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After the Great Action we remained in hiding, no-one from our family worked legally in the shop. [Only those who worked in the ghetto factories had the right to live there, others were so called 'dzicy', 'wild' inhabitants of the ghetto.] Rafal, Icie and Chaim, my brothers, were building a bunker. Rafal was the boss in this business. I don't know where they had found the people who gave the money for the construction of the bunker. I think that they began building it right after the Great Action. The bunker was on Zamenhofa Street. We moved into the bunker in January 1943, I think. We had stocks of provisions. I know that there was a physician among us. At the beginning, until the uprising, there were some 30, 35 to 40 people. From this bunker there was a passage into the sewers, and that was the crucial thing, that made it possible [for us] to cross over to the Aryan side. Between January and April, the boys, my brothers, would go into the sewer to explore the Aryan side.
I will now describe the bunker. The passage down from the basement was closed off by a trapdoor that weighed 70 kilo. The bunker was constructed in such a way that the whole was dug out below cellar level, and the soil that was taken out was used to strengthen the ceiling with the help of wood planks and logs. Inside there were two rooms: in one, provisions and other necessities of life were kept. From that pit a tunnel was built leading to the sewer. The tunnel might have been ten meters long or perhaps even more. That tunnel, which was hollowed out in such a way, was the second room, the bunks were there. That was the place where we lived. And when the ghetto started burning, then it was literally like in an oven there. [Editor's note: The Germans began to burn down houses in the ghetto a few days after the liquidation began on 19th April 1943. Street after street burned. By 15th May, when the final liquidation of the ghetto was announced, most of the buildings in it had been burned down.] We would escape to the sewer to cool off a bit. The bunker was designed to be very safe. Inside we had everything: light, water. We also had a radio in the bunker. The idea was that we would survive the war in it.
Every day Icie made notes on our life in the bunker; but all of that was destroyed there, nothing was saved. It was in the bunker, before the Uprising, that the marriage of Icie and Anka took place. My father led the ceremony. At that time he didn't wear a beard anymore because the Germans had cut his beard in 1939, as soon as they came in they cut off half of his beard. I was very sick once and was given one potato, which my mother mashed and then fed me. I probably had a high fever, I don't know what the matter with me was, but I got well later on. My parents were very weak, they were simply wasting away. We switched day for night. During the day we slept.
There were food rations allotted in a way to make it fair. There was this watery soup made of oats. In the bunker meals were cooked on an electric range. We relieved ourselves into a small pail and then dropped the contents into the sewer. We washed one after another in a bowl. Emissaries were sent outside. But I really remember very little. I think the most important thing was not to move around too much, and that was all. And I suppose I just learnt to live like that. I was very young and didn't want to cause trouble or bring danger on us, so I breathed quietly. I really don't recall very much at all. I never went out at all, not even at night. None of us went out. If there was any danger we would hide in the sewers. I remember going out onto the street only once, during the day, but that was before the Uprising. We went to another cellar, but I don't know why, and I remember that we returned to our bunker very shortly after that.
The people in the bunker - I don't know who they were or how they came to be there. I know that we had no money, so perhaps my brothers constructed the bunker and the other people supplied them with food and medicine. I remember a physician and his wife, a married couple with two daughters and a son, the latter left earlier and helped us after that. And there were many people, but they didn't get fixed in my memory as they were only there for a short time, and they left quickly. I don't know what happened to them. They all tried to pass onto the Polish side via the sewers. The Germans knew that people were escaping through these sewers and dropped gas and grenades into them. At one point, the cellar collapsed with all the stocks of provisions inside, and we were left with literally two sacks of oats. We were left without light, nothing, not even water. And the boys started to dig through this mass of earth in order to somehow get to the air. They bored these passages in wet rags, and finally they reached some adjacent cellar, for there was a whole chain of cellars. I didn't see any firearms on my brothers, perhaps they didn't have any in the bunker, but I know they were in the Uprising, at the beginning, maybe for several days. They said they had come back from the Uprising. And when everything was coming down, burning, they were with us.
I will now describe the bunker. The passage down from the basement was closed off by a trapdoor that weighed 70 kilo. The bunker was constructed in such a way that the whole was dug out below cellar level, and the soil that was taken out was used to strengthen the ceiling with the help of wood planks and logs. Inside there were two rooms: in one, provisions and other necessities of life were kept. From that pit a tunnel was built leading to the sewer. The tunnel might have been ten meters long or perhaps even more. That tunnel, which was hollowed out in such a way, was the second room, the bunks were there. That was the place where we lived. And when the ghetto started burning, then it was literally like in an oven there. [Editor's note: The Germans began to burn down houses in the ghetto a few days after the liquidation began on 19th April 1943. Street after street burned. By 15th May, when the final liquidation of the ghetto was announced, most of the buildings in it had been burned down.] We would escape to the sewer to cool off a bit. The bunker was designed to be very safe. Inside we had everything: light, water. We also had a radio in the bunker. The idea was that we would survive the war in it.
Every day Icie made notes on our life in the bunker; but all of that was destroyed there, nothing was saved. It was in the bunker, before the Uprising, that the marriage of Icie and Anka took place. My father led the ceremony. At that time he didn't wear a beard anymore because the Germans had cut his beard in 1939, as soon as they came in they cut off half of his beard. I was very sick once and was given one potato, which my mother mashed and then fed me. I probably had a high fever, I don't know what the matter with me was, but I got well later on. My parents were very weak, they were simply wasting away. We switched day for night. During the day we slept.
There were food rations allotted in a way to make it fair. There was this watery soup made of oats. In the bunker meals were cooked on an electric range. We relieved ourselves into a small pail and then dropped the contents into the sewer. We washed one after another in a bowl. Emissaries were sent outside. But I really remember very little. I think the most important thing was not to move around too much, and that was all. And I suppose I just learnt to live like that. I was very young and didn't want to cause trouble or bring danger on us, so I breathed quietly. I really don't recall very much at all. I never went out at all, not even at night. None of us went out. If there was any danger we would hide in the sewers. I remember going out onto the street only once, during the day, but that was before the Uprising. We went to another cellar, but I don't know why, and I remember that we returned to our bunker very shortly after that.
The people in the bunker - I don't know who they were or how they came to be there. I know that we had no money, so perhaps my brothers constructed the bunker and the other people supplied them with food and medicine. I remember a physician and his wife, a married couple with two daughters and a son, the latter left earlier and helped us after that. And there were many people, but they didn't get fixed in my memory as they were only there for a short time, and they left quickly. I don't know what happened to them. They all tried to pass onto the Polish side via the sewers. The Germans knew that people were escaping through these sewers and dropped gas and grenades into them. At one point, the cellar collapsed with all the stocks of provisions inside, and we were left with literally two sacks of oats. We were left without light, nothing, not even water. And the boys started to dig through this mass of earth in order to somehow get to the air. They bored these passages in wet rags, and finally they reached some adjacent cellar, for there was a whole chain of cellars. I didn't see any firearms on my brothers, perhaps they didn't have any in the bunker, but I know they were in the Uprising, at the beginning, maybe for several days. They said they had come back from the Uprising. And when everything was coming down, burning, they were with us.
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Interview
Krystyna Budnicka
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