Warsaw tributes Wola Massacre victims

A wreath-laying ceremony accompanied by a gun salute and a roll-call Friday tributed the so-called Wola Massacre of Poles by the Germans during the 1944 Warsaw Uprising in which from 40,000 to 60,000 inhabitants of the Warsaw district Wola were mass-executed.

PAP/Jacek Turczyk / Warszawa, 05.08.2016. Mieszkańcy Warszawy zakończyli Marsz Pamięci upamiętniający cywilne ofiary powstania warszawskiego przy wystawie plenerowej 'Zachowajmy ich w pamięci'. Na białych słupach umieszczono ponad 57 tys. nazwisk warszawiaków poległych lub zaginionych w Powstaniu Warszawskim. Przedstawiona lista ofiar cywilnych to największy dostępny zbiór danych osób, które zginęły w Powstaniu Warszawskim. (cat) PAP/Jacek Turczyk

The tribute was part of ongoing commemorations of the insurgency's 72nd anniversary.

President Andrzej Duda in a letter to the ceremony participants called the Wola executions "one of the major acts of genocide committed by the German occupants", and stressed that it should never be forgotten.

Warsaw Mayor Hanna Gronkiewicz-Waltz reminded that the Wola Massacre was an act of retaliation for the Warsaw Uprising and was planned as the first step in the extermination of the city's entire population.

The Wola Massacre took place in the early phase of the Warsaw Uprising (August 5-12, 1944) and involved the systematic execution of between 40,000 and 60,000 civilians in the Wola district of Warsaw by German troops and collaborating forces. (PAP)

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