August 5, 1944 Massacre in Wola The Day Dirlewanger’s Men Arrived in Warsaw

The morning of August 5th, 1944 marks one of the darkest days in the history of Warsaw. It was on this day that the SS Dirlewanger Brigade, made up of convicted criminals and sadists, began its genocidal rampage through the Wola district during the Warsaw Uprising. Their mission wasn’t military. It was extermination.

A City Uprising Met with Slaughter

The Warsaw Uprising had erupted just days earlier on August 1st, as the Polish resistance bravely stood up against the German occupation. But by August 5th, Hitler had personally ordered that Warsaw be made an example not just crushed militarily, but annihilated. The goal was to wipe the city off the map, starting with its civilians.

That task fell to Oskar Dirlewanger, a man whose unit was composed of murderers, rapists, and the most violent criminals pulled from prisons. These were not soldiers. They were executioners in uniform, sent not to fight, but to burn, destroy, and slaughter indiscriminately.

St. Lawrence Church Blood in the House of God

One of the earliest and most horrifying sites of mass killing was St. Lawrence Church (Kościół św. Wawrzyńca), a historic structure on Wolska Street, standing at the center of Wola. It was used by the Polish resistance as a strongpoint, but when Dirlewanger’s men approached, supported by tanks and flame throwers, the defenders were overwhelmed.

But the violence didn’t stop there. Inside and around the church, hundreds of civilians, women, children, elderly were massacred. Some were gunned down after being forced to lie on the ground, others were set on fire, witnesses later described blood running down the church steps. This was a sanctuary turned slaughterhouse.

That day a Catholic priest lying in a hospital in the Wola area witnessed this scene: 

“The Germans took the house opposite and executed all the inhabitants on the pavement in front of it, I suppose about 60 to 100 people. I also saw how the Germans grabbed hold of one woman with a small child who in fear was visibly running away from the burning house, and threw them both back into the flames."

Wolska Street A Corridor of Death

Wolska Street, one of the main arteries of the district, became a death corridor. Civilians were dragged out of cellars and apartments, lined up against walls, and executed on the spot. Mass executions took place at multiple addresses often in factories, courtyards, and even homes. Those who resisted or tried to hide were burned alive when buildings were doused in fuel and set alight. Entire families vanished in minutes.

Polish survivor account said later on after the war:

“They machine-gunned people in a factory yard, then lit them on fire. I walked over corpses for hours, the smell unbearable.”

Górczewska Street Where Unheard Ghosts Still Linger

Along Górczewska Street, the killings were methodical and relentless. On Górczewska 15, one of the few surviving pre-war buildings, civilians were executed in its courtyard. It still stands today as a silent, eerie reminder of the atrocities committed here. One can walk past it and not know that the walls once echoed with screams and gunfire. Dirlewanger’s men, along with Kaminski’s RONA collaborators, often took girls and women into buildings for rape before execution. Survivors told of hearing sickening laughter as atrocities occurred just meters away. The streets reeked of blood, smoke, and rot.

On the 5th the SS began to move into Wola proper areas of dense working class housing small to medium sized factories mostly civilians. No real targets of military significance. The first to be attacked were the red brick Wawelberg blocks at Górczewska 15 in Wola. German troops surrounded the buildings and sealed the gates within minutes of their arrival. Hand grenades were lobbed into the large basements and the huge complex was set on fire. There was barely enough time for residents inside to think, those trapped upstairs tried to jump to safety. Those on the ground floor tried to get out the doors but were shot as they emerged. People next door could hear the cries for help and the screams of the dying but could do nothing to help them. 

A German officer later wrote in his journal at end of war later found by family: 

“Dirlewanger's men were slaughtering everyone, raping women in front of their children, setting people on fire. It wasn’t war, it was a massacre.”

Between August 5 and 7, it’s estimated that 30,000 to 40,000 civilians were murdered in Wola. Bodies were often left unburied, later set on fire with fuel to hide the evidence. The smell of burning human flesh hung over the city. Entire neighborhoods once vibrant, multicultural, and full of life were wiped out street by street.

Dirlewanger’s actions in Wola were just the start. Over the coming weeks, his brigade would continue through Ochota, Mokotów, and other parts of Warsaw, repeating the same pattern of mass rape, looting, torture, and slaughter. But Wola was the first to fall and it fell with a fury so intense that even hardened Wehrmacht officers were horrified.

Today Remember the Victims, Not Just the Ruins

I walk down Górczewska Street or past St. Lawrence Church today, and it may look like a normal Warsaw neighborhood. But beneath every cobblestone and behind every building is a grave that gives me goosebumps that these ragged uniformed wreaking of vodka burned their way through a city. 

Let August 5th be a day of remembrance, not just for Poland, but for the world.The atrocities committed here were not abstract horrors; they happened on these streets, to real people, with names, faces, and families. Most guides in Warsaw will not talk about this because they don’t want to talk about these words. I do and will, if we ignore it, it will disappear. 

Remember Wola. Remember August the 5th. Remember the victims. Honor Warsaw’s sacrifice. 

We must never allow silence to bury them again.

Photo above is of Battalion "Kampfgruppe Meyer" from the Dirlewanger Sonderkommando marching along Chlodna Street towards the city center, after the Wola Massacre.

Led by Herbert Meyer, SS-Hauptsturmführer who led Kampfgruppe Meyer in the Wola massacre, under his superior officer Oskar Dirlewanger, Meyer and his 365 men responsible for some of the worst atrocities on Wolska Street. In Belarus, his company rounded up civilians, women, children, elderly then locking them in barns, raping them, and setting them ablaze. Led the first combat group from Dirlewanger during the Wola massacre. Testimonies from SS non-com Wagner state: orders were read to “burn everything” and “spare no one” Witnesses reported patients in hospitals set on fire and infants bayoneted or bashed with rifle butts to save ammunition. Also along their side was another man under Oskar Dirlewanger's command, Josef Steinhauer. Commander of the 2nd Battalion who joined Meyer and rest of Dirlewanger's men on the 7th of August. They would leave mountains of corpses and a city burning only to move on to the City Center and Stare Miasto, Old Town.