Poland honours fighters, victims of Warsaw’s 1944 revolt

WARSAW, Poland – Poland’s leaders have joined World War II veterans and Warsaw residents in ceremonies honouring the fighters and victims of the city’s ill-fated 1944 revolt against the Nazi occupation.

President Andrzej Duda laid a wreath at a memorial in Wola district, where German forces killed tens of thousands of civilians in early August 1944, in retaliation for the revolt organized by Poland’s clandestine resistance movement.

Traditionally, Warsaw traffic stops for a minute’s remembrance when sirens wail at 5 p.m., the exact hour when the revolt started Aug. 1.

An estimated 50,000 young Poles took part in the Warsaw Rising. Some 18,000 among them were killed and another 25,000 were injured in 63 days of struggle. Some 180,000 civilians were killed in German bombings and executions.