General Antoni Chrusciel “Monter” dispatched an order to Lt. Col. Jozef Rokicki “Karol” to immediately return to Mokotow from Srodmiescie. During the night "Karol” and his men had set out towards Mokotow but it was impossible to go through the sewers.
At 8:00 am this morning the Germans launched a strong attack on Mokotow. Small pockets of resistance are still putting up a strong fight, particularly in the area of Baluckiego, Wiktorska and Belgijska Streets. Polish Command has sent emissaries to begin negotiations with the Germans for the evacuation of civilians and wounded, and to settle the terms of capitulation of Mokotow.
Mokotow surrendered around noon today, though insurgents continue to battle the Germans in City Centre and Zoliborz. German Command has offered to observe the terms of the Geneva Convention and treat Polish insurgents as POWs, instead of executing them on the spot. However, sources indicate that German officers of the Schutzpolizei have been systematically executing Poles on Dworkowa Street. Most of the 120 dead were insurgents of the Armia Krajowa (Home Army) who had lost their way in the sewers and emerged from a manhole in German-controlled territory. They were shot on the spot by German troops.
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| Members of the Schutzpolizei after liquidation of Lidice 1942 |
In this photograph some members of the German Schutzpolizei pose in front of the farmhouse in Lidice (Czechoslovakia) that they destroyed. In June of 1942, the Germans assassinated almost everyone in the village, and deported many others. The town of Lidice was then razed to the ground. This was in reprisal for the assassination of the deputy leader of the SS. Such reprisals have been carried out more fiercely against the Poles since the invasion of Poland in September 1939 and have escalated since the start of the Uprising. For every German officer assassinated, hundreds of Polish civilians, men, women and children, have been rounded up and shot.
The Germans have launched Sternschnuppe (Falling Star Operation) whose objective is the liquidation of the Kampinos Group. The Operation had been in the planning stages for a week.
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| Kampinos Headquarters - Warsaw Uprising 1944 |
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| Kampinos Group - September 1944 |
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| German JU-87 Stuka bombing Kampinos HQ in Wiersze Sept 27, 1944 |
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| Kampinos HQ in ruins destroyed by German bombing Sept 27, 1944 |
German command has proposed surrender of the Zoliborz Sector, but Poles have not responded. Insurgent groups are literally fighting for every inch of ground and refuse to relent.
Polish and German emissaries have met today around 4:00 pm in the district of Srodmiescie, in the middle of Aleje Jerozolimskie Street near Starynkiewicza Square. A second meeting took place at 5:30 p.m. during which Polish emissaries were escorted far into German positions.
Churchill telephoned USSTAF (United States Strategic Air Force) today to endorse the Poles message and to add his own request for another supply mission “a noble deed” as he called it. President Roosevelt also called upon another mission to Warsaw, but it is unlikely that the United States would undertake a second supply drop. On September 18 the American Air Force had sent 107 Flying Fortresses on a supply mission to Warsaw. It was a mission that went horribly wrong.
Despite allied betrayal, there are however, "men of conscience" in the British Parliament who have spoken out against the ruthless injustice of their own government for appeasing Stalin, as it had once appeased Hitler.
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| PRIME MINISTER CHAMBERLAIN AND HITLER |
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| PRIME MINISTER CHURCHILL AND STALIN |
Mr. McGovern, MP, asked Eden, "Does the Right Honourable gentleman think that there is anything to be gained by covering up the fact that an Ally of ours is both deporting and shooting Nationalists and Socialists in Poland?"
Mr. Eden: "The Honourable Gentleman talks about covering up matters, but I must tell the House that not only are these affairs of delicacy between Allies, but also that there is some difficulty in ascertaining the facts. Therefore we should treat these matters with caution and with reserve at the present time."
Earl Winterton: "Could my Right Honorable friend not make it clear, in reply to my question that His Majesty’s Government can be responsible for the conduct of His Majestys government and cannot be responsible for the conduct of other nations?"
Mr. Eden: "My Right Honourable friend is absolutely correct. That is why I explained that I was asked a question about affairs which concern two of our Allies, for which my responsibility is not direct."
Commander Sir Archibald Southby: "While it is true that these are matters of delicacy, are not matters concerning our responsibility to our Ally, Poland, also matters of principle?"
Mr. Eden: "Yes, Sir and our responsibility has been fully, and I might add gallantly, discharged."
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| George Orwell |
It is not my primary job to discuss the details of contemporary politics, but this week there is something that cries out to be said. Since, it seems, nobody else will do so, I want to protest against the mean and cowardly attitude adopted by the British press towards the recent rising in Warsaw.
The Russians are powerful in eastern Europe, we are not: therefore we must not oppose them. This involves the principle, of its nature alien to Socialism, that you must not protest against an evil which you cannot prevent. I cannot discuss here why it is that the British intelligentsia, with few exceptions, have developed a nationalistic loyalty towards the U.S.S.R. and are dishonestly uncritical of its policies. In any case, I have discussed it elsewhere. But I would like to close with two considerations which are worth thinking over. First of all, a message to English left-wing journalists and intellectuals generally: ‘Do remember that dishonesty and cowardice always have to be paid for. Don’t imagine that for years on end you can make yourself the boot-licking propagandist of the Soviet régime, or any other régime, and then suddenly return to mental decency. Once a whore, always a whore.’
Secondly, a wider consideration. Nothing is more important in the world today than Anglo-Russian friendship and co-operation, and that will not be attained without plain speaking. The best way to come to an agreement with a foreign nation is not to refrain from criticizing its policies, even to the extent of leaving your own people in the dark about them. At present, so slavish is the attitude of nearly the whole British press that ordinary people have very little idea of what is happening, and may well be committed to policies which they will repudiate in five years’ time. In a shadowy sort of way we have been told that the Russian peace terms are a super-Versailles, with partition of Germany, astronomical reparations, and forced labour on a huge scale. These proposals go practically uncriticized, while in much of the left-wing press hack writers are even hired to extol them. The result is that the average man has no notion of the enormity of what is proposed. I don’t know whether, when the time comes, the Russians will really want to put such terms into operation. My guess is that they won’t. But what I do know is that if any such thing were done, the British and probably the American public would never support it when the passion of war had died down. Any flagrantly unjust peace settlement will simply have the result, as it did last time, of making the British people unreasonably sympathetic with the victims. Anglo-Russian friendship depends upon there being a policy which both countries can agree upon, and this is impossible without free discussion and genuine criticism now. There can be no real alliance on the basis of ‘Stalin is always right’. The first step towards a real alliance is the dropping of illusions.
(George Orwell, The Tribune, September 1, 1944)
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