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Polish president honors 1944 Wola massacre victims

01.08.2020 16:00
Polish President Andrzej Duda laid wreaths on Saturday at a monument honoring the victims of a bloody Nazi German massacre in the city’s western Wola district during the first days of the 1944 Warsaw Uprising.
Polands Duda at the monument to the victims of liquidation of Wolski hospital, 1 August 2020.
Poland's Duda at the monument to the victims of liquidation of Wolski hospital, 1 August 2020.Photo: PAP/Rafał Guz

The monument commemorates the liquidation of Wolski hospital, which was one of the bloodiest episodes of the Wola massacre.

"It is a great testimony to the suffering of the residents of Wola, the hospital patients, but above all […] to doctors’ heroism, service and devotion to patients until the very end", Duda said.

Duda recalled the suffering of the district's inhabitants and in particular the hospital's patients as well as paying homage to the "heroism, service and devotion to patients of the doctors and the entire medical staff of Wolski hospital until the very end."

“Honor and glory to the heroes, eternal memory to the fallen", he added.

The Wola massacre was the systematic killing of between 30,000 and 65,000 people by German troops during the early phase of the uprising, which started on August 1.

Between August 5 and 12, 1944, tens of thousands of Polish civilians along with captured Home Army resistance fighters were systematically murdered by the Germans in mass executions.

It is estimated that up to 10,000 civilians were killed in the Wola district on August 5 alone, the first day of the German operation. Many of the victims were the elderly, women and children.

The 1944 Warsaw Uprising lasted 63 days before being put down by better equipped and more numerous German forces.

The insurgency resulted in the death of some 18,000 Polish fighters and 200,000 civilians.

(jh)

Source: PAP