80 year Anniversary of the WWII Warsaw Uprising

Especially important to learn from these historical commemorations today, when nationalist autocrats are again gaining influence. Thanks for posting.

Thanks, Carlos. Great museum with really well done exhibits that kept my interest for 3+ hours.

I went on a free day, so a few of the interactive exhibits were crowded, but overall the museum handled large numbers of people well. I paid extra and appreciated having the audio guide.

I was particularly moved by the 3D film "City of Ruins", billed as "the world's first digital reconstruction of a city destroyed during World War II." It's near the end of the exhibit and well worth planning your visit for the bit of extra time.

Yes it is a great museum. It is unfortunate that much of what happened in Poland during the war was buried by the Soviet-bloc authorities for decades.

The 30 July episode of PBS Frontline is about the revival of extremism in Germany right now:

https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/documentary/germanys-enemy-within/

@CWsocial - yes I think I remember that one too, it's been a few years since I went, but for me the most interesting part of the Warsaw Uprising museum was how they recreated the claustrophobic underground sewer system used by the Polish home army to move around the city undetected.

@Stan - good point, the Russians were just as culpable for the defeat of the Poles as the Germans, having paused just outside the city until the Germans destroyed the city for them. The Russians even went as far as to deny the western allies use of their airfields to help the Poles in Warsaw out with airdrops and air support. In many ways this was the first salvo of the Cold-War.

@avirosemail - If I recall correctly a good chunk of the film "The Pianist" occurs during the 1944 (and 1943) Warsaw Uprisings and the aftermath of the destruction of Warsaw, great film.

Hi All!

Just to give a different perspective:
As I come from western Poland, I recall that my grandparents never talked fondly about this Uprising, as for them it was a waste of human life plus they could not rebuild their house after the WW2 as all the bricks were shipped to Warsaw in order to rebuild it.
Judging it from my family's perspective - Uprising wasn't as happy moment as it is shown now.
There was a great fear about loved ones: are they able to survive a hard winter in a house without part of the walls?

To make it clear:
I do admire people who were fighting in that Uprising.
It is amazing how much underground state done to prepare a different kind weapons for those jung kids, which risked everything and went fighting.
It's also amazing how stupid were some of the people in AK (Home Army) - especially Gen. Antoni Chruściel aka "Monter" - and how much they were pushing towards the fight, knowing how ill prepared they are.

That is just a perspective of a Polish person living outside of Warsaw, who spoke with a family about conditions of living in Poland 1945 - 47, which are rarely mentioned.

@Tomasz, well said. What I got out of the museum and the films and books about the uprising, was exactly that perspective. While it was heroic, it was a mistake and doomed to failure. Much of what happened there and afterwards, was unknown in the West until many years later, and the suffering was masked by the Cold War. As I recall from reading, more people died in the Warsaw uprising and subsequent massacres than in the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Thank you, Tomasz. Very interesting to get another perspective.

And thank you, Carlos for an excellent post. I regret missing that museum when I was in Poland.

Thanks Tomasz, one thing I learned about my many travels to Poland is that the events of the war are seen differently depending on where you family is from.

I suggest the book by Norman Davis and that by Alexandra Ritchie on the Warsaw Uprising.

As I understand the situation the Red Army and Stalin were more than happy to wait on the other side of the Vistula and let the Germans and Poles kill each other before moving in. We will be visiting this museum next month.

On a side note we had Polish neighbors when I was growing up, and their take is the Uprising was a monumentally bad idea and naive from the get go due to a lack of weaponry, and a coherent plan.

In no way do I question the courage and bravery of the Polish fighters.

Also regarding Yalta, I've been reading that FDR didn't know he was going to die, and believed he could work with Stalin after the war for a better postwar situation. And nobody was in a mood to keep fighting after the fall of Berlin. Everyone was weary of war. I'm convinced FDR had few options in this regard.

I have to say that visiting Gdańsk and Warsaw has given me an education on the history of Poland as well as the history of the Jewish people that I could never otherwise have gotten. Both peoples have been the whipping boys for other people who regarded themselves as "superior" - and that includes the Polish Gentiles who saw themselves as superior to Polish Jews. Very fraught history for both groups. And both groups suffered genocide at the hands of fascists and Communists during World War II that is truly horrifying.

As an American with somewhat vague Protestant Anglo Saxon heritage, this trip has provided me with yet more examples of the privilege of my existence. That's made me even more grateful for my good fortune than I formerly was.