page_title: Warsaw Uprising
section_title: After the war
hierarchical_section_title: Warsaw Uprising / Aftermath / After the war
caption_attribution_description: English: Staging of fights during the 1944 Warsaw Uprising at the State Mint (corner of Sanguszki &amp; Zakroczymska street). The armored fighting vehicle is a German SdKfz 251. Polski: Inscenizacja walk o Państwową Wytwórnię Papierów Wartościowych podczas Powstania Warszawskiego (Sanguszki/Zakroczymska). Transporter na zdięciu to niemiecki SdKfz 251. Callendar of Warsaw Uprising
context_page_description: The Warsaw Uprising was a major World War II attack by the Polish resistance Home Army. The resistance wanted to free Warsaw from Nazi Germany.
  The attack happened at the same time as the Soviet Union's Red Army got close to the east of the city and the German forces retreated. However, the Soviets stopped moving forward. This allowed the Germans to destroy the city and defeat the Polish resistance.
  The resistance fought for 63 days with little help from other Allied armies. The Uprising was the largest attack done by any European resistance movement of World War II.
  The uprising began on 1 August 1944. It was part of a big plan, Operation Tempest, which started when the Soviet Army got near Warsaw. The goals of the Polish resistance were to push the German troops out of the city. They also wanted to free Warsaw before the Soviets arrived. This would help the Polish Underground State to take control of the city.
  At the start of the battle, the Polish resistance got control over most of central Warsaw. The Soviets did not move into the city to help the resistance troops.
  By 14 September, Polish forces under Soviet command captured the east bank of the Vistula river.
context_section_description: Most soldiers of the Home Army (including those who took part in the Warsaw Uprising) were captured by the NKVD or UB political police. They were asked questions under force and imprisoned on various charges, such as "fascism".
  Many of them were sent to Gulags or executed. Between 1944 and 1956, all of the former members of Battalion Zośka were put in Soviet prisons. In March 1945, a staged trial of 16 leaders of the Polish Underground State held by the Soviet Union took place in Moscow – (the Trial of the Sixteen).
  The Government Delegate, together with most members of the Council of National Unity and the C-i-C of the Armia Krajowa, were invited by Soviet general Ivan Serov with agreement of Joseph Stalin to a conference on their eventual entry to the Soviet-backed Provisional Government.
  They were presented with a warrant of safety, yet they were arrested in Pruszków by the NKVD on 27 and 28 March. Leopold Okulicki, Jan Stanisław Jankowski and Kazimierz Pużak were arrested on the 27th with 12 more the next day. A. Zwierzynski had been arrested earlier.
  They were brought to Moscow in the Lubyanka.
  After several months of violent interrogation and torture, they were presented with the forged accusations of "collaboration with Nazi Germany" and "planning a military alliance with Nazi Germany".
  Many insurgents, captured by the Germans and sent to POW camps in Germany, were later liberated by British, American and Polish forces and remained in the West. Among those were the leaders of the uprising: Tadeusz Bór-Komorowski and Antoni Chruściel.
  The facts of the Warsaw Uprising were a problem for Stalin. The facts were changed in propaganda of the People's Republic of Poland, which emphasized the failings of the Home Army and the Polish government-in-exile. It did not allow criticism of the Red Army or the goals of Soviet Union.
  In the post-war period, the name of the Home Army was banned, and most films and novels covering the 1944 Uprising were either banned or modified so that the name of the Home Army did not appear. From the 1950s on, Polish propaganda depicted the soldiers of the Uprising as brave, but the officers as treacherous, reactionary and characterized by disregard of the losses.
  The first publications on the topic taken seriously in the West were not issued until the late 1980s. In Warsaw no monument to the Home Army was built until 1989. Instead, efforts of the Soviet-backed People's Army were glorified and exaggerated.
  By contrast, in the West the story of the Polish fight for Warsaw was told as a tale of valiant heroes fighting against a cruel and ruthless enemy. It was suggested that Stalin benefited from Soviet failure to help. The opposition to eventual Soviet control of Poland was eliminated when the Nazis killed the partisans.
  The belief that the Uprising failed because of the Soviet Union contributed to anti-Soviet feelings in Poland. Memories of the Uprising helped to inspire the Polish labour movement Solidarity, which led a peaceful opposition movement against the Communist government during the 1980s.
  Until the 1990s, there was little historical analysis of the events because of official censorship and lack of academic interest. Research into the Warsaw Uprising was boosted by the fall of communism in 1989, due to the end censorship and increased access to state archives. As of 2004, however, access to some material in British, Polish and ex-Soviet archives was still restricted.
  Further complicating the matter is the British claim that the records of the Polish government-in-exile were destroyed, and material not transferred to British authorities after the war was burnt by the Poles in London in July 1945.
  In Poland, 1 August is now a celebrated anniversary. On 1 August 1994, Poland held a ceremony commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Uprising to which both the German and Russian presidents were invited. Though the German President Roman Herzog attended, the Russian President Boris Yeltsin declined the invitation; other notable guests included the U.S. Vice President Al Gore.
  Herzog, on behal
caption: Re-enactment of the Uprising on its 62nd Anniversary
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