Officials, World War II veterans and residents gathered in sites around the city to mark the 75th anniversary of the outbreak of the 1944 Warsaw Uprising, a heroic act of resistance in which poorly equipped Polish fighters took up arms against the country’s Nazi German invaders.
A day of ceremonies included a roll call of honour and wreath-laying as well as speeches, prayers, poetry readings and the singing of patriotic songs.
People stop for a minute's remembrance at 5 pm, the exact time the revolt against the Germans started in Warsaw on August 1, 1944.
Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki paid tribute to the insurgents early in the day, saying that “there would be no free Poland” if not for their heroic struggle.
Morawiecki also said that fighters in the Warsaw Uprising were not only "fighting for the future of the nation” but defending fundamental human values such as patriotism, truth and honour.
Polish President Andrzej Duda said on the eve of the anniversary that the Warsaw Uprising demonstrated that "the Polish people are unvanquished, that they cannot be easily subjugated, that they cannot be suppressed without resistance, that they are proud and strong, and that they are no stranger to heroism and bravery even at the price of death.”
President Andrzej Duda during a commemorative event at Warsaw's Powązki Military Cemetery on Thursday.
US ambassador Georgette Mosbacher has said in a Twitter post that "the patriotism, the heroic struggle for freedom and the great sacrifice of the Heroes of the Warsaw Uprising deserve the utmost respect."
The US embassy on Thursday released a commemorative video in which American soldiers stationed in Poland pay tribute to the heroes of the Warsaw Uprising.
Polish lawmakers on Wednesday passed a special resolution in which they saluted “all the heroes of the Warsaw Uprising" and said that the insurgency was “one of the most heroic and tragic Polish battles of World War II" and the largest military operation by any underground resistance movement in German-occupied Europe.
German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas, in a speech in Warsaw on Thursday, asked the Polish people for forgiveness for the horrors their country suffered at the hands of Nazi Germany during World War II.
The 1944 insurgency lasted 63 days before being put down by better equipped and more numerous German forces.
The heroic act of resistance left the city razed to the ground and resulted in the death of some 18,000 Polish fighters and 200,000 civilians.
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Source: TVP Info, PAP, IAR