On This Day in 1944, the city of Warsaw rose against its German occupiers.
The uprising was led by the Polish Home Army, the underground resistance force aligned with the Polish government-in-exile. The city's civilian population fought alongside the Home Army against the well-armed German military.
The uprising was led by the Polish Home Army, the underground resistance force aligned with the Polish government-in-exile. The city's civilian population fought alongside the Home Army against the well-armed German military.
For Polish Jew Stanisław Aronson (pictured here as a child), the uprising was particularly meaningful. He had survived the deadly deportations from the Warsaw ghetto and then been accepted into an elite sabotage unit of the Polish Home Army. He fought in the 1944 uprising. A particularly moving moment for Stanisław came when the Home Army captured the Umschlagplatz.
The Umschlagplatz was the roundup location from which Jews in the Warsaw ghetto had previously been deported to concentration camps and killing centers in 1942–43. More than a year before the uprising, Stanisław’s parents had been rounded up at this very location and sent to their deaths.
“We marched out of the Umschlagplatz,” remembered Stanisław. “There were no Germans for a distance of one to two kilometers, and thousands of people lined the streets, tossing flowers and weeping.”
The Warsaw Uprising lasted for 63 days. By October 2, 1944, the Germans had suppressed the uprising, deporting Polish civilians to concentration and forced-labor camps and reducing Warsaw to ruins. Although it was militarily unsuccessful and exacted an enormous human toll, the Warsaw Uprising remains an enduring symbol of Polish resistance against the occupying German forces.
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