Germany and Poland must not allow differences to divide the two nations, German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas said on Thursday (August 1) as he attended ceremonies marking the Warsaw Uprising anniversary.
On the second day of his visit to the Polish capital, Maas and Polish foreign Minister Jacek Czaputowicz marked the 75th anniversary of the Warsaw Uprising, which historians consider one of the most tragic episodes of World War Two and Poland's last push for independence before a transition from Nazi to communist Russian occupation.
Some six million Poles, including three million Polish Jews, were killed during the war and Warsaw was razed to the ground following the 1944 uprising in which about 200,000 civilians died.
In a speech at the Warsaw Rising Museum, Czaputowicz said Poles had rebuilt the country's capital with their own hands, adding that the issue of war reparations was not a closed case for many Poles.
The ruling Law and Justice party (PiS) has revived calls for compensation since it took power in 2015 and has made the promotion of Poland's wartime victimhood a central plank of its appeal to nationalism.
According to the senior party's lawmaker Germany could owe Poland more than $850 billion (£658.6 billion) in reparations for damages it incurred during World War Two and the brutal Nazi occupation.
PiS has yet to make an official demand for reparations but its combative stance towards Germany has strained relations.
Autor: gf / Źródło: TVN24 News in English, Reuters