In a video shared on the Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ social media channels, Bartoszewski revealed a deeply personal connection to the uprising: both his parents were active participants.
“180,000 civilians were brutally murdered by the Germans, while Soviet troops on the other side of the Vistula River remained passive, and support from our Western allies was minimal,” Bartoszewski said.
Bartoszewski reflects on his family’s deep ties to the resistance
“This is a very personal occasion for me, as both of my parents took part in the uprising,” he added, highlighting his father, Władysław Bartoszewski — an Auschwitz survivor who later served as Poland’s foreign minister — who acted as deputy head of the “Anna” radio station, which transmitted messages across a city divided by barricades.
His mother was a captain in Kedyw, the Home Army’s elite sabotage and diversion unit, responsible for supplying explosives to resistance fighters. Remarkably, she once defused a 500-kilogram bomb that failed to detonate after falling on the Adria restaurant.
“This is an uprising that unites the nation,” Bartoszewski concluded, noting that Poles always mark it with a minute of silence at 5 pm on 1 August.
The monument to Professor Władysław Bartoszewski (1922-2015), created by Gdańsk sculptor Jacek Kiciński, is located in Białystok, in northeastern Poland. Photo: PAP/Michał Zieliński
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Source: MSZ/X/@PolandMFA/@ipngovpl_eng