An unknown history
Perhaps this is because none of the allies were comfortable with its legacy. The Western allies, having gone to war over Poland, left its people at the mercy of a new occupying force.
There were two uprisings in Warsaw during World War Two and they are often confused. The first happened in the Warsaw Ghetto in the spring of 1943 when hundreds of Jewish fighters ferociously fought the German army in a desperate attempt to stop the mass deportation of Polish Jews to the extermination camps.
'Himmler called it the hardest battle he ever fought'
The second - the subject of this film - mobilised thousands of Polish freedom fighters against the Nazis to liberate their capital city. It has been described as the single largest atrocity of the war, and was the greatest and bloodiest military operation undertaken by any resistance movement in World War Two.
The battle would last two months and the Germans were soon saying they had seen nothing like it since Stalingrad. But at Stalingrad the Germans had faced a professional army with air support. In Warsaw they were confronted by some forty-thousand irregular volunteers led by a handful of professional soldiers, supported by children and civilians.
Himmler called it the hardest battle he ever fought. At its end, around two hundred thousand men, women and children of Warsaw were dead and more than 80% of the city was destroyed.
Published: 2006-01-12