Poland marked 79th anniversary of Warsaw Uprising

Each year, people of Warsaw gather in symbolic places of the city to pay homage to approx. 180,000 victims of the Uprising and its aftermath.

Exactly at 5 p.m. on Tuesday, tens of thousands marked the 79th anniversary with a minute-long silence. All traffic stopped for 60 seconds. As per usual, the memory of the fallen insurgents was accompanied by wailing sirens.

The Warsaw Uprising was a planned military operation aimed against Nazi-German forces occupying the city. The Polish Underground State, together with its armed forces - the Home Army, attempted to take control of the city and push the already retreating Germans westwards.

The rebellion coincided with the Soviet Army's advance from the East. The insurgents, apart from a strong desire of justice and vengeance against their opressors, had a political motivation. The Red Army was bringing along a newly created puppet government comprised of Polish communists, formed under the auspices of Moscow.

Soviet leader Joseph Stalin was determined to install the Polish Committee of National Liberation as rulers of the new puppet state. Poles wanted to gain control of Warsaw before the Russians, and declare Poland a liberated and sovereign state, counting on support from Western allies.

Initially, the Home Army took control of many parts of the city, but the expected help from the Russians was nowhere to be seen. The Red Army took control of the eastern bank of the Vistula, as the fighting went on. Only some 1,200 soldiers from the Soviet-controlled People's Army of Poland crossed the river to aid the insurgents. No other help arrived from the East. This gave the Germans time to regroup.

The Germans had an overwhelming advantage in terms of weapons, equipment and supplies. About 25 percent of the city was destroyed during the fighting. After 63 days of struggle, the Polish command surrendered in order to avoid further carnage.

The Warsaw Uprising was the biggest underground military operation in German-occupied Europe. On August 1, 1944, some 40-50 thousand insurgents began to fight in the capital city.

Planned to take a few days, it lasted for over two months. The fighting took the lives of 18,000 insurgents, 25,000 were injured. Civilian casualties amounted to approx. 180,000 killed.

The remaining 500,000 residents were rushed out of the city, which the Germans started to systematically destroy as a punishment for the Uprising.