A new Polish book entitled Panie Lutosławskie” by Tomasza Szymańskiego features, among other women, a Visitandine of Warsaw, Mother Maria Klaudia Niklewiczówna VSM.
Researching other available documents on this special Sister led to her report on wartime atrocities in Warsaw and the part the Visitation Sisters there played in helping the victims.
In this post we give you that report of these dramatic events; the next post will be a biography of this Superior.
This is Sr. Maria Niklewiczówna’s report of Visitation Monastery in Warsaw during Uprising during WW2:
Report on the situation of the convent of the Visitation Sisters
During the last days of July 1944, echoes of the tension in Warsaw and the sounds of warfare from across the Vistula River were coming to our enclosure as well. We all lived in anticipation of what was coming, intensifying our prayers for the Motherland. All of Warsaw was praying, and when we returned to the quiet monastery cells on the side of the Vistula River after the evening prayers, we could clearly hear pious songs sung at the occasional altars built in almost every courtyard of the Powiśle district. The words of the song reached us clearly, merging into a common choir full of meaning – most often they were Marian songs and the song “Come to Jesus …” corresponding to the moment, with a pleading refrain “Listen, Jesus, how the people are begging you, listen, listen, make a miracle … ” On August 1, around 11 a.m., an insurgent, a brother of one of our sisters, came to the gate, asking to be allowed into the enclosure, because he had an order to investigate all the possibilities of getting to Powiśle, and he asked to keep watch at the monastery gate, because if it was necessary to leave, they can decide about that. When asked by Mother Superior, when do you need to look , a short answer was given – today from 5 pm. Thanks to this we found out that the hour is coming …
Punctually at 5 o’clock in the afternoon the shooting started, the sisters stood guard at the gate, but luckily no one was looking for an escape this way. The insurgents seized a number of buildings to the west of Krakowskie Przedmieście, and our church and monastery were on the German side all the time, which was largely due to the salvation of these historic buildings. In order not to repeat known things, we present only a short chronicle of more important events from that time: Immediately on August 1, the monastery was surrounded by a sea of flames; successive fires of closer and further buildings surrounding us accompanied us until the end.
On August 2, as a result of a fire in tenement houses in Krakowskie Przedmieście, 146 people were admitted to the monastery and occupied the cellars and the granary. Of course, we shared our skimpy food supplies, cooking soup and coffee for everyone. By opening the enclosure, we also opened our hearts wide and tried to serve everyone to the best of our ability. On August 4, a patrol of German soldiers brought seven Dominican Sisters, because the house where they lived on Królewska Street was set on fire. The sisters then brought several dozen people from the burning room, who occupied our parlors. In addition, more and more defenseless, lost people were brought to us, mostly in old age, who found protection, a roof over their heads, warm food, and often a quiet, peaceful death. Our priest, Dr. Stanisław Wiśniewski, served this randomly gathered community with great zeal, and everyone was eager to receive the sacraments, often these were conversions after many, many years. The Germans more and more often burst into the monastery looking for insurgents, partially even living in it, sometimes looking for hands to work, so every day fifteen women from the shelter had to go to the headquarters to peel potatoes.
On August 13 in the morning at 7 am, the Germans took almost all lay people from our shelters, leaving some of the women and children, threatening us with evacuation in the near future. Meanwhile, the Germans are also getting ready to leave the burning Warsaw, and our brave women from the shelters used to help with packing things and carrying the bodies of German soldiers to the burial grounds. On August 23, strong fights around our church and the increasing threat due to the cannon set on August 20, forced the priest chaplain to transfer the Blessed Sacrament to the chapel of St. Joseph inside the monastery. Around noon, the Germans burst the gate and from the inner garden they pierced a hole in the wall on the premises of the University of Warsaw, declaring that our monastery and all adjacent territory were under occupation. We learned that, allegedly, due to the suspicion of hiding the insurgents, our monastery and the church were to be set on fire and destroyed, it was only half an hour before the sentence was carried out, which was suspended by one of the generals until the rightness and suspicion were clearly convinced. More and more German soldiers wandered around the monastery, occupying mainly the first floor, we were under the constant control of the German guard. The Blessed Sacrament for the night was transferred to the shelter, and the next day the inner sacristy was changed into a chapel, where the altar and tabernacle were placed in a deep vaulted niche. A hole in the wall made it possible to communicate with people evacuated from Warsaw, who slept on the grounds of the University and came to our windows asking for water, dressings, medicines … they were bringing their babies to bathe them before they went on their wanderings, fortunately we had a well in the monastery. Sometimes we introduced someone from the thirsty to the chapel, so that he would draw strength in silent prayer at the feet of the Lord Jesus. The crowds moved on until late at night.
On September 7, three doctors asked to admit the insurgent hospital from Konopczyńskiego Street to our roof, and the next day in the morning they started carrying the wounded and sick through the hole in the wall. Another kitchen and laundry facility for this hospital had been opened, but the food items were nearing completion. A group of nurses and a few people from a shelter under a military convoy organized a trip to abandoned homes for food and to supply our pantry again. Our sisters tirelessly served the sick, washed, dressed and prepared for death, who often visited the hospital located in our chapter house and the adjacent corridor. On September 14, the ZUS hospital from Czerniakowska Street comes to us and the religious choir, the chapel of the Sacred Heart, and the courtyard are assigned to their disposal. University buildings are on fire, posing a serious new threat to our lofts with rich entablature and partially devoid of roof tiles.
On September 17, the third hospital comes to us – St. Roch, because during the night a bomb destroyed the first and second floors, burying many sick people under the rubble. The sick occupy a wide, vaulted lower corridor. The Germans threw a grenade at people trying to secure the windows to the shelters – two of our employees were killed on the spot, others were seriously and dangerously wounded, because the grenade was poisoned (gas gangrene). Soon we visited hospitals, because on September 18, in the morning, German cars began to take our wounded away amidst general uproar and terror. The Dominican Sisters also left our convent and headed for Wola. This forced evacuation continued for the next day, and the Germans showed great haste. The monastery, which had sheltered several hundred people in the last few weeks, was deserted. We stayed only with the Carmelite nuns from Łódź and a dozen or so lay people. It grew quiet in the monastery, but SS men burst in more and more often. The insurgent action was moving away from the monastery, only the destructive actions of the Germans, the so-called The “cow” worked constantly, systematically destroying the city. The sea of flames grew and surrounded us. A dangerous moment for the monastery was the fire of the Potocki Palace adjacent to our choir, whole sparks fell through the windows onto the wooden floor and dense entablature in the attic, the flames licked our walls. The only salvation was the prayer of the cross drawn in the air with a small statue of the miraculous Mother of God of Montaigu. Choking smoke pressed in everywhere, and drunk SS men circled the monastery, robbing what they could. Our situation became more and more difficult, and it improved a little when the SS men left Warsaw and Wehrmacht troops replaced them. There were many Catholics in the Rhineland among them who had very different opinions about the convent and the nuns.
On October 2, all sounds of the fight ceased, an ominous silence announced the end of the uprising, and these assumptions were soon confirmed. The insurgent army surrendered, pacts were pending, and on October 5 the insurgents were taken prisoner. Several sisters went to the city to look for a possibility to evacuate our sick and saw the march of the insurgent army. It made a strange impression on the watching sisters who did not survive a single day during the uprising in “free” Warsaw. These emaciated Polish heroes walked like victors, and on the contrary, the German soldiers who led them, clearly depressed, looked defeated. There were crowds of civilians forced to evacuate in the streets, no crying or groans were heard, they all walked with some determination, leaving all their possessions to the flames to burn.
The military authorities of the monastery ordered the evacuation of the monastery, setting the deadline until October 10. On that day, the Carmelite nuns left Warsaw, going to Łowicz in the car they had acquired by Father Sixtus. That evening, an ambulance took our sick sisters to the hospital in Wola, and the rest of the sisters received permission to stay until October 15, in order to be able to pack antique church apparatuses, paintings, books, etc. Rhenish Catholics who themselves hurt over what was happening. Many church items were saved by the chaplain, Father Jan Schultze, by carrying liturgical vessels, apparatuses, etc. from burned and abandoned churches.
On October 5, most of the sisters left the convent and Warsaw, going to Łowicz to the Bernardine sisters, however, seven more sisters were allowed to stay to pack and secure the rest of their belongings; the chaplain remained with the sisters, so that they would not be deprived of holy mass.
On the feast of Christ the King on October 29, the last Holy Mass was celebrated, the Blessed Sacrament was consumed, the lamp in front of the tabernacle went out, and the sisters left for Krakow. Soon the monastery stood empty.
On January 23, 1945, the first sisters returned, and on February 8, the first Holy Mass was celebrated in the saved church.
1 The report was prepared on the basis of her own memoirs and of sister Maria-Kazimiera Fertner, written in 1944 and 1945. 2 The author’s brother Konrad. 3 Among them, she was Zofia Kossak-Szczucka and Zofia Cierniakowa with their daughters. Typescript, original, April 1967, IH PAN.
Source: https://lekarzepowstania.pl/osoba/maria-niklewiczowna/