Greetings,
exactly today, at 5pm 61 years ago(August 1, 1944) Polish Home Army units attacked the various Nazi German units and outposts in the German-occupied Warsaw. The fighters -Powstancy in Polish - (men, women and ... children) ment to liberate the capital before the comming of the Stalin's Red Army as the communist Red Army was already approaching the part of the city on the right bank of the Vistula river. Outnumbered and outgunned the Powstancy failed, albeit winning some points and even armor, to clear the capital out of the various elements of the German army and police. The fight came to standstill and while Red Army stood watching the German high command brought in reenforcements and destroyed piece by piece the city and its inhabitants. In spite of overwhelming odds the people of Warsaw fought on, and the Warsaw Uprsing ended after heroic and desperate 63 days of fighting, when water, food, and ammunition run out. The Nazi killed more than 200 000 civillians while some 17 thousands of young and brave powstancy fighters died in the city, many thousands marched into German labor camps and prison camps. Under Hitler's orders the left bank Warsaw was demolished and burnt, devoid of its 1 million pre-war inhabitants ....
prof. Norman Davies published the Uprising '44 last year about the heroic battle.

Polish modelers' forum -Polska Witryna Modelarska - has a thread on the anniversary of the Uprising, with some nice pictures of dioramas.... http://www.old.modelarstwo.org.pl/forum/vi...pic.php?t=15563

about rising 44; not a very good book. or at least i didnt like it very much. first of all he refused to use the real names of the people in the book and instead gave them nicknames then in the back of the book would translate them,which makes it hard to read and understand who did what without going to the back of the book. but anyways, today, at least in my family is a day of rememberance for relatives who fought for the liberation of warsaw.

Gents,
Norman Davies book is a bit hard to read for anyone that has a knowledge of the Uprising (names, places etc.) however it does fill a signifacant gap in English language history books.
For the first time tells the story of the Rising of 44 versus the often shown and glorified in films Ghetto Rising of 43.
Now if anyone could do a decent miniseries about Warsaw Uprising that would be quite a treat
Just my 2 cents on the issue.
Cheers,
A.