It was crucial for local leaders that a nation in time of need could not rely solely on foreign forces, according to Jaroslav Daniška. The nation cannot remain passive. The uprising of 1944 was at the same time similar and fundamentally different to the Solidarity movement in the seventies. The ideal was the same, but the era and the instrument differed. It is impossible, as John Paul II said, to understand Warsaw without understanding what happened here in 1944.
The revolutionaries vainly awaited help from the side of the Soviets and the United States, but only Winston Churchill understood the importance of assistance. After 63 days, the rebels finally capitulated, and tens of thousands were killed by the Germans who wanted to level the city to the ground. The moral victory however belonged to the Poles.
“What fills Poles with pride? It has to be seen, it cannot be written. The city is proudly growing to the sky. It is connected to the river again. It is the most dynamically evolving city in eastern Europe. It is celebrating the cause of its survival.”
Warsaw showed that something could be stronger than sheer military force and the totalitarian regimes of the last century.
