I used to live nearby and was always weirded out by the statue just being one of the required two-minute stops for all the tourist groups. A short monologue, then move on to the next attraction...
Great work. My SO is doing family research on the part of her family that came from Warsaw (and a few other parts of Poland). I know she will love to see those.
Don't forget that Germans were able to quickly find people they wanted to exterminate by going through municipal and church records. Today it will be much easier thanks to push for Digital ID. Choose demographic and the dashboard will show where everyone is and their connections.
Ten years ago multiple tech giants openly stated they would not help the Trump administration build a Muslim registry [1]. Since then, several of them have bowed the knee and donated to his second inauguration.
I’m from Germany, and keep wondering how much more damage the NSDAP could have done if they had access to the data these companies now have on everybody.
[1] https://www.theverge.com/2016/12/16/13990234/google-muslim-r...
It shows only the better part but doesn't show the bad part. Poles are divided about usefulness of this uprising, how it was (badly) executed and many believe it was deemed to fail.
The aftermath [1] was that ~220k Poles died and out of that 150-200k civilians, often with mass execution - later on a lot of warsaw population was sometimes bitter toward the uprising’s leadership.
To put it in context: within 2 months 200k people died, similar number like in Hiroshima but almost nobody wordwide know about warsaw uprising.
That's not accurate - the uprising was not planned in collaboration with the Russians.
The whole point of the uprising was to liberate Warsaw before the Russians get in, as everybody knew that Russians are not liberating Poland - they are looking to occupy the country, just as Germany did. If the Uprising was successfull, it would give a great credit and negotiating card to the Polish government.
Unfortunately, Russians knew that too - that's exactly why they stopped their advance and watched the city being razed to the ground. Also unfortunately, they were right and ended up occupying Poland for the next 45 years.
It was definitely not planned with the Soviets, for multiple reasons:
- the Poles of the AK (London government loyal) were not the communist faction (Lublin government loyal), and saw the insurrection as the last chance to get a Poland out of the Soviet sphere of influence post WWII – especially after the publicization of Katyn;
- even if they had wanted, Stalin had zero interest in giving a hand to London-loyal Poles that were in frontal opposition to “his” Lublin-loyal Poles;
- the Germans were not caught flat-footed, they already knew of the insurrection preparations and therefore not only was the city well garrisoned, it would have been in any case, as it was the strategic lock of the area to hold the RKKA on the Vistula;
- and all the above is moot in any case, because the RKKA units that reached the neighborhood of Warsaw in '44 had as many chance of taking the city as the German units that reached Moscow in '41 – they were just spent and at the end of their logistic tail after months of fighting during the Bagration operation, and had no chance of successfully developing an opposed crossing of the Vistula against two Panzerkorps.
So the London-loyal Poles were in a damned if you do, damned if you don't situation, and at least they were able to go with a glorious bang. Like a Marshal said, “c'est magnifique, mais ce n'est pas la guerre”.
> So the London-loyal Poles were in a damned if you do, damned if you don't situation, and at least they were able to go with a glorious bang.
Many argue this uprising is nothing to be proud of and the crime of the leadership with devastating results: ~200k civilians went with this bang, and city completely wiped out.
It was an attempt of the Polish resistance to avoid being "liberated" by the Soviets to just immediately become occupied by the communist red army. The idea being to liberate Warsaw and get US/UK assistance through the Polish government-in-exile in London to establish Polish military control before the Soviet army arrived. Getting US/UK support could have meant that Poland remained an independent state. Instead, Stalin not only betrayed them, but later actually convicted the surviving leaders of the uprising. "Crimes against communism".
This is now politely referred to as a Soviet betrayal in service of "Stalin's post-war political goals for Poland".
It would be naive to think that either ruler intended to honour this agreement in the long run. Both sides were probably gambling on when, not if, the agreement would be broken.
These two in particular:
https://www.barwypowstania.pl/photos/22
https://www.barwypowstania.pl/photos/51
and the world is stupid enough to repeat the endless cycle of violence.
Well, there is "never again" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Never_again).
It is up to us to decide if "never again" is a universal rule or "oh, but this time it is different".
We have a monument commemorating children fighting in the uprising: https://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pomnik_Ma%C5%82ego_Powsta%C5%8...
And the "W" Hour is commemorated on every 1st August at 1700 hours
https://youtu.be/Ejd2rsXoQSI
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%22W%22_Hour?useskin=vector
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Also, if you ever have a chance then head to Warsaw Rising Museum:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warsaw_Rising_Museum?useskin=v...
I used to live nearby and was always weirded out by the statue just being one of the required two-minute stops for all the tourist groups. A short monologue, then move on to the next attraction...
Great work. My SO is doing family research on the part of her family that came from Warsaw (and a few other parts of Poland). I know she will love to see those.
Amazing how much these photos remind me of Gaza.
Don't forget that Germans were able to quickly find people they wanted to exterminate by going through municipal and church records. Today it will be much easier thanks to push for Digital ID. Choose demographic and the dashboard will show where everyone is and their connections.
Germany already has religion logged in the Melderegister
Ten years ago multiple tech giants openly stated they would not help the Trump administration build a Muslim registry [1]. Since then, several of them have bowed the knee and donated to his second inauguration. I’m from Germany, and keep wondering how much more damage the NSDAP could have done if they had access to the data these companies now have on everybody. [1] https://www.theverge.com/2016/12/16/13990234/google-muslim-r...
Incredible to see just so many smiling, cheerful faces surrounded by utter destruction and death. The power of comradery, I suppose.
It shows only the better part but doesn't show the bad part. Poles are divided about usefulness of this uprising, how it was (badly) executed and many believe it was deemed to fail.
The aftermath [1] was that ~220k Poles died and out of that 150-200k civilians, often with mass execution - later on a lot of warsaw population was sometimes bitter toward the uprising’s leadership.
To put it in context: within 2 months 200k people died, similar number like in Hiroshima but almost nobody wordwide know about warsaw uprising.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warsaw_Uprising#Aftermath
Harrowing.
For those who don't know, the Uprising was a planned resistance action to expel the Nazis from Warsaw.
Supposedly it was planned in collaboration with the Russians. But the Russian army stood down while the resistance fought alone for two months.
This allowed the Germans to regroup, fight back, and eventually to destroy the city, and most of the resistance itself.
That's not accurate - the uprising was not planned in collaboration with the Russians.
The whole point of the uprising was to liberate Warsaw before the Russians get in, as everybody knew that Russians are not liberating Poland - they are looking to occupy the country, just as Germany did. If the Uprising was successfull, it would give a great credit and negotiating card to the Polish government.
Unfortunately, Russians knew that too - that's exactly why they stopped their advance and watched the city being razed to the ground. Also unfortunately, they were right and ended up occupying Poland for the next 45 years.
It was definitely not planned with the Soviets, for multiple reasons:
So the London-loyal Poles were in a damned if you do, damned if you don't situation, and at least they were able to go with a glorious bang. Like a Marshal said, “c'est magnifique, mais ce n'est pas la guerre”.> So the London-loyal Poles were in a damned if you do, damned if you don't situation, and at least they were able to go with a glorious bang.
Many argue this uprising is nothing to be proud of and the crime of the leadership with devastating results: ~200k civilians went with this bang, and city completely wiped out.
This is a question I don't feel qualified enough to lean one way or the other.
Russians started the war together with Germans. The idea that they could "help" is Western propaganda that tries to whitewash helping Soviet Union.
It was an attempt of the Polish resistance to avoid being "liberated" by the Soviets to just immediately become occupied by the communist red army. The idea being to liberate Warsaw and get US/UK assistance through the Polish government-in-exile in London to establish Polish military control before the Soviet army arrived. Getting US/UK support could have meant that Poland remained an independent state. Instead, Stalin not only betrayed them, but later actually convicted the surviving leaders of the uprising. "Crimes against communism".
This is now politely referred to as a Soviet betrayal in service of "Stalin's post-war political goals for Poland".
For more context, WWII was started as a partnership between Hitler and Stalin to partition Poland. [0]
Spreading this knowledge is now illegal in Putin's Russia. [1]
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molotov%E2%80%93Ribbentrop_Pac...
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_Against_Rehabilitation_of_... (that name, lol)
It would be naive to think that either ruler intended to honour this agreement in the long run. Both sides were probably gambling on when, not if, the agreement would be broken.
Sure, that's debatable supposition. I would think that it's likely correct.
What is fact is that Hitler and Stalin were military allies to start WWII. This is documented history.
Would you agree with my latter statement?
Did Russia back out to intentionally let it happen or did they chicken out to avoid fighting the nazis?
Intentionally. Allowed the Soviets to administer the place when the Nazis finally left, as the Polish resistance had been crushed. Unforgiveable.