1 August 2010 marks the 66th anniversary of the start of the Warsaw Rising, regarded by many as a last attempt to try and push out the Nazi occupiers of Poland’s capital.
At 17.00 CET, sirens will ring out throughout Poland to mark “W” Hour, the beginning of the Polish Home Army offensive against the Nazi occupiers.
On Sunday morning, the first ceremonies marking the anniversary were held in Dreszer Park in Warsaw’s Mokotow district.
Veterans, scouts and local residents gathered at the park’s monument to pay homage to those who died fighting for Poland’s freedom.
“It was a huge battle for a free Poland. Now it is said directly that if it wasn’t for our uprising, our battle, there would be no free Poland today, there would have been no Solidarity movement, and we wouldn’t have been able to build what we have around us for the past 20 years,” head of the Home Army’s “Baszta” Regiment Veteran’s Association, Wojciech Milic said at the ceremony.
At the Grave of the Unknown Soldier in Warsaw’s Pilsudski Square flowers and wreaths were laid to commemorate the anniversary. Among those present were veterans of the Rising, as well as Warsaw Mayor Hanna Gronkiewicz-Waltz, President-Elect Bronislaw Komorowski, and other politicians from both parliamentary houses.
Dreszer Park. Source: Kakarakak /warszawa.wikia.comParliamentary Speaker and interim acting president, Grzegorz Schetyna will be joined by Warsaw Mayor Hanna Gronkiewicz-Waltz and representatives of veteran organisations in a ceremony that will take place in the Freedom Park of the Warsaw Rising Museum.
At the Monument to the Warsaw Rising on Krasinski Square, commemorative ceremonies took place on Saturday, where Head of the Warsaw Insurgents’ Association General Zbigniew Scibor-Rylski spoke to a crowd of 3,000 on the emotions surrounding the 1 August and “W” Hour.
“When we meet here, by the Warsaw Rising memorial, we hark back to those great days,” General Scibor-Rylski mused poetically, adding that the insurgents were “radiating with shining glory, although not free from the bitterness of defeat and unfulfilled hopes. Full of heroism, yet marked by the human fear of being surrounded by the sceptre of death.”
At the ceremony commemorating the Warsaw Rising yesterday, Saturday, Speaker Grzegorz Schetyna said that the sacrifice made during the 63 days of the Warsaw Rising became an inspiration for generations to come.
“We are paying homage to Warsaw, to the insurgents, and every year we remind ourselves that if weren’t for those 63 days in August and September 1944, we wouldn’t be living in a free Poland now,” Schetyna said.
The Parliamentary Speaker continued, adding “we owe our thanks to the Rising, to its participants, to civilians as well as the Grey Ranks [the underground scouting movement during the Rising].”
The Warsaw Rising lasted 63 days. It is estimated that over 16,000 Polish insurgents were killed in the battle, with up to 200,000 civilians being killed by the Nazi onslaught that ensued following the beginning of the Polish fight for freedom. (jb)
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