In Europe

was in the Caucasus, and after that I joined the Red Army.’
    The sky is turning a hot red, the croaking of the frogs is deafening. He talks about old Warsaw. ‘Today Warsaw is a monocultural city, which is some people's ideal. But before 1939 it was a typically multicultural society. Those were the city's most productive years. We lost that multi-cultural character during the war; along with all the rest; that was one of the greatest losses for this city, and for this country.’
    By August 1944, Matwin was a lieutenant in the Red Army. He witnessed the second great uprising in Warsaw from close up; this time the revolt was led by Polish partisans and was fought out all over the city. ‘We were right outside Warsaw, on the other bank of the Vistula, but we couldn't do a thing.’ He still finds it hard to talk about it. ‘I don't think I'm the only one. Almost every Pole here, looking back on things, has mixed emotions about it. It was a bitter tragedy. It cost us a large part of the city, and tens of thousands of lives. They fought like tigers all over town, using the strangest weapons. The girls in particular did the craziest things. Almost all of them were killed. The whole thing was very badly planned.’
    But would it not have been easy for the Red Army to intervene? Wasn't that what the partisans were waiting for? So why were they left to their fate?
    Matwin sighs deeply. ‘There's a romantic version of the uprising, the one that's always told, the one they've made movies about. And there's also a political version. The Russians should have intervened, even if only for humanitarian reasons. But it would have been highly inconvenient for them, both politically and strategically. The uprising, in fact, was also aimed at them. There was absolutely no contact beforehand between the rebels and us, the Polish officers in the advancing Red Army. That's very strange, don't you think? When your allies are on their way, and you're planning a revolt, you try to coordinate things, don't you? But all the instructions came from the Polish government in exile, far away in London.What they wanted, we thought, was to establish a bridgehead of their own in Warsaw, against the Russians. That's what it was about.’
    In the municipal museum I had seen a few of the weapons used by the rebels: a club made from a steel spring, a long chain with a heavy bolt at one end, home-made crow's feet for puncturing tyres. There was also a transmitter dropped by the RAF. Beside it, pencilled farewell letters from partisans who knew, after two endless months, that the end was near.
    ‘Was it really impossible for the army to do anything to help Warsaw's partisans?’ I ask again. We fall silent. Then Matwin says: ‘If the Soviets had really wanted to, they could have done it. Sure. Those boys and girls in Warsaw were unbelievably brave. But politics was the
schweinerei
.’
    In the end, the SS and the
Wehrmacht
killed almost quarter of a million of Warsaw's inhabitants during the uprising. Only five months later, on 17 January, 1945, did the Soviets cross the river and enter the abandoned ruins of the city. Of the thirty-five million Poles, more than six million – half of them Jews – did not survive the war. Busy, cheerful Nalewki Street, along with hundreds of others, was wiped off the face of the earth. Almost nothing of the city was left, except its name.

Chapter THIRTY-FOUR
Leningrad
    ON DISPLAY IN ST PETERSBURG'S MUNICIPAL MUSEUM IS THE THIN , light-blue diary of eleven-year-old Tanya Savitsyeva. The only entries for 1941–2 are these:
    Zyenya died, 28 December, 12.00 a.m. Grandmother died, 25 January, 1942, 3 p.m. Leka died, 17 March, 5 p.m. Uncle Vasya died, 13 April, 2 p.m. Uncle Aleksei, 10 May. Mama died, 13 May, 7.30 a.m. The Savitsyeva family is dead.
    Following page:‘They are all dead.’ Following page:‘I am here alone.’ Tanya was evacuated and died in an orphanage, in 1944.
    ‘I've lived in St Petersburg all my life,’ says Anna Smirnova. ‘I was twenty-one when it all started, on Sunday, 22 June, 1941. It was a beautiful day, and I remember how angry I was when I was awakened early that morning by the droning of whole swarms of planes. I wanted to sleep! After breakfast, we heard on the radio at noon that the war had begun. We weren't even surprised. We had talked about it a great deal, the Finnish war was already over, blackout drills had already been held. All the older people had been through a war