Warsaw today is a thriving European capital. But beneath its skyline lies the trauma of a city nearly wiped from existence.
"Warsaw was like a pile of ruins – nearly nothing here, especially in the center," historian Krzysztof Mordyński told CGTN. "But people returned to the city. People returned themselves. Nobody told them to."
The choice was to rebuild as new, or to try and salvage what was destroyed. Mordyński understands the balance:
"We wanted to keep... the identity, tradition of Warsaw, so for the people, for the pre-war inhabitants to feel still like they are living in Warsaw," he explained. CGTN's Peter Oliver reports.
#WW2 #Poland #Europe #Warsaw
"Warsaw was like a pile of ruins – nearly nothing here, especially in the center," historian Krzysztof Mordyński told CGTN. "But people returned to the city. People returned themselves. Nobody told them to."
The choice was to rebuild as new, or to try and salvage what was destroyed. Mordyński understands the balance:
"We wanted to keep... the identity, tradition of Warsaw, so for the people, for the pre-war inhabitants to feel still like they are living in Warsaw," he explained. CGTN's Peter Oliver reports.
#WW2 #Poland #Europe #Warsaw
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00:00Warsaw today is a thriving European capital but beneath its skyline lies the trauma of a city
00:07nearly wiped from existence. In 1939, Warsaw was home to 1.3 million people. By 1945,
00:16more than 85% of the city was destroyed and tens of thousands of its citizens were dead.
00:22Yes, Warsaw was like a pile of ruins. Nearly nothing here but people returned to the city.
00:29People returned themselves. Nobody told them to do. They wanted to keep the identity,
00:36tradition of Warsaw so for the people, for the pre-war inhabitants to feel still like they are living in Warsaw.
00:47Part of the plan of Nazi Germany was to eradicate Jewish people,
00:51involving a systematic effort to dehumanize and murder on an industrial scale.
00:59Everything we see here is completely new. Nothing survived where we are. Nothing has survived from
01:05pre-war Jewish Warsaw. Everything was destroyed. There wasn't even a sea of ruins. It was a sea of rubble.
01:14All the remains of the Warsaw ghetto today are stone markers showing the boundaries.
01:18In April 1943, Jews in the ghetto staged an uprising. It was savagely put down by the Germans. In the aftermath,
01:29more than 35,000 survivors of the fighting were sent to extermination camps.
01:34They were brought here from the ghetto and were held and then transported in cattle wagons to
01:42concentration camps. We also see this gate here. This monument depicts the parting of the Red Sea from
01:48the passage in the Bible. The following year, a different uprising, this time involving the Polish Home
02:02Army, rose to fight the German occupation across the whole city. One of those who fought was Janusz
02:10Maksimowicz, then just a teenager.
02:16If a German was walking toward you on the sidewalk, a Pole had to step into the street so that the
02:22master of the world could walk freely. I still remember this one moment when I was walking along
02:27the street and on the other side of the road, a Polish man didn't yield to the German. They brushed
02:32shoulders. Then, without thinking much, the German unbuckled his holster, took out his pistol and shot
02:39him, and left him without even looking back. The Warsaw Uprising lasted 63 days. After surrender,
02:47the Germans destroyed what was left, building by building.
02:54I am often asked, was it worth it? Absolutely, yes. Why? Because there was no political and moral force
03:00that could stop us, the youth, from taking up arms and to take revenge on our occupiers.
03:07Reborn from the ashes. The view around Saint Augustine's church shows just how vast the rebuilding
03:14had to be. Even today, some buildings still bear signs of de-mining, where soldiers worked to make
03:21the city safe again. But people lived there for four weeks, for three or four weeks, and when they were
03:28coming back, so they met a supper, and he was writing, and they read it, and said, what do you say?
03:36There are no mines here? And he said, yes, I just checked. And sometimes he said, I just, I just
03:44cleared this mines. There were mines? Yeah, you were living on the mines. So it happened, and many times,
03:53people died before the mines, especially children. Behind me is Warsaw rebuilt, not only in glass and
04:00brick and in steel, but also in spirit. This city didn't just survive history, it remade it,
04:06and it continues to write its next chapter. Peter Oliver, CGTN, Warsaw.