Robinson Crusoes of Warsaw

The term Robinson Crusoes of Warsaw, or the "Warsaw Robinsons", refers to Poles (including

The estimates of the number of hideaways vary from several hundred to approximately two thousand. Even though the majority of the Robinsons perished during the war, most of the information about their circumstances comes from those who survived. The largest group of hideaways consisted of around 36 individuals who were led by two medical doctors. The Robinsons also included a group of Jewish Combat Organization (Polish: Żydowska Organizacja Bojowa, ŻOB) Warsaw ghetto fighters, who managed to leave the ruined city in mid-November.

The terms "Robinson Crusoes" or "Robinsons" for the hideaways appeared almost immediately, and were popularized in many contemporary and later works, including memoirs, newspaper reports, and films, by both writers and the "Robinsons" themselves, the most famous of whom was the composer Władysław Szpilman, whose story was the subject of the films, The Warsaw Robinson (1950),^[1] and The Pianist (2002).

The Warsaw Uprising, which began on August 1, 1944, was an attempt by the Polish

The provisions of the capitulation agreement stipulated that the Home Army soldiers were to be accorded full combatant status and treated as prisoners of war. The civilian population of Warsaw was to evacuate the city, be transferred to holding camps and then released. From the date of the surrender all civilians and soldiers had three days to leave the capital.^[5]

Another portion of the agreement, point #10, stated that the German command would ensure the preservation of remaining public and private property as well as the evacuation or protection of objects and buildings of "artistic, cultural or sacred value".

The phenomenon of the hideaways was noticed soon after the Red Army captured Warsaw. On January 26, 1945, a bulletin of the Żydowska Agencja Prasowa (Jewish News Agency) reported that 48 individuals had emerged from hiding and referred to them as jaskiniowcy, or "cavemen". The term "Robinsons" soon became common, a reference to the fictional castaway Robinson Crusoe in the Daniel Defoe novel.^[8] The Soviet writer and journalist Vasily Grossman, upon entering the ruined city, described finding four Jewish and six non-Jewish Poles who had just left their hideouts.^[8][9]

The term and the analogy with the castaway has often been made by Robinsons in their own memoirs, as well as by other writers. Dawid Fogelman had been imprisoned at the Gęsiówka concentration camp. After the camp was liberated by the Polish Home Army, he joined its ranks and fought in the uprising. At the end of the fighting, Fogelman became a Robinson, hiding in a bunker on Szczęśliwa Street, where he began writing a diary. He wrote: "We lived like Robinson Crusoe, with the one difference that he was free, could move about freely, while we lived in hiding." While Fogelman's diary survived, his ultimate fate is unknown.^[10][11]

In his memoirs, Władysław Szpilman also compared himself to Crusoe and, like Fogelman, emphasized the isolation and hopelessness which characterized the Warsaw Crusoes. Szpilman's memoir served as a basis for a screenplay, written as early as 1945 by the Polish writers Jerzy Andrzejewski and Czesław Miłosz,^{[note 2]} entitled Robinson of Warsaw.^[9][11] The movie that was eventually filmed, Miasto Nieujarzmione ("Unyoked city"), was heavily censored by the communist authorities, and its original theme changed to such an extent^{[note 3]} that Miłosz requested his name be removed from the film's credits.^[11] The experience with the film contributed to Miłosz's disillusionment with cinema as an artistic medium.^[12]

Wacław Gluth-Nowowiejski, a member of the Home Army who was wounded during the uprising and barely managed to escape the Wehrmacht's Marymont massacre of civilians and wounded soldiers, hid in the basement of a destroyed house from mid-September until mid-November.^[8] Gluth-Nowowiejski wrote several books about his experiences after the war, including Rzeczpospolita Gruzów ("The Commonwealth of Ruins") and Stolica jaskiń: z pamięci warszawskiego Robinsona ("The capital of caves: memoirs of a Warsaw Robinson").^[13]

Major Danuta Ślązak of the Home Army, hid out with a group of wounded patients whom she had saved from a hospital that had been set on fire by the Germans during the last days of the uprising. After the war she wrote a book about her experiences, Byłam Warszawskim Robinsonem (I was a Warsaw Robinson). A portion of her group left the hiding place after German troops called out for them to surrender and were immediately executed. The rest remained hidden and escaped detection. Eventually they used the corpses of their murdered companions to disguise the entry to their hiding place.^{[14][note 4]}

The name "Robinsons" has also been used to refer to those Jews who hid out in the ruins of the Warsaw Ghetto in the aftermath of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.^[11][15] Uri Orlev's (Jerzy Orlowski) children's book The Island on Bird Street (1981), adapted into a 1997 film, tells the story of an 11-year-old boy who hides out in the ruins of the ghetto. Orlev also draws analogies with Robinson Crusoe in this work; in fact one of the few things Alex, the story's protagonist, possesses is a copy of Defoe's novel.^[16][17]

Other memoirs by the Robinsons include Bunkier (The Bunker) by

The capitulation agreement between the Home Army and German forces stipulated that insurgents were to be treated as regular prisoners of war. The city's civilians were to be transferred to transit camps and afterward released.^[8]

Although the agreement did not stipulate different treatment for Poles who were ethnically Jewish, many Jews feared that the agreement would not be honored in their case. In fact, the Nazis conducted a "medical examination" at the Pruszków internment camp, in order to "catch out" Jews from among Warsaw's refugees.^{[note 5][15]} As a consequence, a large number of the Jews who were still in Warsaw at the time of the uprising, decided to remain in hiding rather than join the non-Jewish civilians leaving the city.^{[note 6]} According to memoirs from the period, the choice often came down to whether a particular person "looked Aryan" and could pass for a non-Jewish Pole.^[8]

A significant number of non-Jewish Poles also did not trust the Germans and decided not to leave the city. Many wounded Home Army soldiers became stranded during the uprising and were simply not able to evacuate in time.^[8] For others, the choice to remain resulted from feelings of despair and hopelessness brought by the fall of the uprising; at least initially, they simply did not have the motivation to leave.^[8]

Between the end of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising (May 1943) and beginning of 1944, there were between 10,000 and 20,000 Jews hiding in the Ghetto ruins.^[11] The number of Robinsons after the Warsaw Uprising has been estimated at between several hundred and two thousand, spread across all the suburbs of Warsaw.^[8] Another source gives the number as between 400 and 1,000.^[3] Most of those hiding were Jewish, including some who had been in hiding since the fall of the ghetto uprising,^[11] though a significant number were non-Jewish Poles. Unlike Szpilman, whose case was somewhat unrepresentative, most of those in hiding remained in medium-sized to large groups, often of mixed ethnicities.^[8] The majority of the Robinsons were men.^[19]

Many of the hiding places and makeshift bunkers were prepared in advance by those anticipating the fall of the uprising. As a result, the sequence whereby people became Robinsons closely followed the military developments of the insurrection. The first groups went into hiding in

After their water ran out, the Beck/Fiszer group developed a routine whereby some of the group worked to dig a well, while others watched out for approaching Germans, and yet others ventured outside the bunker to scavenge for useful items. The group eventually dug their way to two water canals and built a well. On November 17, during an excursion outside the bunker, the group made contact with a small partisan unit, also in hiding, led by a Russian POW who had been liberated during the uprising. Subsequently, several of the group would join the partisans for small scale attacks on German troops.[20] The group survived until the entry of the Red Army in mid-January.^{[note 9][21]}

Initially, the living conditions of the Robinsons varied according to whether or not they had had time to prepare. There were roughly three days between the signing of the capitulation and the deadline for civilians to leave the city, during which those who made the decision to stay could stockpile food and water, and camouflage their hiding places. As time passed, supplies ran out, and many Robinsons had to change their locations for security reasons. The situation soon became equally desperate for all who remained.^[8]

While food was extremely hard to come by, an even more pressing need was obtaining drinking water.

There were numerous instances of death from drinking poisoned or fouled water (there were still many unburied, decomposing corpses inside the ruins). In one instance, desperate Robinsons were driven to drink their own urine and subsequently died.^[8][13]

The coming of winter improved the water situation for some who had access to icicles, but the cold made living conditions worse. It was impossible for those in hiding to build fires to warm themselves, as smoke could reveal their location to the Germans. As a consequence, many died of cold.^[13]

Unlike the Robinson Crusoe of the novel, who craved human contact, most of the Warsaw Crusoes tried to avoid it at all cost. This contradiction was noted by both the Robinsons and those who wrote about them after the war. Being discovered by the Germans in almost all cases meant immediate death.^[8] There were, however, some exceptions, the best known being that of Szpilman's encounter with Wilm Hosenfeld, a captain of the Wehrmacht who helped to hide and feed him.^[22] In a few instances those captured were first forced to help the Germans with the looting of the city's ruins, before being either executed or sent to the Pruszków camp.^[8]

A few of the Robinsons actually tried to actively take revenge on the occupying forces. The most famous of these, who became a local legend, was an individual known only as "Ares" (after the

Some of those who had initially remained in the ruins of the city after the uprising later made attempts to leave. This was particularly true of Robinsons who had stayed, not of their own choice, but due to unfavorable circumstances.[8]

The best known case of post-uprising departure involved a group of Jewish Combat Organization fighters under the leadership of

In many cases, the opportunity to leave Warsaw came by chance. For example, the hiding diarist Wacław Gluth-Nowowiejski was taken out, after he was accidentally found by a woman (name unknown) who had been given permission by the Germans to remove some of her property from the ruins.[8] On their way out of the city the group also had to pass German checkpoints and encountered difficulties similar to those of the ŻOB fighters. A Wehrmacht soldier accused the wounded and sick Gluth-Nowowiejski of being a "bandit" but let him pass after protestations made by his escort.^[26]

Of the total number of the Robinsons who hid in the ruins of the city only a portion's names and locations are known. The recognized individuals are mostly the ones who either survived the war themselves or who came into contact with other survivors at some point. As such, the list of the known hideaways is not representative; the majority of the Robinsons died while in hiding, and hence their identities, were never recorded.^[8] The table below lists some of those who have been mentioned in the memoirs or other written works on the subject.

Sources for table:^[8][13][14]

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