Narrative

The Grand Robbery: Warsaw

World War II (WWII) was one of the largest catastrophes of mankind. It caused families to split and possibly lose each other forever. WWII also caused the death of over 70 million people, becoming one of the largest massacres in human history. Most commonly represented by a battlefield full of tanks and infantry, World War II has many deep secrets and hidden heroes who aren’t known for their valour. These people did many horrible actions to survive and experienced unimaginable situations. One of WWII’s secrets is people, people who were forced by the Nazis to work for them. Zbigniew Książeczak is just one of the hundreds of people the Nazis forced to betray their country for his personal gain.

Living in Warsaw since he was born, Zbigniew loved his city. The Warsaw Uprising, a major operation carried out by the Polish Resistance Home Army, AK, to liberate Warsaw from Nazi Germany, began when he was only eleven. The Uprising split his family two, his mom and sister and then his father and him. After this separation, his dad and he lived in Mokotow. From there were evicted by the Nazis. The Nazis gave them five minutes to take all the belongings that they could carry. Even though they could take as much as they wanted Zbigniew and his dad took very little: A bike and a bag of rice. They were forced to move to Piaseczno where local farmers housed them. Zbigniew’s decision to take his bike soon paid off. At the age of fifteen, he got his first little job, buying bread in a bakery and selling it for a profit at nearby homes and villages.

The separation from his mother bugged him everyday. Zbigniew wanted know where she lived and if she was alive. One day he decided to look for her. His search began in a little village of Pyry. He knew his mother’s friend live there. Without a reason, he also decided not to take his bike but to travel there on foot. Halfway through his journey to Pyry a horse-drawn wagon whizzed past him and then stopped. Inside sat a farmer, who drove the wagon, and a Nazi soldier, machine gun in hand. Zbigniew replied that he has heading  to Pyry when the Nazi and farmer asked him where he was heading. They invited him to join them. He accepted the offer not knowing what he has gotten himself into. They arrived in Pyry only to experience one of the most dreaded events for civilians, a round-up. (A round-up was a event where Nazis took multiple civilians, mainly men, to go and work in labour camps.) Zbigniew was one of the unlucky ones; he was caught and put in a transport. With multiple other men, Zbigniew, was taken to a transfer camp. Luckily for him, he never actually arrived at a labour or concentration camp as one day a Folks Deutsch Officer (Folks Deutsch is referred to Polish citizens of German heritage or living) came to the transfer camp and needed 15 men for work. The prisoners were never told what kind of work but almost every man volunteered. The officer only needed 15 so he went through a selection process. Zbigniew, being only 15, stretched to be as tall as he could and flexed his muscles to come out well-built. With a bit of luck he and 14 other prisoners were chosen and once again piled into a Nazi truck. This ended his stay in any sort of prison camp. Once again exposing himself to the danger of possible death, Zbigniew took peeks through the cover of the truck bed to see where they were driving. In a matter of seconds he knew where the truck was heading: Warsaw. Back in Warsaw they were taken to Nazi military barracks in which they were fed and allowed to rest. Next morning they were, once again, put back in the trucks and taken to the Gestapo office on Ul. Szucha. Their they were put in groups of 2 or 3 and returned to the Nazis’ vehicles. Zbigniew and the others didn’t know where they were being taken or what the Nazis would tell them to do so they remained silent. They stopped in a street of undamaged houses, Ul. Wilcza, where they were told to exit the truck and enter one of the buildings. They were led to the top floor where they were told a checklist of items that were supposed to take from the apartments. Here they were told to take anything like radios or cameras. This was the day when the Nazis started to rob Warsaw. Each day was the same. He woke up, ate, got it a vehicle with his friends, they were taken to another building and told a different list of things to ‘take’. One day on Emilii Plater they were told to take fur, coats, hats, gloves. Another day on Ul. Noakowskiego they were told to take pottery, china in particular. The Nazis even sent an expert with them to decide whether the china was  quality or not. If he classified the pottery was acceptable it would be put into a box; if it was low quality, the pottery ended broken on the floor. Here he also experienced the hatred of the Nazis toward other cultures. The expert who was with them entered the library in the home they were ‘robbing’ and started to throw the Polish books on the floor and stepping on them; this terrified Zbigniew. A Couple days later they went to Ul. Nowogrodzka on which only one building stood standing. At the end of the day, Zbigniew and Witek, his new friend who gathered items with him, saw the Nazi pottery expert light a campfire in the house and leave with the fire still roaring. With no Nazi in sight, the two rushed for buckets of water which stood in every courtyard in Polish houses and put out the fire. To this day that building still stands and they have to pleasure and right of calling it their success. On Ul. Żurawia they were told to take shoes. On Ul. Hoźa, the street that changed his life, expensive fluffy bedsheets. After stuffing the bedsheets into the truck a Nazi officer marched over to Zbigniew and told him in half Polish to get into the truck and hide. Zbigniew did just that. What he didn’t know is that by doing this the Nazi officer saved his life.

On another occasion, the truck stopped in a train station in Włochy, another area surrounding Warsaw. Zbigniew decided to get out and stretch his legs. He hopped out and was instantly surrounded by Nazi troops. One of the Nazis dashed to him and started to shout at him but Zbigniew didn’t understand so the Nazi beat him up, knocking him unconscious. He lay there for a couple hours and after waking up, Zbigniew stood up and wandered back home to his dad in Piaseczno. To avoid detection, he travelled on the outskirts of Warsaw until he reached his home. The war has over for him.

After the war, Zbigniew faced many new terrors. He came back to Warsaw after finding his mother, to look for the body of his deceased sister which they found on Ul. Kruczej; she died during the Uprising. Every building in their former neighborhood was destroyed. The house they lived didn’t exist anymore so Zbigniew went to the only place he remembered, the military barracks. “Nigdy nie  zapomne tego straszliwego widoku.” [“I will never forget this horrifying sight.”] He entered the barracks only to see 14 graves, one for each of his friends who had been forced to be robbers with him.

Zbigniew Książeczak is just one of the hundreds of people the Nazis forced to betray his country of his personal gain. World War II is a broad area of information with many important things happening. There is often very little time to look at minute details. People miss what the war was actually like because they don’t hear individual’s stories; for them to really understand the personal tragedies of war, they have to look deeper past the well known facts, into the details. Zbigniew Książczak’s story is one of them. He lived a typical Polish childhood but had it disrupted by the Nazis invading his country. As a teenager, Nazis forced by him to rob his own city, his own people of their belongings which were then transported to back home, to Germany. A small decision meant life or death such as when a Nazi officer risked his own life to save Zbigniew.  His survival was a miracle, one that happened very rarely.