Events have begun in Poland to mark the 65th anniversary of the Warsaw Rising against Nazi Germany, which broke out on 1 August, 1944.
Click on the audio icon to listen to the report by Joanna Najfeld
The Warsaw City Council is to hold a special commemorative session, a mass will be held at the foot of the Warsaw Rising Monument and a concert is scheduled in the Warsaw Rising Museum in tribute to the tens of thousands of people who perished in street fighting and Nazi reprisals – but those are only a few of the events planned in commemoration.
The Warsaw Rising lasted sixty three days. It ended in defeat and some 18,000 insurgents and 200,000 civilians were killed. Around 3,500 veterans of the fighting are still alive. The goal of the Rising was to fight off the German Nazi army and to prevent the installation of a pro-Soviet administration after the liberation of Warsaw.
The patriotic battles of 1944 will be commemorated not only with official speeches and flowers in front of monuments, but also with concerts, plays, a canoe trip and many more.
EVENTS IN WARSAW:
Saturday, August 1
A canoe trip on the Vistula river starts at 12:00. An event called “On the Vistula, through the untamed city” is organized as a part of the Przemiany summer festival. Everyone who wants to take part it the trip should apply with an email to avetki@wp.pl. Organizers will provide canoes for all participants.
At 12:40 and 14:30, a ferry departs from the Vistula bank near Warsaw’s Royal Castle. The ferry will host special guests: musicians form Kapela Czerniakowska, playing some of the songs from the period of the Warsaw Rising.
The Warsaw Rising Museum invites all families to its Freedom Park. Between 14:00 and 17:00 many family games and plays will be organized.
The beginning of the Rising is traditionally marked by air-raid sirens at 17:00 – known as ‘the W hour – and be followed by a minute of silence in whole the city. A few minutes after, a concert at the University of Warsaw starts. Young performers will play the songs written during the occupation and rising period.
At 21:00, the Warsaw Rising Museum will show unique German chronicles and documentary films presenting Warsaw from the occupation period.
Sunday, August 2
On Sunday evening at 20:30, a concert is scheduled in front of St. Anna’s church in the district of Wilanow (1 Kolegiacka St.). A show called “Trace of Memory” will combine music and text performed by some of the best Polish actors, including Joanna Trzepiecinska, Miroslaw Baka and Krzystof Kolberger. The script of the show is based on excerpts of the rising’s fighters accounts who took part in the battles in that district of Warsaw. The show will also use archive and contemporary video materials.
The Warsaw Rising Museum will show a film on Sunday evening about a rising fighter, the young, talented poet Tadeusz Gajcy. The biographical movie Traces: Tadeusz Gajcy will be introduced by its maker, Hanna Etemadi.
Prepared by Jakub Groszkowski
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