Warsaw Under Siege — Operating Without Morphine
In late September 1939, after weeks of siege, Warsaw lies dying. The Luftwaffe methodically pounds the city: on 25 September, sometimes called "Black Monday," hundreds of aircraft unload their bombs, striking water points, markets, and hospitals as well. Several hospitals full of the wounded are destroyed; wards overflow, and the injured pile up on blankets laid directly on the floor.
In these facilities, medicine, dressings, and water are running out. Morphine is being exhausted, and surgeons must sometimes operate and amputate with makeshift means. Doctors and nurses work for dozens of hours on end, sleeping fully clothed between operations.
An exhausted chief physician must choose: press on with treatment at all costs under appalling conditions, safeguard what remains of the supplies by leaving the city before it falls, or plead with the command for a swift surrender to stop the slaughter of the wounded.
Under the bombs of the siege of Warsaw, what does an overwhelmed hospital physician, short of everything, do?
Warsaw's medical staff stayed at their posts: doctors and nurses continued to treat and operate on the wounded, often without anesthesia or running water, until the city capitulated on 28 September 1939. The siege caused around 25,000 civilian deaths and thousands more among the soldiers; at least nine hospitals were destroyed by the bombing. The dedication of the Polish medical corps, caring for patients under the bombs in inhuman conditions, remained one of the symbols of the capital's resistance during September 1939.
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