(Not) Remembrance – Warsaw Uprising

(Not) Remembrance

Warsaw Uprising

On the first of August, ceremonies to commemorate the anniversary of the outbreak of the Warsaw Uprising have been held for many years at the AK (Home Army) monument in front of St Boniface Church.

This was the case this year, too. But before the sirens went off at 5pm, a lecture devoted to this historic event took place at the European Centre on the site of the former Stalag VIII A. The lecture was given by Kinga Hartmann-Wóycicka, president of the Memory, Education, Culture Foundation, to a group of young people from Germany, Poland, Ukraine and Italy from the project YOUNION organised by Meetingpoint Memory Messiaen.

The first of August 1944 is one of the most important dates in Polish history. It was the day of the outbreak of the uprising, the uprising for freedom and, at the same time, the largest and longest battle in the history of the Second World War, which lasted 63 days, fought by an underground organisation against the regular troops of the occupying forces.

The Warsaw Uprising. A difficult subject for Poles, especially painful for Warsaw. Despite the passage of 80 years, it is still the subject of historians’ discussions, family conversations. Questions, hypotheses, theories have been running through the Polish media for years The question still arises whether it was necessary or whether this hecatomb made sense.

The Home Army command decided on the outbreak of the uprising, wishing to free the capital from the German occupier and to appear before the advancing Red Army as the host of the city. They underestimated the still existing potential of the German army and did not realise the hypocrisy of Moscow, which called on the Poles to fight and then stopped its troops on the right side of the Vistula, in Praga, and did not give aid to the bleeding city.

We do not want to judge anything or anyone here. We have come together to remember the history of the uprising, to pay tribute to the unprecedented heroism of the insurgents and the immeasurable suffering and tragedy of the people of Warsaw.
For many years, commemorations of this tragic uprising have been held throughout the country. However, there was a time when the uprising was not allowed to be spoken about loudly, and meetings of former insurgents at the graves of those who died were held almost in conspiracy. The heroic soldiers were called reactionary dwarfs, imprisoned and sentenced. Today, this is hard to believe.

The Uprising broke out on 1 August at 5 p.m. Soldiers of the Home Army, among them thousands of young people brought up in the inter-war period in the spirit of patriotism and freedom ideals, had been preparing for this armed act for years of occupation.
Unfortunately, their enthusiasm and eagerness to fight was not matched by armament. They had and had yet to acquire weapons.
The euphoria of the first moments, the surprise of the Germans, the minor victories of the insurgents, the emotion, the tears of joy of the inhabitants, the white and red flags and Chopin’s music coming from some flats – all this was short-lived. The insurgents and the civilian population of Warsaw faced two months of fighting in the city, and above all, there was bloody, criminal retaliation of the occupier against the civilian population of two districts of Warsaw – Wola and Ochota.

From the very first hours of the uprising, German units committed numerous war crimes – the captured insurgents were shot, the wounded were killed, and mass murders of civilians took place.

According to Hitler’s insane order, all inhabitants of the city were to be killed and Warsaw razed to the ground. The suppression of the uprising was to be a deterrent to the whole of Europe.

In accordance with these orders, the pacification of Wola, a district of Warsaw partially occupied by the Home Army, began.
During this pacification, later called the slaughter of Wola, there was unprecedented cruelty to its inhabitants, who were killed with whole families. People were driven out of their flats house by house, street by street, often killed on the spot in the yards of tenements, in the streets, in churches. Grenades were thrown into cellars and houses were set on fire. Scenes difficult to imagine took place in two hospitals in Wola, at Działdowska and Płocka streets, where patients and staff were murdered.

By 12 August, an estimated 60,000 people, men, women and children, had been murdered! Can we imagine this?

The pacification operation in Wola was commanded by SS General Heinz Reinefarth and a special unit by Oskar Dirlewanger, both of whom received high honours for their services.

Reinefarth was mayor of the town of Westerland on the island of Sylt from 1951 to 1967. The investigation into the crimes committed in Warsaw, which was opened in 1961, was dropped without charge.

In 2014, at a ceremony commemorating the mass murders in Wola, the then mayor of Westerland, Petra Reiber, in moving words asked for forgiveness for the wrongs committed by the executioner of Wola and other Nazis.

Returning to the insurgent story. Fighting continued with varying intensity in almost all districts of the capital, with the exception of right-bank Warsaw. The Old Town was particularly fiercely defended, turning into mountains of ruins and rubble. Some of the insurgents were getting through the sewers to other districts. Many districts were under heavy cannon fire. The civilian population lived in this hell, deprived of food, water and medical care.

The uprising lasted 63 days, until 3 October. In negotiations, it was agreed that both the insurgent troops would leave the city – the soldiers were given the status of prisoners of war – and the civilian population, who were mainly sent to the transit camp in Pruszków.

Then the systematic destruction of the city began. Warsaw was to disappear from the face of the earth. Houses were blown up, set on fire. Libraries, works of art, achievements of generations disappeared in flames. Priceless architectural monuments lay in ruins. Civilians left the city with bundles and rucksacks.

The balance of human casualties was tragic. Among the insurgents: 16,000 dead and missing, 20,000 wounded and 15,000 taken prisoner. Between 150,000 and 200,000 civilian inhabitants of the capital died as a result of air raids, artillery shelling, harsh living conditions and massacres in Wola and Ochota.

Traces of the uprising can also be found in Zgorzelec. Prisoners of war, soldiers of the Home Army, were brought to Stalag VIII A in the former Görlitz-Ost. We know from available documents that there were 37 insurgents. We are conducting further research in Polish and German archives. We would like to know their names.

In the history of the building of Polish statehood in the new city established after the war – Zgorzelec – we also find Home Army soldiers, insurgents. Let us today mention the doctor who built the Polish health service here, Jan B. Gliński, Zygfryda Otwinowska, a teacher, headmistress of the first Polish school in Zgorzelec, and her brother Zbigniew Otwinowski, head of the State Repatriation Office in 1945 and 46, later head of the Reconstruction Referral.

Let us remember their services to our city.

                                                                     Kinga Hartmann-Wóycicka

                                                 President of the Foundation Memory, Education, Culture

Phot.: Meetingpoint Memory Messiaen e.V.