Warsaw honours its heroes - city mayor
"The capital of a free Poland in honouring its heroes and will always remember how much it owes them," Warsaw Mayor Hanna Gronkiewicz-Waltz said Monday during a gala change of the guard at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldiers in Warsaw on Monday.
"You started this unequal fight for your city. (...).. Warsaw again needed its best sons, and you - these young boys and girls - answered this call. Sixty-three days of heroic fighting for every city district, for every street and for every building demanded the greatest sacrifice," the Warsaw mayor said, addressing a group of Warsaw Uprising veterans present at the ceremony.
The ceremony was also attended by government officials and parliamentarians.
The Warsaw Uprising broke out on August 1, 1944 as the biggest resistance operation in Nazi-occupied Europe. Initially intended to last several days, it continued for over two months before being suppressed by the Germans. The uprising claimed the lives of 18,000 insurgents and around 180,000 civilians.
After the insurgents surrendered and the remaining 500,000 residents were expelled, the Germans methodically burned down and blew up Warsaw house by house. By January 1945, 85 percent of the buildings had been destroyed. (PAP)
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