Warsaw pays tribute to WWII insurgents
Warsaw citizens and authorities on Thursday commemorated the 80th anniversary of the 1944 Warsaw Uprising in which the Polish capital stood up to the Germans after five years of brutal Nazi occupation.
Sirens wailed across Warsaw at exactly 5 pm, the hour the uprising started, and the bustling city came to a standstill in a minute of silence, paying tribute to the heroic wartime citizens of the Polish capital.
Pedestrians, cars, buses and trams all stopped to honour the insurgents.
Crowds of people gathered at the central Dmowskiego Roundabout, many of them holding flares, with the smoke engulfing the site, before setting off on a march across the city's thoroughfares.
In the Old Town's Castle Square residents formed a huge human sign of 'Polska Walczaca' (Poland Fighting), a Polish WWII resistance symbol combining the letters 'P' and 'W'.
Military aircraft, including the transport plane C-130 Hercules and four F-16 fighters flew above the city.
State and city officials gathered at 5 pm at the Gloria Victis monument in the military cemetery Powazki, built in tribute to the fallen insurgents. They included President Andrzej Duda, Sejm (lower house) Speaker Szymon Holownia, Senate Speaker Malgorzata Kidawa-Blonska, Deputy Prime Minister and Defence Minister Wladyslaw Kosiniak-Kamysz and Warsaw Mayor Rafal Trzaskowski.
Present were also surviving Warsaw Uprising insurgents.
The Warsaw Uprising was the largest underground military operation in German-occupied Europe. On August 1, 1944, around 40,000 to 50,000 insurgents took part in the fighting. Planned to last several days, the uprising eventually lasted over two months.
During the fighting in Warsaw, about 18,000 insurgents lost their lives and 25,000 were wounded. Losses among the civilian population were huge and amounted to approximately 180,000. After the Warsaw Uprising was crushed, about 500,000 surviving residents were forced to evacuate and Warsaw was almost completely razed to the ground. (PAP)
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