TEXTUAL CONTENT OF AN AUDIO GUIDE TO

THE WARSAW RISING MUSEUM

1. Cloakroom – Introduction

Welcome to the Warsaw Rising Museum – a museum dedicated to one of the

greatest battles of the Second World War.

On 1 August 1944 about twenty five thousand badly armed underground army

soldiers are about to begin their struggle against superior German forces. Fifty thousand

went on to join the struggle. Over two months of fierce fighting, Polish units managed to

seize a significant part of the city and inflict heavy losses upon the enemy. However, lack of

sufficient support from the Allies, the unquestionable technical superiority of the German

army and enormous casualties, eventually forced the Polish command to end their heroic

struggle after sixty three days. Fighting in the city, planned to last only a few days continued

for over two months. The people of Warsaw did all they could to help insurgents from the

very start of the Rising. They fought street battles, built barricades and organised support

bases. The Germans, threatened by the approaching Eastern Front, sent several select units

to fight the resistance. Their task was to put down the Rising using all available resources,

and by doing so, to send a terrifying signal to the rest of Europe. This led to the total

destruction of the city and numerous acts of genocide. About 180 thousand civilians were

murdered by Adolf Hitler’s soldiers.

We have used the words of Polish Home Delegate and Deputy Prime Minister, Jan

Stanislaw Jankowski, code name “Sobol” (in English, Sable) as the motto for the whole

exhibition: “We wished to be free and to have only ourselves to thank for it.” The whole

complex truth about the five-year occupation of Poland and the two months of the Warsaw

Rising is contained in this one sentence. For the Rising was not a mindless, romantic act of a

group of madmen, but a conscious, though tragic, political decision made by the legal

government of Poland. Having experienced two cruel occupations – German and Soviet –

the Poles were clearly aware what was on the Soviet agenda. They knew that the Red Army,

approaching from the East, was fighting not to liberate Poland, but to exchange Nazi

totalitarianism for their own, Communist totalitarian regime. The Warsaw Rising attempted to

liberate the Polish capital by Polish forces allowing Poles to welcome the advancing Soviet

troops as genial hosts. It was the last attempt to save Poland from Soviet enslavement.

2. The Vestibule

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At the very start of your Museum visit, take note of the anchor sign, combining the

letters “P” and “W” (standing for Polska Walczaca – or Poland Fighting). This sign will be with

us throughout our visit. It has been the official symbol of the Polish Underground State since

1942. Painted almost everyday on the walls of Polish towns, it stood for resistance against

the invaders and the will to fight for freedom.

The Museum building was built between 1904 and1905 at the turn of the twentieth

century. It is one of the few preserved examples of pre-war industrial architecture in Warsaw.

The building originally housed a tram power station. Damaged by the Germans during World

War II, it was completely destroyed during the Warsaw Rising. After the war, despite being

rebuilt as a heat and power plant, the power station complex gradually lost its splendour and

deteriorated.

The decision to locate the Warsaw Rising Museum here marked a new era for this

historic building. New architectural details, designed by Wojciech Obtulowicz, were added

during renovation work. A beautiful brick façade, typical of late nineteenth century industrial

architecture, was revealed. It had been hidden for years under a thick layer of plaster. The

vast yard of the former power station is being transformed into a unique garden – a Freedom

Park – the central feature of which is a 156 metre long Wall of Remembrance. Its grey,

granite columns are inscribed with the names of thousands of insurgents killed in August and

September 1944.

You are also welcome to visit the Jozef Stanek Chapel, where Holy Mass is

celebrated every Sunday at 12.30 by the Museum Chaplain.

3. The Rising 60 years on – Telephones

The Stalinist regime in Poland after the war could not tolerate the truth about the

Waraw Rising, which was intended, after all, to prevent Stalin enslaving Poland. For many

years, the communist authorities falsified the truth about the Rising and those who had

participated in the struggle were persecuted. The Stalinist period from the late 1940s until

1956 was the most difficult. At that time, previous membership of the Home Army was

sometimes enough to merit the death penalty. Following the political thaw in 1956, the

Communist regime stopped criticising the rank and file insurgents, but intensified accusations

against Rising commanders and politicians from the Polish Government in Exile. Only after

the fall of the Communist regime in Poland was it possible to hold an open debate on all

aspects of the Rising and to take the first steps towards constructing the museum.

Unfortunately it took another 15 years until the project was completed in 2004.

The Museum was officially opened on 31 July 2004 – the eve of the 60 th anniversary

of the outbreak of the battle for the capital of Poland. Thousands of surviving Insurgents

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came to Warsaw from all over the country and abroad. They were the first to enter their own

Museum. Memories, thoughts and emotions that had lain hidden for years, came back to

life….

You can use the telephones to listen to the Insurgents’ recollections of that Summer

60 years ago.

4. The Room of the Little Insurgent

Enter the Room of the Little Insurgent through the door on the right. This room is

prepared especially for our young visitors, used for activities and classes for kindergartens

and young school groups. Here they can learn, in a way appropriate to their age, about the

history and the values that guided the Insurgents in 1944. At weekends the room can be

used by individual visitors – parents may leave their children here in the care of experienced

tutors. Among many period toys and games, children can draw, play with replica puppet

theatre from the Rising, build a barricade or re-enact the experiences of their peers in the

Scouts’ Field Postal Service.

Here we also want to show that the reality of the fighting city was equally ruthless and

perhaps even more frightening for the young than for adults. Everyday shootings, bombings,

having to live in cellars – it was all incomprehensible and brought death and terror….

Save the children, ours, yours, Polish, the children of Warsaw…- the insurgent

slogans appealed. So-called milk kitchens were organised from the very start of the Rising,

collecting milk and formulas badly needed by babies and toddlers. Everyone united in an

effort to protect children from the ever-present cruelty of the war.

Initially children were strictly forbidden even to come close to areas where there was

a risk of direct fighting. People tried to keep up the appearances of normal life: they

organised puppet theatres, games and entertainment, illustrated magazines like “Jawnutka”

or “The Children’s Daily” were published. Thanks to these activities, the children were able,

at least for a while, to escape to the worlds of dreams and fantasy.

But not all children watched events from a distance. Many of them in their own way

helped the Insurgents. Some very young people, only 10 years old or just over, who very

often had already lost their families, tried to contribute to victory. Thanks to them, the Scouts’

Field Postal Service was formed immediately in the first days of August.

The numbers of couriers and sewer guides grew every day. They were not allowed to

fight – but they could not be stopped from carrying food parcels, bottles of petrol or

dispatches. This room has been named after one of these child heros – a twelve year old

liaison officer for the “Gozdawa” and “Parasol” battalions – Corporal Witold Modelski, code

name “Warszawiak” (in English Varsovian). He was the youngest Insurgent to be awarded

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the Cross of Valour for his bravery and courage. Tragically he died on 20 September 1944,

while defending one of the last insurgent strongholds at Czerniakow.

In the Little Insurgent Room you can touch almost all of the exhibits. Visitors can play

and learn at the same time. Yet there are also some original exhibits here. For example, a

piece of paper with an eight year old girl’s prayer for her father, who is joining the Rising.

Touched by this gesture, her father put the paper in his wallet which he carried in his left

breast pocket. Shot in combat, the bullet stopped at the paper with the prayer written on it by

his child. He survived the Rising – and after almost 60 years, the author of the prayer

donated it to the museum collection: the ragged edge of the left-hand corner of the paper is a

trace of the bullet that missed its target.

Another original exhibit is a toy – a little wooden train engine. No German patrol paid

attention to a baby in a pram, playing with a toy. So women liaison officers used the train to

hide secret dispatches and carry them safely between the underground command posts.

5. Monument

The central feature of the Museum is a steel monument spanning all levels of the

exhibition. Several metres tall, the obelisk represents "the beating heart of fighting Warsaw."

Each day of the Rising is recorded on the monument and these dates are interspersed with bullet

holes. If you put you ear to the holes you can hear the "sounds of the Rising": the rattle of guns,

fragments of songs, a prayer, radio announcements, bombs falling.

6. The outbreak of war and the occupation

On l September 1939 the German army launched an assault on Poland. The Polish

troops defended themselves with great determination. When, on 17 September, the Red

Army treacherously attacked from the east, the fate of our country was sealed. In autumn 1939

two occupying forces ruled Polish Society: the Soviet Union and the Third Reich.

Warsaw was in a particularly difficult situation. The Germans wanted to destroy Polish

national identity and Warsaw lay at its heart. Between the end of May and the autumn of

1940, in Warsaw, the Germans mounted the so-called AB-Aktion, in English the Extraordinary

Pacification Campaign, aimed at eliminating Polish intellectuals – conducting mass arrests and

executions. Most of those arrested were then shot in Palmiry, a village in the forests outside

Warsaw. On 20 and 21 June 1940, 358 people died there, including the former Speaker of the

Polish Parliament Maciej Rataj and Olympic gold medal winner, Janusz Kusociński.

The other invader – the Soviet Union – had the same aim: to exterminate the Polish

elite. In spring 1940, near Katyn, Miednoje and Charkov, on Stalin's orders, the NKVD murdered

over 20 thousand Polish prisoners of war, mostly Reserve officers. In their civilian lives many of

them were civil servants, teachers, doctors, lawyers, some were scientists or artists...4

From the beginning of the occupation property was unlawfully confiscated. Street names were

changed, and in shop windows, cafes, playgrounds and even on park benches notices saying „Nur

fur Deutsche" (in English Germans Only) started to appear. Every month there were more and

more arrests in the streets of Warsaw, public and secret executions and round-ups which led

to deportation to the Third Reich as forced labour.

7. Polish Underground StateAnd yet, the Polish State survived underground: the President, Government and the

Commander-in-Chief operating in exile. The highest authority in the Polish Underground State

was the Home Delegate of the Government. He was in charge of the underground civil

administration. Its structures organised and supported all areas of public life in spite of bans

imposed by the occupying forces. The extensive network of secret schools deserves special

mention. Thanks to these schools young people were educated up to university level at so-called

"komplety" – secret classes held in private homes. The underground judicial administration was

equally efficient, passing sentences, including the death penalty, on traitors and collaborators. The

Home Army (AK) emerged from the Polish Underground State – it was the biggest underground

army in the whole of occupied Europe. In 1944 its ranks numbered around 400 thousand

soldiers. The main goal of the AK was to fight for independence. The underground army amassed

weapons, carried out training, and conducted sabotage operations and intelligence activities, preparing

for an armed national insurgency.

8. GhettoIn occupied territories all over Europe the Germans treated Jews cruelly and

inhumanely. They were forced into ghettos – the first of which was founded as early as October

1939 in Piotrków Trybunalski. Others soon followed. In autumn 1940 the Germans created the

largest ghetto of all – the Warsaw Ghetto. They detained almost 450 thousand Jews from

Warsaw and the surrounding countryside in a small area, in inhumane conditions. Unlike in

Western Europe, in Poland helping Jews was a capital offence. In January 1942, during a

conference in Wannsee, the Germans adopted the so-called “Final Solution of the Jewish

Problem.” It was an unprecedented plan to murder all Jews in Europe. The liquidation of the

ghettos commenced and Jews were transported to extermination camps. When the Germans

began to liquidate the Warsaw Ghetto, an uprising broke out there. In spite of being poorly

armed and few in number, the Jewish units kept fighting for almost a month – from 19 April

until 16 May 1943. After suppressing the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, the Germans

systematically demolished the ghetto, flattening the whole district.

9. Operation "Tempest"

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In 1943 the war entered a new phase. The allies launched an offensive in Italy and in

the Far East. In the East, after defeating the Germans in the Battle of Kursk, the Red Army

started its march to Berlin. It was simply a matter of time, before the Germans would surrender

to the greater might of the Allied forces. On 25 April 1943 the Soviets broke off their diplomatic

relations with the Polish Government-in-Exile. They used as a pretext the Germans’

discovery of the graves of thousands of Polish Army officers, brutally murdered on Stalin's

orders in the Katyn forest in 1940. Several weeks later, having received information from

collaborators, the Germans arrested the Commander of the Home Army, Gen. Stefan Rowecki

codename "Grot" (in English “arrowhead”). The Polish Commander-in-chief and Prime Minister,

Gen. Władysław Sikorski died a tragic death in an air-crash off Gibraltar. The international

situation in Poland deteriorated significantly. The Allies changed their policy on the Polish

eastern border. The Soviet army, whose march West was supposed to liberate Poland from

the German occupation, turned out not to be Poland’s ally. All these factors forced both the

Government-in-exile, and the Polish underground state to abandon plans for a general

Rising. The Home Army began a sabotage operation code-named "Tempest".

The AK Chief Command’s Operation "Tempest" planned to attack the retreating German

units as the front moved westward, and to gain control over the area and immediately establish

Polish administrative structures there. The idea was that the newly established Polish

authorities would grant Soviet troops permission to pass through Polish territory. When the

Red Army entered the territory of the pre-war Polish state on 4 January 1944, operation

"Tempest" turned into a series of local insurgencies, moving from East to West, along with

the front. One by one, AK units in Wołyń (Volhynia), the area around Vilnius region, in Lviv

and the Lublin region began their struggle. Unfortunately, military successes such as the

liberation of Vilnius and Lviv by the AK, and relatively good cooperation with the Soviet

forces there, did not mean that the political goals of the Operation were met. The final result

always was the same: the Soviet secret police arrested members of the Polish civilian

administration and military commanders who disclosed their identity, and the Home Army

soldiers were forcibly disarmed and either sent to camps deep in Russia or forced to join

Berling’s Army.

10. Before Hour “W”In order to describe the situation in Warsaw just before Hour “W” and during the

subsequent days of the Rising, you will find calendar pages placed among the exhibits. We

encourage you to collect these cards – the full collection covers the period from 27 July to 5

October, each one describes the most important events on that day in the streets of the

invincible city. Collecting the full set of cards will help you learn more about the Warsaw

Rising and will be a special souvenir of your visit to our Museum.

As you cross the white and red line you enter the zone devoted to the last moments before

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the outbreak of the Rising.

At the end of July 1944, when the bad news from the Eastern Front started to reach the

Germans, the German administration and auxiliary services began to evacuate Warsaw. Panic

spread. After a few days, the Germans regained control of the situation and the police forces

together with the SS returned to the city. At the same time in order to prevent an armed riot,

the governor of the Warsaw District, Dr Ludwig Fischer, issued an order summoning 100

thousand Poles to report for work to build defences. The citizens of Warsaw spontaneously

ignored the order. Soviet and Polish communists encouraged people to fight the Germans,

while at the same time criticising the Home Army. The Moscow sponsored Polish Committee of

National Liberation assumed power in the territory captured by the Red Army. The Soviets

reached the Vistula River and rumours spread in the city that they had already entered the

eastern suburbs of Warsaw. As a result, on the afternoon of 31 July, the Home Army

Commander Gen. Tadeusz Komorowski, codename "Bór" (in English “forest”), ", issued an order

to launch armed action after consultations with the Home Delegate of the Polish Government,

Deputy Prime Minister Jan Stanisław Jankowski codename "Soból” (in English “sable”). This

was code-named Hour “W”: 17:00 on Tuesday, l August 1944.

The night before the Rising broke out, there were nearly 50,000 Polish forces in the

Warsaw District of the Home Army. However, they did not have the necessary equipment and

weapons – only 10% of the Insurgents had guns. The Germans were in a rather different

position.

At the end of July 1944 there were almost 20 thousand well-armed and highly trained

soldiers in the German garrison in Warsaw, located at strategic points in the city. The

Germans also possessed reserves of heavy weapons, artillery and an air force. In spite of

being so heavily outnumbered and poorly equipped, on l August the Insurgents began the

struggle that would last for 63 days...

11. Hour “W”

The first clashes broke out three hours before Hour “W”. Even though the element of

surprise was lost, and in spite of problems with weapons and communications, at 17.00

around 25 thousand Home Army soldiers started fighting.

On the first day of the Rising the German units sustained heavy casualties,

approximately 500 soldiers. The losses on the side of the Insurgents were, however, much

heavier, amounting to nearly 2000 fatalities. The areas captured in the first days of combat

did not give the Poles a tactical advantage. Nevertheless, they captured almost 3/4 of their

capital – nearly all of the Old Town, the centre of Żoliborz and a significant part of Śródmieście,

as well as Warsaw’s tallest building at the time – the Prudential building, on the top of which

they raised the Polish flag. Yet the Germans defended themselves in several important

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strongholds, still retaining control over the city. Strategic targets such as bridges, railway

stations, airports, numerous administrative buildings and military barracks remained in

German hands.

12. The Print Shop

From the first months of the occupation, one method of eroding Polish identity was to

close down independent Polish publishing houses and press. The printed word became an

important instrument for the implementation of German policy against the conquered nation.

Throughout the occupation the Germans published almost 40 newspapers and magazines in

Polish. Poles referred to them colloquially as "reptile press". Self-respecting people did not

read them. Articles in these publications frequently undermined the very concept of an

independent Polish state. At the same time the press promoted an ideal image of the

invincible German army and occupation authorities.

Underground presses promptly appeared in response to the growing constraints on

those independent Polish papers that had not yet been closed down. Several secret

organisations began to publish. Their publications drew special attention to German

atrocities hidden from the public and brought news of the successes of the Allied forces.

The underground newspapers also published reassuring and encouraging information

aiming to inspire patriotic attitudes.

The scale of the phenomenon was enormous. In Warsaw itself, during the occupation

over 700 press titles were published as well as numerous books, including the famous Kamienie

na szaniec by Aleksander Kamiński.

The press published during the Warsaw Rising from 1 August to 5 October 1944, was

unlike anything seen before anywhere in the world. A total of 167 press titles were distributed

despite the difficult combat conditions. It was unusual that freedom of speech and democracy

prevailed under such difficult circumstances. Papers appeared representing the whole political

spectrum and authors of different political views published their articles.

The Insurgent press differed from the earlier underground press. Both its size and

volume kept changing constantly. None of the newspapers had a fixed circulation. At its

height in mid-August, the news dailies reached their highest circulation. These included the

"Biuletyn Informacyjny” – Information Bulletin (the Home Delegate’s official newspaper) with

a circulation of 20-28 thousand, and nearly 10 thousand copies of "Rzeczpospolita Polska"

(Polish Republic). Towards the end of the struggle, due to lack of materials, many

newspapers were published as posters and pasted on buildings.

The Press became a very important instrument for influencing the attitude of both the

fighting units and the civilians in the city under siege, cut off from the outside world. It raised

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morale, and brought news about the situation in the city from the rest of the country and abroad.

The news came mainly from foreign radio stations, the Press War Reporters news agency and

the Polish Telegraph Agency, under Stanisław Ziemba’s editorial control.

After the Second World War, in spite of the Polish Parliament’s declarations of 1947,

and the provisions of the 1952 Constitutions ensuring freedom of speech and press freedom,

the Polish government introduced far-reaching censorship, administered by the Central

Office for the Control of Press, Publications and Shows. This censorship was defied by the so-

called “second circulation”. Active from 1975-1989 “the second circulation” drew directly from

the Polish tradition of underground publications. Thanks to these unofficial editorial efforts a

number of valuable books were published, including Tadeusz Zenczykowski’s The Lonely

Struggle of Warsaw and Tadeusz Komorowski’s The Underground Army.

13. The Insurgents' Joy

The soldiers and the inhabitants of the city were euphoric about the outbreak of the

Rising. People were convinced that victory was in sight. They were intoxicated by the idea of

freedom regained after five years of brutal occupation. They were happy finally to be able to

fight the much-hated enemy in the open. The Polish civil administration, operating underground

up to that point, began to operate officially. The people of Warsaw carried out their orders with

dedication. Thanks to the citizens’ spontaneous help, the life of free Warsaw got underway.

Hospitals were established, anti-aircraft defence units were formed, the printing and distribution of

press began, and work was in progress on launching two insurgent radio stations. The whole of

Warsaw was united and took arms to fight for freedom.

According to the plans of the Home Army Command, the Rising was expected to last for

a few days at most, after which the Red Army would enter the city. As a result of a number of

offensive actions, by 4 August, the Insurgents had captured three Warsaw districts:

Śródmieście with a part of Wola, the Old Town and Powiśle; Lower Mokotów; and Żoliborz,

which constituted nearly 3/4 of the city area. However, the Soviets held back. They did not

intend to help the Insurgents. The lack of weapons and ammunition and the constant growth

of the German forces combined with Soviet intransigence, forced the Poles to abandon their

attack and take defensive measures. They awaited support from the Soviet forces on the

east bank of the Vistula.

14. The Lift

While going up in the lift to the Museum mezzanine, you can hear the famous

Insurgent song Hej, chłopcy, bagnet na broń! (in English “Lads! Fix your bayonets!”), written by

Krystyna Krahelska. In 1936, she was the model for the Siren Statue on the Vistula, sculpted by

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Ludwika Nitschowa. You can see a copy of the Statue on the mezzanine.

Through the glass wall of the lift shaft you can see the museum’s collection of original

Insurgent armbands. One of them, marked with No. 1, belonged to the Commander of the

Rising, Gen. Antoni Chruściel codename "Monter" (in English “Mechanic”).

15. Fighting in August

You can now see display cases containing Insurgents’ uniforms and weapons. Home

Army soldiers collected arms throughout the resistance period. The weaponry retained after the

September campaign of 1939 was far from sufficient. They bought weapons and captured them

from the enemy. Allied air-drops also supplied guns and underground workshops manufactured

them, producing, for example, the machine gun "Błyskawica" (in English “Lightning”) and hand

grenades. That is why Insurgent units fought with such a variety of weapons during the struggle.

The exhibition shows the most interesting and the most typical weapons of the time. You can see

one of the most effective machine guns of the Second World War – the German MG 42, but also

the Polish Sten and the "Lightning" assembled in Insurgent manufacturing shops. [Insurgent hand

grenades are also very interesting, both from the point of view of their appearance and their

construction: the filipinka (in English “Filipino woman”), sidolówka (in English “Sidol grenade”) and

karbidówka (acetylene grenade).]

In order to suppress the Rising, the German command despatched the Korpsgruppe, under

the command of SS General Erich von dem Bach. [The Group consisted of a number of different

units.] On 5 August the first German units mounted a counter-strike from the West, attacking

Ochota and Wola. Their main task was to capture the two main Warsaw highways running from

west to east, and to establish a link with Gen. Reiner Stahel's group, which was cut off in the

centre of the city.

By 11 August, after fierce fighting with the Insurgents, the Russian-Ukrainian units RONA

had seized Ochota. At the same time the Germans had captured Wola, reaching the

Insurgents’ well-fortified stronghold in the Old Town. Having been ordered by Hitler to kill every

inhabitant of Warsaw, the German units took the district of Ochota, committing numerous crimes

against the civilian population. In Wola they mounted a planned extermination operation.

As they could not capture the Old Town with a single strike, the Germans began

systematically to destroy buildings and Polish positions with artillery fire supported by air

raids. On 19 August, after a few days of artillery bombardment the enemy launched a general

assault on the besieged Old Town. Several attempts made by Insurgent units to help the

surrounded district came to nothing. Finally, after long and fierce fighting, on 2 September,

the German units captured the last defences of the Old Town.

After adopting defensive tactics, the Insurgents achieved their only significant success

in Śródmieście. On 11 August they captured the Staszic Palace. On 20 August – the powerful 10

PAST (State Telephone Company) building at Zielna Street. And on 23 August – the Holy

Cross Church and the Police Headquarters at Krakowskie Przedmieście. In other districts the

shortage of soldiers in the Insurgent ranks made it difficult to reinforce their defences and to improve

their support bases.

The Insurgents mounted two big offensive actions in Żoliborz: two assaults on Gdański

Railway Station – on the night of 20/21 and on 22 August. They also tried to establish a link

between the Old Town and Śródmieście on 31 August. They were unsuccessful. The

Insurgents sustained great losses, and all three clashes went down in history as the most

bloody battles of the Rising.

16. The Administration

The outbreak of the Rising was not only marked by an armed struggle against the occupying

forces, it also meant that – after almost five years of clandestine activity – the Polish State could

operate openly. For over two months, in the few square kilometres constituting the city centre the

institutions of the free and democratic Republic of Poland were in place: newspapers were published,

political parties were active, as were the civil administration and its subordinated services. White-and-

red flags, the Polish coat of arms with its white eagle– banned during the years of occupation –

appeared in the first days of August. The citizens of Warsaw, of all ages and genders, gave

themselves wholeheartedly to the collective effort. Everybody contributed to the common

cause to the best of their ability. From day one the citizens of Warsaw reported to work in

large numbers, spontaneously building barricades, supplying the soldiers with food, tending

to the wounded and taking care of refugees from other districts. The number of these

refugees grew everyday.

On 5 August, the District Delegate of the Government for the Capital City of Warsaw,

Marceli Porowski codename "Sowa" (in English “Owl”) was put in charge of civilian

resources, that is, all matters not related to combat. The rapidly growing administration

initiated and managed these matters. Within a few days officials began to take care of the

population. They organised offices responsible for food and water supply, accommodation

and the evacuation of civilians from particularly dangerous sites.

17. Food and waterThe "Block Commanders" and the very efficient Central Welfare Council were

responsible for supplying food and accommodation for civilians. To begin with, there were

many bakeries and field kitchens in the city. People had substantial supplies of food and water

in their homes. As time passed, these supplies dwindled, so the authorities carefully

determined how much food remained and ordered the requisition of all commercial food stocks

in the area covered by the Rising. In Śródmieście, the basic source of food was the cereal 11

stock seized from the warehouse of the "Haberbusch and Schiele" brewery at Ceglana Street,

which was captured back from the Germans. But the food rations decreased every day. In an

attempt to provide the inhabitants with at least one hot meal a day, the Insurgent kitchens

prepared the simplest dishes, for example a barley soup, popularly known as "spit-soup",

because you had to spit out the grain husks and chaff.

The shortage of water was a great problem for the fighting city. The water supply

system stopped working very soon after the outbreak of the Rising and water had to be

drawn from wells, built in different parts of the city. This was very dangerous as the

Germans often bombed or shot people queuing for water.

18. Religious lifeFaith played a very important role in Insurgent Warsaw. The city's religious life was kept

alive by the celebration of Holy Mass. Crowds gathered not only in those churches that had

survived the bombings, but also in open-air chapels, field hospitals, and cellars and at

courtyard shrines. People prayed, singing the hymn: "Boże, coś Polskę..." (Lord, who has

protected Poland…). Priests played a vital role during the Rising. Every chaplain, by special

permission of the Pope, was allowed to celebrate not just one, but three, Masses a day. They

also presided over funerals, kept a register of the dead, heard confessions, and sometimes –

conducted weddings and baptisms. Religion provided a source of moral strength in the day to

day life of the fighting city, helping many people to endure the tragedy that was unfolding in front of

their very eyes.

19. Cultural lifeIn spite of daily attacks of brutality and violence, the cultural life of the insurgent city

survived. Newspapers were published in large numbers, carrying not just news, but also poetry

by insurgents. A number of distinguished figures of the pre-war cultural world cooperated with

the press, including the fairy tale writer Maria Kownacka, and the young poets Tadeusz Gajcy,

Zdzisław Stroiński and Józef Szczepański. Shows and concerts were held in soldiers’ pubs. In

Powiśle a puppet theatre "Puppets on the Barricade" gave performances. You can see a replica of

this theatre in the Little Insurgent Room. Also, in the second week of August, two insurgent radio

stations started broadcasting: "Lightning" and „Polish Radio". Their cultural programmes kept up

the fighting spirit.

20. The Wola Massacre

The reaction of the Third Reich to the first news of the Warsaw Rising was furious and

ruthless. Reichsführer SS Heinrich Himmler, communicating Hitler's order to destroy the city,

added: "Every inhabitant is to be killed, no prisoners are to be taken. Warsaw is to be wiped out and

thus serve as a frightening example for the rest of Europe". From in the first days of August the 12

Germans followed this order meticulously.

On 5 August the German assault began that aimed to retake control of the two main Warsaw

highways. The task was carried out by a group under the command of SS Gruppenführer and Police

General Heinrich Reinefarth. It consisted mainly of Russian-Ukrainian units of the RONA Brigade,

under the command of Waffen-Brigadeführer Bronislav Kaminski, and the Brigade of SS

Standartenführer Oskar Dirlewanger, staffed by criminals.

Mass executions in Wola and Ochota were acts of genocide against the civilian

population of Warsaw, one of the most horrific German crimes committed during the Second

World War. From the beginning of the Rising, captured Home Army soldiers and civilians

picked at random were executed in different parts of the city. Systematic extermination of

Poles began on 5 August, later known as Black Saturday, the day when the Germans started

killing the citizens of Wola. The murders were preceded by rapes and unprecedented looting of

houses. It has been estimated that within Wola alone over 40 thousand men, women and

children died at German hands. Executions were carried out in hospitals, factories and

courtyards. Soon the Germans were short of ammunition. After a conversation one evening with

the commander of the 9th Army, General Nicolaus von Vormann, General Reinefarth asked:

"What shall I do with the prisoners? I have more prisoners than I have ammunition".

The acts of genocide visited on the civilian population continued for a few days. The

rate of killing was slightly reduced by the decision to use some prisoners as forced labourers.

But until the fighting was over mass executions were carried out all over Warsaw in insurgent

hospitals seized by the Germans. Frequently, civilians, especially women, died when they

were forced in front of tanks by the SS to be human shields during attacks on insurgent

barricades. As a rule, Germans shot captured Insurgents on the spot.

The Declaration by the United Kingdom and the United States of 29 August, that the

Home Army constituted a part of the Allied forces and that combatants rights applied to Home

Army soldiers, did little to improve the situation of Polish POWs.

After the war, the mass graves in Wola held the bodies of over 100 thousand Warsaw

citizens. Most of these people were murdered when the Germans took control of the district.

This place is commemorated today by a monument inscribed with the words "They Died

Undefeated". During the exhumation of the dead, special records were taken describing their

wounds and their clothing. As you can see, the information is scarce – the victims of the

genocide will remain anonymous for ever...

21. Air-dropsSoon after the outbreak of the Warsaw Rising, the Polish government in exile began its

efforts to secure help for the fighting city. Firstly they demanded immediate air-drops of

weapons, ammunition, food and medical supplies. The Polish government issued a request to

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the Allies to send the Parachute Brigade under the command of General Stanisław

Sosabowski to support the insurgents. They proposed the Kampinos Forest as a landing

area, [as well as to launch bomb raids on indicated targets]. On 3 August, thanks to the

insistence of the Poles, the UK Prime Minister Winston Churchill ordered the launch of air-

drops for Warsaw.

The airdrops were very difficult to implement because of Stalin's decision to refuse to

allow Allied planes access to Soviet air-fields after the drops. The flight route from Italy is about

1500 km , which meant that the planes had to return over Hungary and Yugoslavia, where the

air space was patrolled by German fighters. Night flights over Warsaw were equally dangerous,

as most of the flightpath was above areas occupied by the enemy. The strong German anti-

aircraft defence was supported by radars, which meant both that precision fire could be directed

at Allied planes even under cover of darkness, and that enemy aircraft could be guided towards

the Allies.

In spite of the reluctance of the British commanders, on the night of 4 August, the first

planes with supplies for Warsaw took off from Brindisi. The flights suffered heavy losses. It

was not just Poles who flew from Italian air-bases, but also pilots from Britain, Canada, South

Africa and New Zealand. Between 4 August and 21 September a total of 196 aircraft took off

carrying aid for Warsaw.

Stalin's refusal to allow planes to land on the Soviet side of the Front had ruled out

the possibility of using American B-17 planes, the so-called flying fortresses. They finally flew

over Warsaw on 18 September, when Stalin opened his airfields to the Allies. 110 huge

aircraft took off for Warsaw from four airfields in the United Kingdom. The appearance of

such a huge fleet of planes over the city in the middle of the day raised the spirits and

enthusiasm of the fighters and civilians enormously. Unfortunately, this great joy turned quickly

into despair when most of the dropped containers fell beyond the insurgent lines – out of 1284

containers, only 228 go into Insurgents' hands. It was the first and last mission of the

American air force to Warsaw.

In the final phase of the Rising, from 13 September to 1 October, Soviet planes also

came to help the fighting city. The Soviets dropped supplies from low altitude, without

parachutes. As a result, a significant part of the equipment so badly needed by the

Insurgents, reached them either damaged or completely destroyed. It was not effective aid,

and the late date of its delivery, carefully chosen to minimise Soviet losses, was clear

indication of the politics underpinning the lengthy period of Soviet "neutrality"...

22. Insurgent Hospital

The Warsaw Rising was expected to last only for a few days. The events of the first

days brutally verified the assumptions of the Polish command. The scale of the fighting

increased and the number of wounded soldiers and civilians grew from day to day. It became

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necessary to open new dressing stations and insurgent hospitals. The support of the civilian

population proved invaluable. The inhabitants of Warsaw shared all the medications,

dressings, beds, food, and time that they had at their disposal.

In the insurgent hospitals Poles fought for their lives. These hospitals were also the

scene of the most atrocious war crimes. One example is the story of the St. Elizabeth Sisters

Hospital in Mokotów. On 29 August, the hospital building was shelled for two hours and

completely destroyed. Most of the medical staff and the patients died. Throughout the rising the

hospital was clearly marked with the Red Cross banner...

The Germans usually captured insurgent hospitals by mounting a direct assault. The

sounds of screaming and stamping feet were drowned out by machine gun fire – patients

died, and the nurses tending the wounded died. Warsaw knew about these atrocities – in

spite of the danger doctors and nurses stayed at their posts, sacrificing their lives for the

sake of their patients.

First aid was administered at the battlefield or nearby by female medical orderlies.

They gave first aid under enemy fire, dressed wounds, protected the wounded with their own

bodies – and many of them were shot and killed. They directed the seriously wounded to the

nearest dressing station or hospital, sometimes carrying the stretchers themselves. There,

doctors sought to save their lives, operating in incredibly difficult conditions, and often under

fire.

It is estimated that during the two-month insurgency over 10 thousand people were

hospitalised, and over 10 thousand received emergency medical aid. More than 500 doctors,

supported by a number of nurses and medical orderlies, worked devotedly at insurgent dressing

points and in hospitals. Their work prevented the outbreak of epidemics in Warsaw. But

primarily they saved lives, fighting on one of the most difficult fronts.

23. Palladium Cinema

We are at 7-9 Złota Street, at the Palladium Cinema. Three newsreels called

“Warsaw is Fighting” were shown here during the Warsaw Rising, under the initiative of the

Information and Propaganda Bureau (BIP). Before we watch the newsreels, let’s listen to the

story of how they were made.

In spring 1940 the Information and Propaganda Bureau was created as part of the

Union of Armed Struggle (ZWZ) – which later became the Home Army. Its responsibilities

included informing the public about the activities of the Polish government and the Polish

Underground State, and about the reality of the situation on all fronts as well as keeping up the will

to resist and fight the invaders. Polish authorities understood the important documentary function

of the Bureau well. They expected that materials gathered by the Polish Underground State would 15

be vital after the war, helping to identify crimes committed by the occupying forces. In 1942 a

division code-named "Rój" (in English “Swarm”) was established within the Information and

Propaganda Bureau. It was responsible for the making documentaries and pro-Rising propaganda.

„Rój" trained groups of film makers, photographers, radio operatives, journalists, writers and

artists. It also collected equipment and necessary materials. Thanks to all these preparations, on 1

August 1944, a number of camera crews and war correspondents were well prepared for work in

combat conditions and left for the front.

The film makers documented the Warsaw Rising on some 30 thousand meters of film.

Wacław Kaźmierczak, together with two film directors - Antoni Bohdziewicz codename "Wiktor"

(in English “Victor”) and Jerzy Zarzycki codename „Pik" (in English “Spade”) used this film to put

together newsreels. On the evening of 15 August the first public screening took place at the

Palladium Cinema. The cinema was packed with soldiers and civilians from the

neighbourhood. Representatives of the insurgent press were also present. Two further

newsreels were shown on 21 August and 2 September.

After the collapse of the Rising, most of the film reels were taken out of Warsaw by the

legendary courier, Jan Nowak-Jeziorański. The material was used in the 1940s by the authors of

the film Last days of Warsaw, shown in the United States and other western countries. The

remaining reels, hidden during the Rising in a sealed sewage pipe, were recovered in 1946.

You can watch a short newsreel put together from that rescued footage.

24. The Old TownFrom the cinema we pass into the Old Town where fires are raging. After several days of

constant gunfire, bombing raids and furious enemy assaults, no single building was left intact in

the Old Town. The condition of the Insurgent units deteriorated from day to day. An attempt to

break through the cordon of German troops failed. The way left to get out of the siege was

through underground passages.

Evacuation was carried out through two sewers: the main one, with an entrance at

Krasińskich Square, and a subsidiary one, with an entrance on Daniłowiczowska Street. Most of

the Insurgents reached Śródmieście, and a few hundred got out in Żoliborz. In the course of two

days, over 5 thousand Home Army soldiers escaped the siege through the sewers.

25. The Sewer

We can walk through the sewer to Śródmieście just as the Insurgents did on 1 and 2

September. In 1944 the route was much longer, almost 2 km. It took about 4 hours to cover that

distance. The conditions in the passage were terrible – the ceilings of the real sewers were

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much lower than the one in the Museum display and the Insurgents waded in toxic sewage. It

was dark and the insurgents were scared that Germans lurking near manholes could hear them.

In spite of all those difficulties the evacuation of the Old Town was a success.

However, a tragic fate befell the soldiers of Lieutenant-Colonel Józef Rokicki codname

„Karol" (in English “Charles”), who tried to leave Mokotów on 26 October. Contradictory orders, toxic

sewage, and German attacks from above, meant that many soldiers from Mokotów died in the

passage. Only 800 utterly exhausted Insurgents reached their destination.

26. The Sewer Outlet

The use of a municipal sewer system in the Warsaw Rising on such a scale, was a

unique phenomenon, unknown in any previous armed conflict. The Warsaw sewer system,

designed in the 19th century by an Englishman, William Lindley, runs under almost the entire city.

The night of 5-6 August Elżbieta Ostrowska known as "Ela", travelling from Śródmieście to

Mokotów, opened a regular sewer route between the districts. The underground network of

corridors made it possible to maintain links between individual sites of combat, to transfer casualty

replacements, supply food and ammunition, and to evacuate the insurgent units, civilians and the

wounded cut off by the enemy. The Insurgents very quickly adapted the most important routes for

regular traffic. In many places they fixed wooden boards on the floor, attached ropes to the walls,

and marked the direction of traffic, even using illuminated signs. Maintaining efficient

communication links via the sewers was the responsibility of a specially trained group of women

liaison officers – "kanałówki" (in English “sewer girls”) and young boys, including a team of so-

called "sewer rats". Before the Germans worked out what was happening, the traffic on the

underground routes was heavy and the sewers were the safest way to get around the city.

However, in the middle of August, the enemy began to destroy the sewer routes. The Germans

fitted iron barriers in passages, bricked up tunnel entrances, released gas into the sewers or

dammed them. They also blew up some of the sewers using vehicles filled with explosives,

known as Typhoons.

27. The CafeIn our cafe you can relax and have something to eat whilst listening to songs from the time

of the Rising. You can also read insurgent newspapers or contemporary ones. There are

photographs on the walls of some of the period’s famous artists, and the whole interior is modelled

on a café from the time of the occupation called the “Pol Czarnej” (in English "Half a Black Coffee")

– a meeting place for artists, operating since December 1939 at 6, Kredytowa Street.

From the first days of the Rising, all over the city, but particularly in Śródmieście, workers

known as “Peżetki” (in English “PŻ ladies”) from the organisation Pomoc Żołnierzowi (Help the

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Soldier) organised temporary kitchens and soldiers' clubs. Each club was staffed by several

„PŻ ladies", who prepared meals for the fighters, and tried to provide some entertainment for

them. The establishments were equipped with radios, record players and copies of current

insurgent newspapers. For Home Army soldiers coming back from the front line of fighting,

these places were havens of peace and normal life. Naturally these establishments run by

"PŻ ladies" became extremely popular. During the armed struggle the Insurgents spent their

free time at these clubs, playing chess and draughts, singing and giving improvised piano

recitals.

Concerts were another popular attraction. They were organised, fairly regularly, under

the auspices of the Information and Propaganda Bureau (BIP). The shows were staged almost

everywhere: in courtyards, in cellars, in field hospitals and soldiers clubs. The artists who

performed during the Rising included some of the great names of the pre-war stage, such as

Mira Zimińska, Adam Brodzisz and Hanna Brzezińska. The performances attracted large

crowds. One of the most famous artists of that time, Mieczysław Fogg, described the experience

of performing during the Rising: "The room was packed with boys and girls. The young people were

holding machine guns in their hands, hand grenades tucked behind their belts. How many singers

in the world had ever had such audience?"

28. Lublin Poland

When the Rising broke out in Warsaw, the rule of the Polish Committee for National

Liberation was established in Lublin. This Soviet-dependent, illegal Polish quasi-government

operated from July to December 1944 in the territory of the Lublin, Białystok, Rzeszów and in

parts of the Warsaw provinces. The stance of the usurper authorities on the fighting in the capital

was clear. On 20 August they declared: "The Warsaw Rising, according to the real intentions of its

authors, was supposed to be directed not against the Germans but against the Polish Committee

for National Liberation (PKWN for short), against Polish Democracy, it was aimed at

establishing in Warsaw a government of Polish reactionary forces and pronouncing it to be

the government of the Nation".

This resolution was therefore not only a confirmation of all the PKWN activities so far,

but it also clearly indicates the line that would betaken in the future by communists against the

idea of the Warsaw Rising and against the Polish Underground State.

From the very first days of their rule, the PKWN authorities undertook actions against

democratic Poland. Their chairman, Edward Osóbka-Morawski, followed Soviet instructions.

Five days after the establishment of PKWN, 26 July, in Moscow, they signed an agreement

which determined that Polish citizens who found themselves "in the combat zone" were

subject to the jurisdiction of the Soviet military authorities!

The effects of this agreement were soon apparent – thousands of soldiers and activists

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of the Polish Underground State were arrested and deported to Ostaszków, Borowicze and

Riazan. The Soviets used lists prepared in advance by their intelligence service.

The day after the agreement was signed, PKWN authorities drew up a secret

agreement in Moscow with the government of the Soviet Union, relating to the new Polish-

Soviet border, based on the so called Curzon Line. In this way a self-appointed government

without any legitimacy, sanctioned the Ribbentrop-Mołotow Pact and gave to the Soviets half

of Poland’s pre-war territory.

At the same time as directing these activities against the Polish Nation, the PKWN

authorities, supported by NKVD and the SMIERSZ ("death to the spies") organisation, began to

consolidate "people's rule" in the captured territories. After the arrival of the Red Army, a

number of prisons, labour camps and concentration camps established under the German

occupation retained similar functions. Lublin Castle provides a typical example. It housed a

Nazi prison until July 1944. In August the identity of the jailers changed, but the Castle was

still a prison – now a communist one. Before April 1945 over 100 Home Army officers and

soldiers from the Lublin region would die there.

As well as implementing large-scale deportations and imprisonment, the usurpers were

developing their own propaganda machine. The leading paper of PKWN was the

"Rzeczpospolita" (in English “Republic”) daily, created by Jerzy Borejsza. Its main goal was to

support the party and the new regime. At the same time, appeals to the people started to

appear on the walls alongside posters. Such as the one with “the giant and the spit-

drenched dwarf of reaction of the Home Army” where the giant was depicted as a soldier of the

Communist Polish army or the “Home Army - Brother Killers" poster.

The communist renegades tried to keep up appearances that everything was

returning to normal – they opened railway lines, celebrated a new school year, and they

even let the Catholic University of Lublin reopen. They duly created another university in their

temporary capital – the "loyal" Maria Curie-Skłodowska University.

Until 1989 the truth about PKWN activities was just as severely falsified as the truth of

the Warsaw Rising and the fate of hundreds of thousands of ordinary Poles had been. One

very effective piece of communist propaganda was the television series "Four Troopers and A

Dog". Filmed in the 1960s, on the basis of a screenplay by a soldier, Col. Janusz Przymanowski, it

shaped the historical awareness of the young for decades. It presented a selective, communist

version of the history of the Second World War, limited to the struggle of the General Berling's army

and the rule of the "people", at the side of the friendly soldats (soldat – is a scornful name for a Soviet

soldier in Polish). The script never refers to the Polish Underground State, the Home Army, or the

Polish Government in exile. The writer did not investigate why so many Poles ended up at the far

corners of Russia, nor the essence of the tragedy that took place in Warsaw on the left bank

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of the Vistula.

29. Berling's Soldiers

In May 1943, on Stalin's initiative, the 1st Tadeusz Kościuszko Infantry Division was

formed in the Soviet Union under the command of Colonel, soon to become Brigadier General,

Zygmunt Berling. When the news of the formation of a Polish unit spread, volunteers came from

near and far. Most of them were Poles, deported from the Eastern Borderlands in the years 1939-

1941 and put in prisons and gulags in the far corners of the Soviet Union. The emerging army was for

them practically the only chance to get out of the Soviet hell and to return to their homeland. In the

Division, the soldiers wore Polish uniforms and eagle badges and there was even a Polish chaplain,

Father Franciszek Kubsz, kidnapped from Polesie by Soviet guerrillas and brought to Sielce by

a roundabout route. Unfortunately, all the officers were recruited from the Soviet ranks.

The Division experienced a baptism of fire, and suffered heavy losses on 12 -13 October

1943 at the battle of Lenino. Less than a year later, as a part of the First Polish Army, it stood on

the banks of the Vistula.

The outbreak of fighting in Warsaw in August 1944 made Stalin anxious. The Soviet dictator

understood that the political goal of the Rising was not just to demonstrate the power of the Home

Army, but to liberate the Polish capital and to assume authority in a country freed from the

occupying forces. It is very likely that he made a decision not to let that happen. He stopped the

offensive towards the West, and directed the assault towards the Balkans. On 8 August, he rejected

the plan, presented by his military chiefs, to seize Warsaw, and for over 5 weeks waited for the

collapse of the city. Contrary to earlier expectations of a quick defeat of the Rising, the fighting in

Warsaw continued. At the beginning of September, in order to avoid accusations of inaction, Stalin

gave the order to mount a limited assault on Warsaw. The attack was launched by a section of the

First Belorussian Front forces.

Fighting for the right-bank district of Warsaw, Praga, began on 10 September. In spite of

strong German resistance Praga was liberated on 15 September. Nothing stood in the way of

giving direct help to the insurgent units.

Gen. Berling knew that his troops were unable to cross the Vistula on their own. And

yet, he issued an order to rush to help Warsaw. He was quickly punished for that decision and

removed from his post

During the few days it took Polish forces to cross the river they took three bridgeheads on

the left bank: in Czerniaków, in Żoliborz and between the Poniatowski and Średnicowy bridges. The

struggle lasted the longest at the Czerniakowski Bridgehead, where two battalions of the Third Infantry

Division joined the insurgent forces. The Germans threw huge numbers of soldiers against them. The

defeat of the Polish units, deprived of artillery support, was just a matter of time.

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30. The 108 BlessedFor the Insurgents and the civilians, the days of struggle were days of a special trial –among

outbursts of heroism, there were moments of doubt, terror and helplessness. The clergy, present

among the fighters from the first days of the Rising, defied the brutality of war, spiritual

helplessness and suffering. They were with the fighters as chaplains, showing unprecedented

courage in defending civilians. In Powiśle, a Dominican Father Jan Czartoryski "Father Michael",

the chaplain of the "Konrad" Grouping, stayed with the wounded until the very end. He died on 6

September, shot along with them, when the Germans forced their way into the hospital. The

chaplain of the "Kryska" Grouping, a Pallotine, Father Józef Stanek "Rudy", died at German hands

when he tried to negotiate to spare the lives of surviving civilians and Insurgents in Czerniaków. In

1999, these two men were among the 108 Polish clergymen-martyrs who were raised to the

glory of the altars by the Pope John Paul II. Father Stanek has been patron of the chapel at the

Museum of the Warsaw Rising since 2004.

31. Insurgent Armoured Fighting Vehicles

From the start of the Uprising the greatest problem of the Polish troops was the shortage of

weapons. They captured them from the enemy and retrieved them from air-drops, but most of

them were produced in their own underground workshops. The Insurgents weaponry was

supplemented by captured Armoured Fighting Vehicles. In the courtyard of the Central Post

Office, the Insurgents repaired an armoured vehicle, calling it "Chwat" (in English “Daredevil”). Two

"Panther" type tanks, captured by the "Zośka" Batallion soldiers, took part in several combat

operations. During both attacks on the University the Insurgents were protected by two

armoured vehicles. The "Szary Wilk" (in English “Grey Wolf”), originally called "Jaś" (or in

English “Johnny”) was an armoured carrier, captured by the soldiers of the "Krybar" Grouping.

"Kubuś" (in English “Jake”) covered with steel plates, was constructed by technicians from the same

Grouping, on a Chevrolet truck chassis. "Kubuś", which survived in Powiśle, is now kept at the

Museum of the Polish Army, a replica has been made for this museum.

32. Stalin, Wasilewska, MikołajczykOn 30 July 1944, the Prime Minister of the Polish Government in Exile, Stanisław

Mikołajczyk, came to Moscow. On 3 August he had talks with Stalin at the Kremlin. He informed

Stalin about the outbreak of the Warsaw Rising and asked for assistance. Stalin avoided making an

unequivocal statement. He accused the Home Army of not fighting the Germans actively up to that point.

At their second meeting on, 9 August, the Polish Prime Minister requested an immediate supply of

weapons for the Insurgents. Stalin declared that assistance would be provided. It soon turned out

that this was an empty promise. Stalin's stance was applauded by Polish communists, who were

preparing themselves to take power in Polish territories captured by the Red Army. Wanda

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Wasilewska, who represented the Polish communists claimed, in conversation with Mikołajczyk, that

nobody was fighting in Warsaw. It was 6 August 1944 – for a few days now, a significant part of the

city had been controlled by the Insurgents, including the tallest building in Warsaw - the Prudential

building, the Power Station and the Central Post Office. The Polish radio station "Lightning" was

broadcasting daily news bulletins and the Scouts' Postal Service was already operational.

33. Communications

During preparations for the Rising, special attention was paid to the organisation of an

efficient communications service. The "wires" (telegraph operators) were trained, equipment

was gathered, and detailed plans were put together. However, the first days of the fighting

revealed that in spite of all these preparations, there were some serious communication problems.

Some of the equipment failed and a lot of dispatch units and relay stations were destroyed by

German troops. As a result, communications in Warsaw could only be maintained thanks to the

devoted service of young messengers and women liaison officers, slipping under the protection of

barricades and struggling through the sewers to reach districts cut off by the front line.

In some combat areas contact was maintained through a constantly repaired telephone

network, radio stations, messengers and sometimes special officer patrols. However radio was the

most reliable communication method, maintained through a relay station in the United Kingdom. In

the busiest period, over 100 dispatches were sent each day.

34. Radio Station

The radio station of the Information and Propaganda Bureau, called "Lightning", was

supposed to be operational from the first hours of fighting. Unfortunately, during transport,

the boxes with the radio equipment got soaked, which delayed the launch of the transmitter.

The communications people did not think that “Lightning” could be repaired quickly and

rushed to launch a replacement radio station. After the Central Post Office building was

captured on 3 August, an 18-Watt sound radio station "Tempest" began transmission. It was

constructed over 24 hours, by an avid short-wave radio operator, Włodzimierz Markowski.

During the first 18-minute session, it transmitted information about the outbreak of fighting in the

Polish capital to London, and appealed for assistance. Clips from the Information and Propaganda

Bureau’s "Information Bulletin" were also broadcast. After many years "Tempest" has been rebuilt

for the Rising Museum by its original engineer and his team.

Entering the communications room you can see the "Tempest" radio station – protected by

a display case, and on the table, you can see "Lightning" the most famous insurgent radio station

of all.

*

After nearly sixty years, one of its engineers, Antoni Zębik codename „Biegły" (in English

22

“proficient”), undertook the task of reconstructing the radio station. Work on the replica started in

February 2004. On the 60th anniversary of the original launch, "Lightning" began once again to

transmit messages.

During the Rising, the radio station began operating on 8 August, in the Śródmieście

building of PKO bank. The transmitter was placed in one of the rooms, together with the amplifiers,

and in another room, lined with carpet, was a studio. Broadcasting conditions were good as echoes

were almost non-existent and there was good isolation from external sounds. Programmes were

broadcast every day, from 8 August to 4 October. The length of broadcasts varied, depending on the

material available. The longest programmes were produced in August. Every broadcast consisted of

a news bulletin presenting world news, information from the rest of the country and from the fighting

city, a press review and an artistic programme with music and insurgent poetry. From 9

August, Polish Radio also used the "Lightning" radio station. "Lightning" changed its broadcasting

location several times. You can follow the changes on a map near the entrance.

The final broadcast of the Warsaw Rising was made by the chief technician, Jan

Georgica known as „Grzegorzewicz", on 4 October at 19:20. In a ten-minute programme

"Grzegorzewicz" gave, among other items, information about the operation of the radio station. At

the end, he played the "Warszawianka" (The Warsaw March), and then destroyed the transmitter.

35. Field Postal Service

You are now in a room devoted to a very important institution in the Warsaw Rising -

the Postal Service. The exhibits include original postal stamps, date stamps and armbands

from the Scouts' Field Postal Service as well as one of the two surviving insurgent pillar-boxes,

donated to the Museum by one of the combatants. Even today you can see a bullet mark on it.

In the first days of August, the Insurgents failed to recapture a number of strongholds. The

enemy disrupted communication between the insurgent enclaves, and also between families

dispersed all over the city. Soon communications were restored thanks to an army of messengers

and liaison officers, recruited mainly from the Grey Ranks of scouts and girl scouts from the

"Scouts' Emergency Service".

The Scouts' Field Postal Service began its operation on 4 August. The Central Post Office

was located at 28 Świętokrzyska Street, near the Principal Headquarters of the Grey Ranks -

„Pasieka" (in English "The Apiary"). With time, the postal service covered almost the entire

city. Eight more post offices were established, with over 40 post boxes. Letters delivered by

the scouts were limited to 25 words. All of them were censored to prevent leaks of military

information in case correspondence were captured by the enemy. The messages were

delivered free of any postage charge, but voluntary donations in the form of books, dressings or

food for the wounded Insurgents were welcomed. They delivered 3 to 6 thousand items a day.

Every day the young postmen, risking their lives, carried tens of letters. Even though their

23

superiors did their best to protect them from the worst, sometimes they died. A sixteen-year-old

scout Zbigniew Banaś codename "Banan" (in English “banana”), who died from a bullet on 17

August while carrying letters in Powiśle, stands as a symbol of devotion of the youngest soldiers.

The Field Postal Service played a vital social role – it enabled people cut off from their

loved ones to communicate, to pass information about themselves, to reassure each other.

Letters delivered by the young postmen raised people's spirits, and helped them to survive the

most difficult moments of the war.

36. Fighting in September

After the collapse of the Old Town and the evacuation of the "North" Group units, the

Insurgents held their positions in Śródmieście, Powiśle, Czerniaków, Mokotów, Żoliborz and in the

Kampinos Forest. Their priority was to defend strategic areas on the banks of the Vistula. The

control over those areas gave hope for a successful landing from the Praga side of the river. The

Germans also feared the Soviet offensive from the other side of the river. That is why they

directed their main assault towards the districts situated on the Vistula - Powiśle and

Czerniaków. The Poles were still counting on support from the East, and, in spite of extremely

inferior weaponry, they tried to hold on to their positions at all costs.

One potent symbols of the post was the so-called "hard front". It was a line of Polish

defences in Northern Śródmieście, running from the Postal Railway Station at Żelazna Street,

over the cross-town railway line, and through the following streets: Towarowa, Grzybowska

and Królewska. On 9 September, the Information Bulletin, one of the Insurgent newspapers,

announced that: "The soldiers fighting at that section, with their heroic stance, are rendering an

important service to the rest of the fighting capital: by attracting the heaviest attacks of the

enemy, they act as a shield protecting other districts, even those quite distant from their

positions".

In spite of the great determination of the Insurgents, the Germans, with their

overwhelming advantage, systematically destroyed the Insurgents’ strongholds. In the evening

of 5 September, having run out of ammunition, the Insurgents left the Power Station building,

which, as a result of heavy bombings, had stopped working the day before. In a city without

electricity, conditions for the inhabitants and the Home Army soldiers became more and more

severe. On 6 September the whole of Powiśle collapsed, and the enemy troops begin to capture

the northern part of Śródmieście. Facing a catastrophic situation and with only a small chance

of outside assistance, the Insurgent authorities authorised the Polish Red Cross to negotiate

partial evacuation of civilians from Śródmieście. As a result, on 8 and 9 September, during a

ceasefire, about 8 thousand people left the city. At the same time – on 9 September – contact

was established between the High Command envoys and the Germans who proposed talks about

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the capitulation of the Rising. In view of the developments on the rightbank of the Vistula – the

troops of the First Belorussian Front having launched the Praga operation – the Home Army

Command kept stalling for time and finally, on 11 September, broke off the negotiations. The

Germans focussed on organising the front on the western bank of the Vistula. On 21 September a

German assault put an end to the landing of the First Polish Army troops at Kępa Potocka. On 23

September the Czerniaków Bridgehead collapsed. The enemy tightened the ring around the

remaining three centres of resistance: Żoliborz from the north, Śródmieście and Mokotów from

the south. After the collapse of Czerniaków, Mokotów became the main target. The area

defended by the Insurgents dwindled every day. On 26 September, the dramatic evacuation

of Insurgent troops from Mokotów began. Mokotów finally surrendered on 27 September around

noon. On the same day, the enemy launched operation "Falling Star" which they had been

preparing for a week. The aim of the operation was to liquidate the "Kampinos" Group. Two days

later, the Kampinos units were crushed by the German troops in the battle of Jaktorów. On 30

September Żoliborz surrendered. Śródmieście was still fighting.

37. A Place of Remembrance

Within days, Warsaw turned into a city of graves. At first, the dead were buried

ceremonially in small squares, courtyards, home backyards, under wayside shrines. As

fighting developed, memorial crosses covered the streets, squares, pavements, even the rubble

left after bombing raids. More and more often death became anonymous. Bodies were buried

in a hurry to avoid epidemics. The dead were only registered in cemeteries adjacent to hospitals.

Corpses were wrapped up in sheets, and a tightly-closed bottle with personal data was attached to

a hand or a leg. Historians estimate that during the two months of fighting the Poles sustained

losses of about 18 thousand killed and missing and about 25 thousand wounded soldiers. The

number of civilian casualties is estimated at approximately 180 thousand fallen and murdered.

In this symbolic Place of Remembrance a hundred Insurgents, killed during the fighting for

Warsaw, are looking out at you. They are smiling, full of life – one of the finest generations in the

history of Poland. The war claimed thousands of them forever...

The memory of those who died in fighting in the streets of Warsaw is still alive. In a number

of Warsaw courtyards you can find shrines at which Holy Mass was celebrated during the Rising,

where people gather to pray together. Memorial plaques commemorate nearly 400 sites of

execution. Numerous plaques and monuments commemorate the areas where Insurgent units

and groups fought. All these sites are cared for with great respect. Each year, on the anniversary

of the outbreak of the Uprising, people lay flowers, light candles, and soldiers and scouts keep

guards of honour.

38. The Germans

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The outbreak of fighting in the capital of Poland in August 1944 posed a great threat not only

to the German 9th Army fighting the Red Army for the middle part of the Vistula to open the shortest

route to Berlin. It was also a threat to the stability of the whole Eastern Front. At that time, Warsaw

was the most important transport junction, through which tons of supplies and replacements of

different kinds constantly flowed to the Eastern Front. The forces of the Warsaw garrison amounted

to no more than 20 thousand soldiers, which was too few to successfully put down the Rising. The

Germans badly needed outside support in order to "win the race for Warsaw with the Bolsheviks ".

The first German troops started to flow into the city as early as 3 and 4 August. The units

gathered in Gen. Erich von dem Bach's Korpsgruppe were successively reinforced and at their

peak numbered 50 thousand soldiers. The Wehrmacht was supported by police forces, SS and

collaborationist units, consisting of Russians, Ukrainians, Latvians, Lithuanians and Azeris, as well as

Hungarians, who were sympathetic towards the Insurgents. German commanders mustered all

available technical resources, including modern 380mm calibre rocket mortars, rocket launchers with

incendiary shells and high explosives, nicknamed "Cows" or "Cupboards" because of the noise they

made. During the two months of struggle the German air force played an important role, both

fighting the Insurgents and destroying the city, making nearly 1400 sorties over Warsaw.

However, the most powerful weapon used to quash Polish resistance was a self-propelled

siege mortar, the Karl-Morser Gerät 040 - „Ziu" caliber 600 mm: its shells could easily destroy a

tall building. Insurgents and civilians alike were harassed by German snipers, nicknamed "the

pigeon fanciers". With their sniper rifles, such as the one displayed here, they sewed death in the

streets of Warsaw.

In spite of the enemy’s greater manpower and superior resources, the Insurgents mounted

a heroic resistance for 63 days, inflicting heavy losses on the other side. If you compare the fighting

in Warsaw to other battles of the Second World War it is clear that the poorly armed Insurgents

fought almost twice as long as the very well armed French army in the 1940 campaign. Military

historians compare the Warsaw Rising to the struggle for Stalingrad or Berlin, as the German

losses sustained in the Polish capital in 1944, according to von dem Bach's report, amounted to

10 thousand killed, 7 thousand missing and 15 thousand wounded. Only on the Eastern Front

did the German army sustain greater losses...

In the centre of the room we have placed an unusual record that time – a diary written during

the Rising by 8-year-old Jerzy Arct. The pages of the diary describe the everyday life of a child in

the middle of the fighting. The last words: "But we must never forget the German barbarity.

Never! Never!", written just after the war, leave a moving souvenir for the generations to

come...

Before you move on to the next part of our exhibition, have a look at the German medal on 26

display in this room. It was awarded to the Germans for special merit in the invasion on Poland in

September 1939. A Bronze Cross with Swords, shot through by a bullet, a gift for the Museum

from one of Insurgents, is proudly displayed by an SS man. A few years later, the same man died

from a bulletwound during the fight for the PAST State Telephone Company building. History had

come full circle...

39. Foreigners in the Rising

Many representatives of other nations fought Shoulder to shoulder with the Poles in the

Warsaw Rising. From the first hours of the struggle, following the traditional Polish motto "for your

freedom and ours", they joined the Polish ranks. They included foreigners who lived in

Warsaw before the war, soldiers escaped from POW camps, people who escaped from

forced labour in the Third Reich and also deserters from the German army and Red Army

soldiers. The most numerous groups fighting on the Polish side were the Slovaks, the Hungarians

and the French. Among the Insurgents brothers in arms there were also a few Belgians, several

Dutch, Greek, British and Italian nationals. There was also a Romanian and an Australian.

The contact between Slovaks and the Polish resistance began quite early during the

occupation. This was maintained among others, by 2nd lieutenant Mirosław Iringh known as

„Stanko". He was later an insurgent commander. Full cooperation between the Slovaks and the

Polish Underground State began with the establishment of the clandestine Slovak National

Committee. It was created in Warsaw in mid-1942. After a year, the Committee’s authorities

formed a military sub-unit, formally subordinated to the Home Army and bound to it by the pledge

of allegiance until the end of the war against Germany. The 535th Independent Slovak Platoon

became a part of AK V District units. In the Slovak Platoon there were also Georgian, Armenian,

Azeri, Czech and Ukrainian fighters. During the Rising, the Platoon took part in the assaults on

Belvedere, Bank Gospodarstwa Krajowego and the church at Łazienkowska Street; as a part of the

"Kryska" Grouping they defended the positions in Czerniaków.

The Slovaks were the only foreigners fighting in the Rising, who fought under their

own banner. Their arm-bands also sported their national colours. The tri-colour flag of the

Slovak Platoon is one of the few original insurgent banners that has survived.

Most of the 348 Jews, brought to the German concentration camp at Gęsia Street from

places such as Greece, Holland and Hungary, also joined the Uprising. Freed by the "Zośka"

battalion, 50 of them became members of the "Radosław" Grouping, the rest joined the auxiliary

units, dealing with transport of the wounded, extinguishing fires, producing and transporting

weapons.

Hungarian units, brought by the Germans to help quash the Rising, appeared to be

quite sympathetic towards the Poles. However, the Hungarians had no intention to fight with

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the Insurgents. In late August, one of the officers of the Hungarian regiment despatched to

pacify the Kampinos Forest, sent an alarming message to the Polish command: "They are

sending us. We have to go, but we do not want to fight with the Poles. We will just go through

the Forest and if we are not harassed, we do not want to know anything".

40. The Big Three

In 1943, after the victories at Stalingrad and Kursk, the Red Army began to advance

west. The international position of the Soviet Union grew stronger. At the turn of November

and December 1943, the leaders of the three greatest superpowers - Winston Churchill,

Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Joseph Stalin – met in Tehran. Contrary to the provisions of

the Atlantic Charter, signed two years before, the so called Big Three decided to begin talks

about the future world order without informing other nations. The Americans and the British,

unable to keep their promise to open the Western Front, were prepared to grant significant

concessions. Stalin was well aware of the difficult situation of the Allies and exploited it very

skilfully. He forced them to accept a border between Poland and the Soviet Union along the

modified "Curzon Line", which in fact confirmed Soviet territorial gains after their invasion of Poland

on 17 September 1939. The Polish Government-in-Exile was not only unrepresented at the

conference, but was not notified of its results, even those directly concerning Poland. The Big Three

decided to keep their decisions secret, which undoubtedly affected both the fate of the Warsaw

Uprising and the post-war history of Poland...

Less than a year after the conference of the Big Three, fighting in Warsaw broke out. Polish

authorities did not know the decisions taken in Tehran, de facto transferring Poland into the Soviet

sphere of influence. That is why they still hoped for strong western support. Aware that Stalin was no

fan of independent Poland, they believed that, pressured by the Allies, he would not be able to leave

the struggling Warsaw to its own fate. Those hopes, however, turned out to be wrong. On the

twelfth day of fighting Stalin declared that the Warsaw Rising was an unreasonable and terrible

adventure from which the Soviet Union categorically disassociated itself. From that moment Soviet

press and radio started to publish articles condemning the AK insurgence in Warsaw and

slandering Polish command.

The Western Allies did not have the political will to force the Soviets to support the

Rising. A priority for western diplomacy was to maintain good relations with Stalin, almost at

any cost. The efforts of the Polish government, demanding effective action from the Allies,

were fruitless. Churchill attempted to persuade Roosevelt to adopt a firmer stance towards the

Soviets, but the American president had no intention of being persuaded and the position of

Churchill on his own was too weak.

The Western public did not support the Polish cause either. In spite of much praise for

Polish courage in the English and American press, no sensitive questions were asked. In the

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left-wing press, on the other hand, numerous critical voices appeared. The "Daily Herald" and

the "Daily Worker", using the Soviet rhetoric, wrote about the "Warsaw adventure", led by

"fascists" and "reactionaries". Very few people in the West were aware of the real reasons

behind the tragic situation of Warsaw. George Orwell bravely condemned the cowardly attitude

of the western public, media and governments in the "Tribune" published on the 5th anniversary

of the outbreak of the war, but his was a lonely voice.

41. The Death of the CityDuring the Second World War, Warsaw was destroyed four times. First, during the German

siege in the September Campaign of 1939, when air raids caused serious damage to a number

of buildings. Secondly, after the Ghetto Rising was crushed, and the Ghetto was demolished

when the Germans wiped out the whole of what had been the Jewish quarter. The third time

was during the Warsaw Rising, as a result of heavy artillery fire and shelling of insurgent

positions. The fourth demolition, after the collapse of the Rising, took place when the Germans

began the systematic flattening of the Polish capital. The German operation resulted in the

destruction of nearly 83 percent of the city's buildings, and the destruction of almost all of the

capital’s cultural heritage – the intellectual centre of Poland.

From the very beginning of the Rising Warsaw was overwhelmed by rapidly spreading

fires. In spite of the efforts of thousands of people, house after house turned into smouldering

rubble. Systematic shelling by the German artillery together with air raids reduced yet more houses

to rubble, and many Warsaw historic churches and monasteries were seriously damaged. The

Krasiński, Ossoliński, Kazimierzowski, and Czartoryski palaces along with many others were

ruined. The historic buildings of the Old Town were particularly vulnerable. For 3 weeks the Old

Town was courageously defended by the besieged Insurgents of the "North" Group under the

command of Col. Karol Ziemski known as "Wachnowski". The Old Town Market Square was

completely burned down, and the walls of the Royal Castle and St. John’s Cathedral were

damaged. Warsaw archives and libraries sustained irreparable losses. Individual archives lost

between 70 and 100 percent of their collections.

After the capitulation, in spite of the ceasefire and the expulsion of the civilian population

from the city, Warsaw was still shaken by explosions and the piercing clatter of falling walls. The

Germans stole everything: during a few months they took about 45 thousand railway carriages

loaded with goods from the city. They carried off to the Third Reich not only machinery and

furniture, but also street lamps, cables, kerbs – everything that might be of use. What they

could not take away, they meticulously and systematically destroyed, blowing up buildings

that were still standing and those that were already in ruins – building after building,

churches, palaces, public utility buildings, factories, tracks, streets, viaducts and railway

stations. The city slowly died. Even the autumn rains and the severe winter that followed

could not extinguish the smouldering ruins. The Germans achieved their objective – not only

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to destroy Polish culture, but also to erase all its traces.

The Soviet troops, stationed on the other side of the river, did not take any action to

stop the Germans. Once again, the aims of Hitler and Stalin, deadly enemies, turned out to

coincide, as far as policy towards Poland was concerned. It was very convenient for the Soviet

dictator that the "bourgeois" elite of the nation be destroyed and no trace of pre-war Warsaw

remain. As a result he could rebuild the city according to his own social-realist urban vision,

erecting in the city centre his “gift” to the Polish nation, the Palace of Culture and Science – a

symbol of soviet domination.

The scale of destruction in the city is reflected in the results of research carried out by a

commission chaired by Prof. Wojciech Fałkowski, appointed in 2004 by the Mayor of Warsaw,

Lech Kaczyński, to estimate the losses sustained during the war. According to the

researchers, an initial estimate of material losses sustained by Warsaw is around 45 billion

300 million USD.

42. Surrender

After the defeat of Mokotów on 27 September, and Żoliborz on 30 September, with no

hope for the future, the Home Army High Command in agreement with the Home Delegate of

the Polish Government, Deputy Prime Minister Jan Stanisław Jankowski codename „Soból"

(in English “Sable”), decided to start negotiating a surrender. On 1 October Gen. Tadeusz

Komorowski, codename „Bór" (in English “Forest”) sent a telegram to the Polish government

in London: "Further fighting in Warsaw has no chance of success. I have decided to put an

end to it. The terms of surrender guarantee full combatant rights to the soldiers and humane

treatment to the civilian population".

On 2 October, the representatives of the Home Army High Command – Certified

Colonel Kazimierz Iranek-Osmecki known as „Heller" and Certified Lieutenant Colonel Zygmunt

Dobrowolski known as „Zyndram"- in the headquarters of Gen. Erich von dem Bach in Ożarów

near Warsaw, signed an ceasefire agreement for Warsaw. According to its provisions, the

Insurgents were to lay down their arms and leave the city in close ranks, headed by their

commanders. The civilian population also had to leave Warsaw.

43. Exodus The mass exodus of the civilian population of Warsaw took place during the first few

days of October 1944. The Germans directed them to the so called transit camps. The biggest

camp was "Dulag 121" in Pruszków, established in the first week of August. By 10 October, nearly

550 thousand citizens of Warsaw and 10 thousand people from the suburban towns had passed

through the camp. A stay in the camp did not usually last longer than a week. During that time 30

the Germans carried out a "selection" procedure, which decided the fate of the detainees –

deportation to the territory of the General Government or to the Third Reich to forced labour, and

in the worstcase scenario – to concentration camps.

The first insurgent units left for captivity on 4 October from Śródmieście, the district involved

in heavy fighting until the very end of the Rising. A day later, in gloomy silence, the last Polish

units together with the general staffs of the High Command, Area Command and the

Warsaw Corps of the Home Army marched away. The Home Army Commander, Lieutenant

General Tadeusz Komorowski codename „Bór" (in English “Forest”), standing alone in the

street, saluted the units leaving for captivity. Then, assisted by a German officer, major Kurt

Fischer, he followed them, determined not to abandon his soldiers.

The journey made by Insurgents to POW camps began on 6 October from Ożarów near

Warsaw. The largest group went through Stalag 334 Lamsdorf (now called Łambinowice) in

Silesia, the oldest and the biggest POW camp in the Third Reich. In the camp, the Insurgents

received their POW numbers, and were then sent out to Oflags and Stalags all over Germany.

The location of the major camps is shown on the map displayed here.

The displacement of practically the entire population of Warsaw after the Rising was an

unprecedented event in the history of Europe. What we are talking about here is totalitarian

engineering on a massive scale– for a few months a big city, the capital of a big European country,

practically ceased to exist. After the war, only part of its pre-war population returned to

Warsaw – many of them settled where the war had thrown them, and many remained

overseas.

44. The Robinsons

Not everybody, however, left the ruined city. Those who could not or did not wish to leave

stayed among the rubble. They were mainly Jews, for whom disclosure of their identity to the

German authorities would mean certain death. In extremely difficult conditions, without food and in

danger of being discovered, they hid until the Red Army took over the city in January 1945. The fate

of the "Warsaw Robinsons" is very accurately described in the Roman Polanski’s film The Pianist,

which won 3 Oscars. The film tells the story of the Polish pianist of Jewish origin, Władysław

Szpilman, who hid alone in the ruins of the city after the Rising.

45. Christmas Eve in the Camp

The insurgents were transported to POW camps in terrible conditions. They were

herded in cattle trucks into the unknown, feeling cold, hungry, tired and thirsty. At their

destination the Poles were treated as "sub-humans". But the Germans reserved the worst

treatment for the Russians who, as numerous reports show, were detained in inhumane

conditions. In spite of this, the Warsaw insurgents endured, waiting for the end of the war.

Christmas Eve 1944 is a particularly strong symbol of the tragic situation of the Poles at this time. 31

It was the only Christmas Eve in history not to be celebrated in Warsaw. The exiled insurgents tried to

be together on that day, singing Christmas carols and sharing bread. But it was the most difficult

Christmas Eve of all – away from their homeland, behind wire fences of the camps, without

their loved ones or any news of their fate. A former female courier from Żoliborz, Ms. Lidia

Wyleżyńska, detained in Stalag VI C Oberlangen recollects: "We found ourselves in barracks on 24

December and even though Red Cross parcels had travelled with us we only received them the

following day. It was a sad, hungry Christmas Eve. Two of us slept on each bunk, it is warmer

that way. Every morning I achieved the heroic feat of washing myself in the bathroom, where the

windows had no panes and the water was bitterly cold."

In this room you can listen to other descriptions of the Christmas Eve celebrations in the

camp.

Despite very difficult living conditions and despicable treatment by officers of the detaining

country, most Polish POWs managed to survive until liberation. The gates of POW camps were

open by Allied forces marching to Berlin. The camp in Oberlangen, in which the Germans

detained nearly 700 female participants of the Warsaw Rising, was liberated by Poles on 12

April 1945 – the soldiers of the First Armoured Division under the command of Gen. Stanisław

Maczek. After liberation some of the Insurgents put on uniforms and went on fighting until the end of

the war. Some looked for a place to live in the liberated western countries. Most went back to Poland.

46. Insurgents in the Polish People's Republic

The authorities in Poland did not welcome the Insurgents with open arms. Home

Army soldiers and the Insurgents of the Warsaw Rising were considered by the ruling

communists as "the spit-drenched dwarves of reaction" and enemies of the "people's

homeland". The fact that they had fought for Poland and for Warsaw, and had been ready to

sacrifice their lives, was now considered a crime. Insults, persecution, arrests and murders

increased under the communist law. The omnipotent Security Bureau decided the fate of the

Insurgents. Returning to normal life was almost impossible.

In Moscow in the middle of June 1945, Stalin staged a trial of the sixteen leaders of

the Polish Underground State, who had been arrested in March of the same year.

According to the political agenda of the Soviet rulers, the "trial of the sixteen" was

supposed to create circumstances conducive to establishing a Soviet sponsored

Provisional Government of National Unity, whose emergence was agreed at the Big Three

conference in Yalta in February 1945. The aim of the trial was to compromise, in the eyes of

Western leaders and the public, the authorities of the Polish Underground State and as a

consequence, all Poles who opposed Soviet domination. To that end, false accusations of

collaboration with the Germans were devised.

This marked the beginning of a period of condemnation of former Home Army

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soldiers, and in particular the participants of the Warsaw Rising. Communist propaganda was

everywhere: "Traitors led by Sosnkowski and Bor pushed Warsaw into the fire of senseless

insurrection." Until the mid-1950s, Home Army soldiers were persecuted and could not find

work. Arrests and accusations of treason abounded. Many soldiers of the "Zośka" Battalion or

"Radosław" Grouping including its commander Col. Jan Mazurkiewicz, were tried and

sentenced to many years imprisonment. Many Home Army soldiers never got out of prison.

They were sentenced to death on the basis of forged evidence or died in prison in unclear

circumstances. The last Home Army Commander Gen. Leopold Okulicki, codename

“Niedźwiadek" (in English “Bear Cub”), was a victim of the Soviet imprisonment in 1946. The

first commander of "K-Div" of Home Army High Command, Gen. August Fieldorf, codename

"Nil" (in English “Nile”), was hanged in 1953. The Home Delegate Jan Stanisław Jankowski,

codename „Soból" (in English “Sable”), died in a Soviet prison in 1953, two weeks before the end

of his sentence. Lieutenant Jan Rodowicz codename „Anoda" (in English “Anode”), was

arrested on Christmas Eve 1948 and died after being tortured during the investigation. His

torturers maintained that he had committed suicide. Cavalry Captain Witold Pilecki, who

voluntarily went to Auschwitz and initiatied and organised the resistance movement in the

camp, was sentenced to death by the communist authorities. He was shot in the back of his head

in 1948.

After 1956, when Władysław Gomułka returned to power, criticism of the Rising slowly

relented. Individual insurgents were no longer persecuted because the authorities decided that it

might be harmful to their image. The Insurgents were still treated with suspicion and hostility. In

1956, the authorities allowed a commemoration ceremony in Powązki Cemetery marking the

anniversary of the outbreak of the Rising for the first time. But security agents took

photographs of the participants and marked those of interest to them on the photos. The

photographs have recently been discovered at the Institute of National Remembrance, and can

be seen in this display.

The Commander of the Warsaw Rising, Gen. Antoni Chruściel codename „Monter" (in

English “mechanic”), wrote to Gomułka in 1957 asking to have his Polish citizenship restored.

It had been taken away by the communists in 1946. He also requested permission to return to

Poland. He never received a reply.

47. John Paul II

It was only in the 1970s and 1980s that great changes took place, especially with regards to

Poles’ the social awareness. The fact that a Pole, Karol Wojtyła, was elected Pope in 1978 was a

very important part of that process. The Pope's first journey to Poland became a catalyst for a great

social movement. The words of the Pope "Do not be afraid" and "Let Your Spirit come and

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renew the face of the earth. This earth!" spoken in June 1979 in Warsaw, gave the Poles

unusual strength and faith. As a result, a year later, a strong and universal social resistance

emerged with the birth of the "Solidarity" movement. Underground publications not subject to

state censorship – know as the "second circulation" –flourished. Poles began to learn the true

history of the Warsaw Rising and its leaders, a history that had been either concealed or falsified

until then. The time of truth and objective evaluation was approaching, this was the time of the next

generation.

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