JULIEN BRYAN'S

[Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Applause] I've just returned from Warsaw for two weeks while in the besieged city I photographed the struggles and Agony of a people faced with the horror of Modern War I arrived in Warsaw the seventh day of the war to find a third of the city already as shambled the situation was far more serious than the meager censored news reports had indicated the Polish government and with it all foreign correspondents had fled Warsaw 2 days before these were the only pictures made in the city during The Siege barricades were being thrown up throughout the town everyone had to help and soldiers conscripted civilians on the streets putting them to work I saw one man who was stopped six times on his way home with a loaf of bread it took him all afternoon to get back to his family by the time I arrived warso had already been the target for hundreds of bombing rids rails from the trolley car system were torn up from the streets and replanted as tank traps the newspapers and radio were giving reports of army victories to keep up civilian morale of the progress of the war outside the city we received only false reports but suddenly we knew the truth on the 10th day soldiers started flooding back retreating Warsaw was almost surrounded the bridges over the Vistula were the main military objectives of the air Raiders but although thousands of bombs were dropped no Bridge was permanently put out of commission I spent much of my time ducking into cellers or German planes were almost constantly in the sky and huge craters were blasted in the streets sometimes almost at my feet bombs did great damage to buildings and morale but artillery fire was far more deadly and neither NE man nor Beast was safe on the street when one part of the City was destroyed by small incendiary bombs the people who escaped would search for some relative or friend they huddled together perhaps drawing some courage from contact with their fellow sufferers it was pitiful for in groups like this a bomb could rub out scores of lives between 3 and 400 enemy planes a day were overhead by the 12th day it was absurd even to sound alarms for there was always an air raid the 15th found a great shortage of food stores had kept open so long as there was anything to sell then the City established bread lines where more than half the population lined up for their daily rations people were constantly moving sometimes saving the least useful but most prized possessions from the debris of their hom demoralized they shifted about the city seeking safety they were lucky who owned a horse and wagon because the entire family even to the house pets could be moved together with enough Necessities to keep them alive but any sort of vehicle would do while a few carded unnecessary things most of the refugees saved their bed clothing almost by Instinct by this time the German air force which had outnumbered the Polish planes by 20 to1 had left not a defending ship in the sky German planes dive low over the as they attacked polish anti-aircraft batteries actually made many direct hits about 50 German planes all told were brought down while I was in Warsaw incendiary bombs took comparatively few lives but they left hundreds of thousands homeless in their wake remained only the smoking Embers it was almost impossible to put the fire out the water mains had been blown up at times machine Gunners tried their Marksmanship zooming low over the city after they had dropped their cargos of Destruction a new type bomb appeared a 500 Pounder with Delayed Action fuse each afternoon at 5:30 enemy air squadrons would drop incendiary bombs and by Nightfall whole sections of the city would be blazing night I roam through the city photographing blocks of closely packed Apartments which were plan blackouts were completely ineffectual and the fires lighted up the city for miles [Music] around many churches in Warsaw were damaged in the weeks of The Siege when one direct hit on a military objective was accompanied by 25 or more misses I made these scenes on a Sunday afternoon the church had been struck during mass that morning [Music] [Music] [Music] this hospital was hit five times the day before I photographed it and I followed the returning surgeons and nurses as they inspected the damage wounded civilian victims of earlier Air Raids in the city had occupied these beds when this raid came it was like a grim Avenger relentlessly determined that they should not Escape that they should find no peace from the head nurse I learned the details she had been on constant Duty 7 days and seven nights the patients had been moved as quickly as possible in the operating room surgeons had been ushering a new life into this world of death for this was warsaw's largest maternity hospital when The Siege had begun the hospital had taken in other patients as a gesture of mercy so it had been unusually crowded at the time of the raid but there had been more than 50 mothers with babes only a few days old when the bomb started falling most of these mothers were removed from the wards and taken to the cellers there they sat on the cold dank tile floor holding their newborn infants on their laps 4 days old and already a casualty of War here were youngsters with life just starting being hidden away from Death this story almost missed being told the pictures you have been seeing were in that developing tank but I had moved them across the room to a drive half an hour before the bomb Struck it was the 21st day and I was leaving that city of sorrow in the fields outside was the most tragic scene I ever witnessed seven women had been machine guned from the air while digging potatoes beside one mother's body a stunned child waited for what might happen next even as I passed the peasants were returning to the potato field they knew that if they dug they might be machine guns but if they didn't but they would surely [Music] starve I questioned the residence of a small suburb lying on the outskirts of Warsaw when they learned that I was an American photographer somehow they seemed to believe that I had come all the way from the United States to help them but I could do no more than capture the record WR hitten in their faces dazed angry magnificent one woman explained that the ples flew low just above the treetop spraying the fleeing women with machine gun bullets still another told of nine who were killed by shellfire as they stood in a bread line many of the middle-aged were Sullen and angry youngsters were half resentful half resigned while their Elders turned to prayer these are the faces of a Nation besieged these helpless civilians were the real victims and the unhappy Heroes of the war of Siege may God have mercy on them [Music]