Liquidation of the insurgent hospitals in Warsaw's Old Town

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The liquidation of the insurgent hospitals in Warsaw’s Old Town was a mass killing carried out by German forces under Heinz Reinefarth and Oskar Dirlewanger on 2 September 1944. It happened as the Warsaw Uprising was being crushed and the Old Town was being emptied of fighters and civilians.

Context and evacuation
- After two weeks of defense, the insurgents began retreating on 1 September. In the following hours, most fighters (about 4,500 to 5,000) went through the sewers to Śródmieście, while around 800 people, mainly soldiers from the People’s Army and the Jewish Combat Organization, reached Żoliborz. Many lightly wounded insurgents and some medical staff left with them.
- On 2 September, German troops entered the parts of the Old Town abandoned by the insurgents. Early that morning, German planes dropped leaflets telling civilians to leave within two hours or the area would be razed. Germans fought with the last insurgent rear guards as they moved out. Air raids on abandoned quarters followed as the Germans advanced.
- About 2,500 severely wounded insurgents who could not evacuate through the sewers, along with some medical staff, remained behind. Roughly 1,500 wounded soldiers were in hospitals and medical points across the district, including the central hospital in the Raczyński Palace (7 Długa Street, about 450 wounded), St. Hyacinth’s Church (about 200), the hospital at 23 Miodowa Street (about 150), the hospital at 25 Podwale Street in the basement of the Krzywa Latarnia restaurant (about 100), the hospital of Wigry and Gustaw battalions at 1/3 Kiliński Street (about 60), the Warsaw Charity Society building at 10 Freta Street (about 60), and the hospital at 46 Podwale Street in the Czarny Łabędź building (about 30). The rest hid among civilians or were killed in the morning air raids.

Violence and killings
- Initially, German soldiers sometimes treated wounded people better, but around 11:00 AM a decision to exterminate the wounded seems to have been made by the German command, likely by Reinefarth, with support from the commander in Warsaw. The hospitals were stormed; medical staff and lightly wounded patients were told to leave within 5–10 minutes. After the deadline, the hospitals were set on fire and the wounded were murdered, often in brutal ways.
- Nurses and wounded women were sometimes subjected to sexual violence. Testimonies describe scenes of soldiers with bayonets, women crying, and the deliberate killing of the wounded, including burning in some hospital buildings.
- Lightly wounded patients and surviving staff were usually forced to leave with the crowds. German attackers conducted “selections,” looking for insurgents among the refugees and often shooting those suspected of belonging to the uprising. In one area, many wounded were shot and their bodies burned. A bathtub of ashes later found in the ruins testified to the scale of killings.

Aftermath in the Old Town
- By the time the Old Town fell, at least 3,000 people had been killed, including nearly 1,000 wounded insurgents. Some reports put the death toll as high as 5,000 to 7,000.
- Civilians were driven from basements and shelters, beaten, looted, and sometimes raped. They had two main escape routes through Castle Square to the north and through Traugutt Park and nearby streets to the warehouses on Stawki and on to Wola.
- After two days, the Germans allowed aid to reach the surviving wounded still hiding in the ruins. The besieged district was then heavily burned and looted, and the remaining civilians and wounded were pushed toward destruction or deportation.
- In the days that followed, about 75,000 Warsaw refugees from various districts were sent to the Pruszków camp, one of the area’s largest evacuation centers. From Pruszków, many Old Town residents were deported to German concentration camps.
- Orders from higher authorities had already called for moving able-bodied residents to work in camps, with women with small children sometimes spared for civilian labor. The liquidation of the Old Town hospitals was part of a broader effort to destroy the uprising and remove Warsaw’s population to facilitate German control.