Conditions here in Warsaw are bad, very bad. A man like yourself – young, healthy – is in constant danger. You can be picked up at any moment and sent to a forced-labor camp. You must be very careful. Avoid visiting your family. […]

"What you need are new papers. Would you have the nerve to live under a false name?"

In June 1940, the Germans staged a man hunt in the streets of Warsaw and seized about 20,000 people who were taken to three large police stations where they were searched, questioned, and had their documents verified. All males under 40 were sent as forced labor to Germany. All girls between 17 and 25 were shipped to East Prussia for farm labor. All those whose documents were not in perfect order, who could not give a satisfactory account of their ancestry, employment, and political sympathies, or could not clear themselves of charges made against them, were sent to concentration camps. More than 4,000 men and 500 women were sent to the concentration camp at Oswiecim where they were beyond all succor.

What frequently happened in Poland was that the members of the Underground who derailed trains, blew up storehouses, set fire to railway cars and committed other acts of sabotage, went scot-free. The local population would then become the victims of German terrorism and revenge. In December 1939, for instance, two Germans were killed in the lobby of the Warsaw Café Club. They had possessed considerable information about the Underground and had various contacts with informers and spies.

The sentence was carried out by order of the Underground authorities. Those assigned to the task escaped. The Germans, however, arrested and subsequently shot 200 Poles who had no connection with the incident and merely happened to live in the vicinity of the café. Two hundred innocent people were murdered because of this one act.