Mementos from the Warsaw Uprising in the Museum of the Second World War

The Museum of the Second World War has received the valuable gift of 7 mementos related to the Warsaw Uprising.The collection was donated by Mrs. Waleria Baran (neé Brandt), a participant in the Warsaw Uprising. “Every day was terrible, I helped as far as I could.We buried the corpses where there was an empty space,” said Mrs. Baran while handing over the mementos.

Mrs. Baran escaped to Warsaw in 1942 fleeing from deportation, then she was sent to forced labour. Took part in secret teaching. She described the outbreak of the Uprising and the reaction of the people of Warsaw to the start of the battle. “Brothers to arms, the uprising has broken out, the end of tyranny!", she recalled the shouts raised by the insurgents on the streets of Warsaw.

Mrs. Baran talked about the air raids and shelling of the tenement in which she lived and about finding shelter in the basement. Her home was completely destroyed, and she and her family were covered with rubble. She was saved by her father, who was outside the building during the attack on the tenement house. She remembered the heroic posture of the civilian population - providing food to escapees and insurgents, as well as building barricades and shelters. She talked about the Masses, carrying wounded and burying corpses: “I could not watch people die, they died like flies,” she said.

After the fall of the uprising, her family was taken to Andrychów (they slept on the floor and had no food). From there, in sealed freight cars they travelled through Lodz and Poznan to Breslau. They continued to Bochum in Germany, then to the Durchganglager Friedrichsfeld camp near Wesel intended for people from Warsaw. "The barracks were dirty and full of bugs, on the walls, there were inscriptions from the predecessors:‘Fellow countrymen, we are going to our deaths, avenge us’," said Mrs. Baran.

Among the mementos that will soon be available for viewing are:

1. A backpack made during the Warsaw Uprising by an insurgent from ul. Sienna for the family of the donor, after they lost their home (it was destroyed).

2. Identity card No. 691 issued on 19.08.1942 by Stbahn - Eastern Railway, to Waleria Brandt.

3. Two insurgent identity cards issued for Waleria Brandt and her father Józef by the insurgent Commissariat VIII at ul. Sienna in Warsaw.

4. Kennkarte / Identification Cards of the General Governorship issued for Waleria and Józef Brandt.

5. Bescheinigung / Permission issued by the Arbeitsamt in the Durchganglager Friedrichsfeld camp near Wesel, which was created for people driven out of Warsaw after the fall of the Warsaw Uprising. A permit issued for Józef, Maria and Waleria Brandt, allowing them to travel to work in Dąbrowa Górnicza (October 15, 1944)

6. Polish translation of the letter

7. Jozef Brandt's train ticket from the Durchganglager Friedrichsfeld camp near Wesel to Dąbrowa Górnicza.