Two years ago died my great-aunt, a member of AK. A week before the capitulation of Warsaw Uprising she gave birth to her only son...When with other warsovians she were going with her babe to Pruszków a young Euro-German steal a golden cross from her neck. and her coat.. My friend's great-uncle was burned alive with other wounded insurgents by "Nazis".
There's a lot to be said for viewing the Warsaw Uprising as a tragic cruel and utterly pointless waste of city and countless thousands of lives. It's a shame that not all of the people responsible for it were held accountable for it; it's a classic example of why politicians should never micromanage military matters.
It's a shame that not all of the people responsible for it were held accountable for it; it's a classic example of why politicians should never micromanage military matters.
Accountable? They have now monuments, streets and squares named after them. Take Leopold Okulicki - he dreamed that streets of Warsaw would be like a rivers of blood, that this ultimate sacrifice would shake the western allies to the point that they support Polish independence.
Really - that was his plan and his dream. And he managed to make it true. Loony and murderer.
@sofijufka I'm saddened to hear that your great aunt died, but happy that she survived the Rising. I hope your cousin survived? Was she a combatant? If so, where was she stationed? It'd be interesting to see if she was anywhere near where my dziadek and dad were. My dziadek was KIA on the 4th day of the Rising, but my dad survived with my babcia.
"Euro German"? - does this mean a Ukrainian or Russian? Dad told me they were the worst for looting and murder, along with the SS, but that the Wehrmacht were relatively speaking more 'civilised'.
Gloria victis!
Amen.
General Anders for example thought it was madness.
It's interesting to contrast that sentiment of Gen Anders with his later desire to have Polish forces released from service under HMG so as to fight their way back to Poland in early to mid 1945. Regardless, he was a great man and a hero.
Take Leopold Okulicki
Bear Cub was no loony or murderer. I'm really surprised and disappointed that someone like you would say that Enkidu. You should take that back please.
You may not know it, but Bear Cub wrote a statement whilst imprisoned by the NKVD in which he deposed to the reasons for the Rising, its rationale, and the arguments for and against. He, like countless thousands of other Polish men and women after the war found death at the hands of a Soviet jailer.
The luxury of hindsight and presentism allows armchair experts to wring their hands and wag their fingers at the leaders of the AK who made the decision to fight. The decision was made by those at the coal face. There was no other option and that it ended without victory for the Poles is not a condition precedent to some sort of self-fulfilling prophecy that all the Poles ever did was always wrong whenever they lost.
The atmsophere in Warsaw in which the decision was made was unlike nearly any other city or place during WW2. The Germans had, by word and deed, made it abundantly clear that Poles of whatever religious subscription were to be killed whether out of hand or by being worked to death. This was not a place where surrender was an option. It was the case that you either fought and died with maybe a slim prospect of success, or did nothing and died anyway. It was most certainly the case that the 'doctrine of two enemies' ventured by Pilsudski was coming to actual fruition and Warsaw was going to be the anvil for two hammers.
Do you not understand that the Germans had no regard for the Rules of War in Poland? Have you not heard how Germans and their auxillaries would take Polish infants by the legs and smash their bodies against walls, or throw them in the air and bayonet them? Are you unfamiliar with the mass murder of civilians in the streets as reprisal for any actual or perceived act of sabotage or death of a German? Please, go and find out what 'life' was really like there at the time from someone who was actually there, then come back and tell us what you would have done if you were in the shoes of Bor or Bear Cub. Your other options are pretty much limited to two though - you could have lain low and 'hid', or simply surrendered. How would that have worked out, having regard to what actually happened to those who did that?
Yes, my cousin survived. My great aunt couldn't fight - she was heavily pregnant, but she was a member of AK Section II: Information and Espionage. Her husband [also survived] was fighting at Śródmieście.
"Euro-German" means that this scum was a German from Wehrmacht, not from Kaminski's RONA
Maybe it is time for the Poles to look forward and not to be obsessed by the recent past. Relegate it to the history books. Put flowers once a year at some memorials. And not whenever something happens, come up with "some years ago we were fighting, the rest of Europe was not, and because of this bus tickets are expensive in Warsaw"
And not whenever something happens, come up with "some years ago we were fighting, the rest of Europe was not, and because of this bus tickets are expensive in Warsaw"
Dear Ozi. I understand your rage. I understand you. Really I do. Let me invite you to some history fact-check. I hope you wouldn't mind?
Tell me the surname of men, who ordered the start of the Uprising. Just tell me who signed the final order.
If you do you own research - you would know what I have got in mind. I assure you this is not a wicked, tricky question. It's rather a simple one, isn't it?
Who gave the order? Who signed it? Simple as that.
I DO know, who nazis were - I was born in Lublin, near KL Majdanek, my cousin was murdered by "civilized" german soldiers with the other polish prisoners at the castle prison an hour before Germans run away, nearly all my mothers childhood friends died in Ghetto, my father was POW in Woldenberg's Oflag II C and have seen a lot of his colleague shot, because they were to weak to march, when on January 1945 the POWs were marched westward.
There were NO "nazis" during the war, there were Germans and others UNDER German command.
Not as easy. There were Germans, other Europeans, people from outside Europe, Nazis, non-Nazis, volunteers and drafted soldiers involved. Many murderers killed because of their horrific political belief, many others were innocent people who got drawn into the war and its atrocities without the chance to do anything against it (unless you see getting executed as an alternative).
Exactly. The Poles always pretend they are snow-white as concerns WWII. The only country not collaborating with the Germans and other blabla. The truth is they did not get a chance to collaborate because the Germans did not allow them. And in the instances they could, they did. Blue Police, Brigada Świętokrzyśka, Górale...There is nothing in Polish genes preventing not to collaborate.
