exhaustion, but that I would be back at the airfield at least an hour before dawn.
I did not tell him that I had never in my life taken off in a plane in the dark.
I stumbled off to find something to eat and a bunk I could borrow for a few hours.
I was awake by 4:00 am and reported back to the airfield. While I had been sleeping the place had been transformed. All semblance of order was gone. The control tower radio-telephone was not responding and the illuminated flares along the sides of the runway had been extinguished. I could find no officers, or at least any officers who either knew what was going on or who were prepared to give me orders. Artillery was firing in the distance, but no shells were landing anywhere near the airfield. I began to think nervo
usly of the Stukas, but I assumed they would not attack until after sunrise. In the time I was walking around trying to find out what I was supposed to do, three clearly overloaded Polish aircraft taxied down at short intervals to the unlighted runway, took off after an agonizingly slow run and flew precariously towards the south.
I made a decision to act on my own initiative. I thought it might be safe to make one flight, then return to Lwów to try to locate Tomasz. I went through to the assembly area and discovered a large group of civilians clustered miserably together, surrounded by many bags and cases of their belongings. They pressed around me, demanding to know when they would be evacuated. Most of them had been waiting all night. Some were holding official-looking identity cards or letters. There was no point my reading them, but to try to take control of the situation I took two of the letters and skimmed through them. Both of those men were from the French embassy.
Out on the apron I found a LW6 Żubr – an obsolete two-engined plane with the reputation of being loathed by every pilot who had to fly it, but it was the only machine available. It had cargo space behind the pilot’s seat. I managed to locate one of the engineers. He confirmed the plane was airworthy, but not fuelled. I searched for and found a working bowser and moved the aircraft across to it. I refuelled it myself, clambering nervously on top of the wing.
The sky in the east was lightening quickly.
We took off after the sun had just started to appear. I managed to cram five of the civilians into the cargo space, but only on the condition that they took none of their baggage. They resisted at first and seemed reluctant to take orders from a woman, whether she was in air force uniform or not. I made it clear that I was about to fly the plane away, with or without any of them, but I could take five passengers. I returned to the aircraft to wait. A minute later five men walked out sheepishly and jammed themselves into the cargo space. When I taxied out to the runway the airfield was still in semi-darkness, and shrouded in morning mist, but either my instincts took over or we were lucky. We lifted away from the ground without trouble, although the plane was horrible to handle.
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