Amid smoke, rubble, and gunfire, a nine-year-old girl ran for her life.

Her code name was KAJTEK.
She was the youngest soldier in the Polish Home Army.
And she was moving through one of the most concentrated civilian massacres of World War II.

To understand why what happened in Wola was so extreme, the story must begin two weeks earlier—far from Warsaw.

At 12:42 p.m., a bomb exploded at Hitler’s Wolf’s Lair in East Prussia.

Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg had carried it in a briefcase, part of Operation Valkyrie, a coordinated attempt by German officers to kill Hitler and end the war.

Hitler survived.

The heavy oak table shielded him from the blast. Four others died. Hitler emerged shaken, wounded—and consumed by rage.

What followed was a purge. Thousands were arrested. Many were tortured. Some were executed publicly, their deaths filmed for Hitler to watch.

The assassination attempt did not weaken him.
It radicalized him.

Hitler survived the bomb—and emerged consumed by rage.

Less than two weeks later, Warsaw rose in armed rebellion.

The Polish Home Army........

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)