- [first lines]
- Stach Mazur: I was born here in the slums, on the outskirts of Warsaw. I grew up in poverty. Here I made my first friends and had my first lessons. I often had it rough as a kid, because I couldn't tell my friends from my enemies. I was too trusting and relied on my swift legs and strong fists. My Ma kept me on a short leash and tried to push me off to work. But I took it as typical woman's nagging, preferring to play knives with my buddies instead.
- Dorota: Do you know what the People's Guard is? Our Workers' Party? You know who it is you want to join?
- Stach Mazur: Yes. Well, maybe not exactly, but - please don't laugh - but, I feel it.
- Dorota: I'm not laughing. You may make a good member of the guard.
- Sekula: There once was a wise bearded man by the name of Karl Marx. He once wrote that workers were paid just barely enough to renew their strength. These days we don't even get that. We have to scrounge to survive.
- Stach Mazur: Can't we workers do anything?
- Sekula: If you only knew, my friend, how much blood has been spilled over this simple arithmetic - among other things. Workers fight for their rights. They always have.
- Dorota: Friends! Friends, the Union of Fighting Youth is being formed, the combat organization of Polish youth. We will not lay down our arms! We have blood, tears, and destruction to avenge. And now, not sometime in the future! They murder us! They send us to rot in camps! Let's take revenge! Let's fight for a free Poland! For a just Poland! Young workers, make contact with the Union of Fighting Youth! Join the People's Guard, the militant arm of the Polish people! Don't wait to be liberated! To arms! Death to the occupiers!
- Jasio Krone: When I went in the army, I had a tool chest too. A painted one. A recruit's chest. That was in the czar's day. I was stationed at the Manchurian border. Nothing but mountains and steppes. You could breathe freely then. I was young in those days and strong as an an ox! It felt like if I just got a solid footing, I could carry the world on my shoulders. I bet you feel the same now, young man, eh?
- Stach Mazur: Where are your dogs, Krone?
- Jasio Krone: The boss gave them to the dogcatcher. He turned me out and gave my dogs to the dogcatcher. You see, Stach, this is my last day here. Tell me, how does a man live without work?
- Stach Mazur: Old age isn't treating you well, Krone.
- Jasio Krone: You'll be old one day too. Not that I wish it on you, because I've taken a liking to you. But as it was, so will it be.
- Stach Mazur: Come now. Not necessarily.
- Sekula: Don't forget: I wasn't here. You didn't see me.
- Sekula: Hello Dorota. I'd like you to meet this young man. A new recruit, and not a bad one, I believe.
- Dorota: Time will tell. What shall we call you? Tiger? Panther? Poppy? Animal, vegetable or mineral?
- Stach Mazur: This is no laughing matter. Give me an ordinary human name.
- Dorota: You have a bit of the country about you. I'll call you "Bartek."
- Stach Mazur: Then Bartek it is.
- Dorota: They say there's only a handful of us. But we don't care what those people say, who turned our country over into the hands of criminals. We are the soldiers in the great army of the people, fighting the Nazi invaders in the sacred cause of freedom. No one ever stands alone in a just war. The Red Army is with us.
- Stach Mazur: Dorota. She supplied us with pamphlets and guns. She gave us advice. My respect for her collided in my thoughts with a longing to stroke her hair.
- Dorota: Have you gone mad? To do a job in your own area? Where they see you every day? It was irresponsible. It's against the basic rules of the underground.
- Stach Mazur: Attention! This is Dorota, the political officer in our area.
- Mundek: You mean, the "officeress."
- Dorota: We've heard a thing or two about you. Seems you're a good shot. You captured a pistol. May I see it?
- Jacek (as Ryszard Kotas): Careful. It might go off.
- Dorota: Filthy as an old rag. You have to take care of a gun. You know what it takes to get one.
- Mundek: Five minutes of sweat and fast legs.
- Dorota: Our organization is a combat group, not a gang of gunslingers.
- Stach Mazur: [to Jancek] See?
- Dorota: We're not concerned about the Jerries. We're concerned about you. We want you to retain your humanity through all this.
- Sekula: The ghetto rose up today. I've come to say goodbye to you, Dorota, and to my boys. We must help our Jewish comrades.
- Foreman Ziarno: Gentlemen! Gentlemen! Have you heard? The Yids have actually started fighting!
- Dorota: You're a strange one. Comrades say you're brave, yet you're such a child.
- Stach Mazur: Me brave? I get scared. Very scared. When I think how I too may be shot before this is over and never live to see my future. And how, if I got killed, I'd never see you again.
- Dorota: Could it be just our imagination? Could it be it's easier to die for a cause than to live for it?
- [kiss]
- Dorota: My real name is Eve.
- Stach Mazur: I'll be damned. It is worth fighting for. It is worth living. It is worth living.
- Dorota: It is curfew time. You can't go out in the street.
- [kiss]
- Shopkeeper: They barged in and turned the place upside down. Who are they? Germans or what? The police? Rats looking for Jews to sell? I don't know who they are. Nowadays, scum breeds like rabbits.
- New Underground Recruit: [final lines] Do you sell down feathers?
- Stach Mazur: Yes. I sell down feathers.
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