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Although some will say
that the past should be forgotten it is difficult to
do so when you are in Poland and impossible to do
when you are in Warsaw.
For a city that can
trace it's foundations back to the 13th Century a
period of only six years cost the Polish people
dearly and a period of only 63 days (the period of
the Warsaw Uprising) changed the face of Warsaw
forever.
By 1944 the end of
the war was in sight with Germany struggling to
fight on both fronts. After five years of occupation
the Polish Underground (Armia Krajowa-A.K.) started
making plans to fight back against the Nazi
occupation. The Uprising was only meant to last
seven days by which time the A.K. were certain they
would receive assistance from either the Russians or
the Western Allied forces.
However, the uprising
lasted an astonishing 63 days. No support was ever
provided by any of the Allied countries (even though
the Red Army were stationed on the other side of the
Vistula). The duration of the fighting is even more
impressive considering that Warsaw's insurgents
numbered 40,000 but this figure included 4,000 women
and even some children. The insurgents were poorly
equipped and only had enough weapons for 2,500
fighters.
Without any
assistance the Uprising was doomed as they had to
hold out against up to 30,000 fully equipped Germans
soldiers supported by tanks, planes and artillery.
After the "heroic sixty three days" the AK had no
choice but to surrender. Hitler's response was to
systematically level the city of Warsaw with
dynamite charges bored into the walls of buildings
all over the city.
It can be said that
the Uprising more than any other event of the Second
World War shaped the face of Warsaw for the next
half century.
In 2004 the Warsaw
Uprising Museum opened and is a must see for any
visitor to Warsaw. This modern museum utilises
interactive displays, video footage as well as
original artifacts from this tragic period of Warsaw's
history. All of the exhibits are translated in
English.
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It's tempting to be
sentimental about these times but it's hard to
resist the thought that the older residents of
Warsaw each has a story to tell.
Walking through the
streets you may stumble across a bunch of flowers on
the pavement propped against a wall or a red and
white Polish ribbon and if you cast your eyes
upwards you will invariably see a tiny plaque on the
wall commemorating the spot where Poles were
executed by German hit squads. The information they
display generally follows the same pattern i.e. date
of the execution, number of people murdered and
possibly a brief description of the event that took
place.
The Pawiak Museum at 24/26 Dzielna Street is another
museum dedicated to these dark years and used to be
a Gestapo prison during the war. Approximately
120,000 people passed through the prison gates of
which 37,000 were shot to death with another 60,000
sent to German death camps.
A dead tree remains outside the museum covered in
hundreds of obituaries some dating back to 1944.
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