Warsaw Uprising (2 Reviews on the Same Book)

choi

Book review on Alexandra Richie, Warsaw 1944; Hitler, Himmler, and the Warsaw Uprising. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2013.

(1) The Warsaw uprising  | Destruction; A new book on the blackest days in Poland's history. Economist, Nov 30, 2013.
www.economist.com/news/books-and ... history-destruction

Note:
(a) Warsaw Uprising (Aug 1, 1944-Oct 2, 1944)
(b) Heinrich Himmler
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heinrich_Himmler
(1900-1945; committed suicide with a cyanide pill after capture)
(c) "A Canadian-born historian who now lives in Warsaw, she [author Alexandra Richie] takes an unashamedly polonocentric approach * * * The author is married to a Pole, the son of Wladyslaw Bartoszewski, a pro-Jewish hero of the resistance who later became a leading dissident and then a distinguished foreign minister. 'Warsaw 1944' draws heavily on her father-in-law’s private archives and recounts many previously unpublished stories of the tragedy."
(i) polonocentric : centered on Poland
(ii) Władysław Bartoszewski
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W%C5%82adys%C5%82aw_Bartoszewski
(1922- ; twice foreign minister of Poland 1995-1995, 2000-2001)

choi

Halik Kochanski, Resisting the Inevitable; On Aug 1, 1944, 50,000 Polish isurgents--only 10% of them armed--attacked the Germans. Wall Street Journal, Dec 14, 2013.
online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303670804579235930706262894



Note:
(a) "The Polish resistance, the 400,000-strong but ill-armed Home Army, commanded by Gen Tadeusz Bór-Komorowski, was the largest in Europe."

Tadeusz Bór-Komorowski
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tadeusz_B%C3%B3r-Komorowski
(1895-1966; surrendered to the Germans on Oct 2, 1944; Liberated at the end of the war, he spent the rest of his life in London)
(b) "At the beginning of September[, 1944], Warsaw's Old Town fell to the Germans. This six-century-old warren had been attacked by 8,000 Germans, bombed from the air and set on fire. The Home Army and many civilians retreated to other parts of the city through the extensive sewer system. The fall of the Old Town clearly presaged the defeat of the uprising; yet the insurgents fought on. * * * Following the evacuation, the Germans systematically destroyed the city. It had already suffered extensive destruction in September 1939, and a quarter of the city had been leveled after the crushing of the equally futile and courageous 1943 uprising in the Jewish ghetto. Now every building was stripped of valuables, and major landmarks, such as the Royal Castle, were dynamited. When the Soviet and Polish armies finally entered in January 1945, they found a city of ruins."

* Warsaw Old Town
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warsaw_Old_Town
(established in the 13th century)

Quote: "During the Invasion of Poland ([by Germany and Soviet Union; Sept 1-Oct 6,] 1939), much of the district was badly damaged by the German Luftwaffe, which targeted the city's residential areas and historic landmarks in a campaign of terror bombing. Following the Siege of Warsaw [1939], parts of the Old Town were rebuilt, but immediately after the Warsaw Uprising (August-October 1944) what had been left standing was systematically blown up by the German Army. * * * After World War II, the Old Town was meticulously rebuilt.[3] As many of the original bricks were reused as possible. The rubble was sifted for reusable decorative elements, which were reinserted into their original places. Bernardo Bellotto's 18th-century vedute, as well as pre-World-War II architecture students' drawings, were used as essential sources in the reconstruction effort.