Scouts mark 70 years since end of Warsaw Rising

Scouts light candles in Warsaw, 2 October. Photo: PAP/Marcin Obara

Candles flickered over the network of sewers that both insurgents and civilians were compelled to use to cross the city as their plight grew increasingly desperate.

Scouts played a significant role in the insurgency, not only taking part in the fighting but also operating a postal service between Polish held areas of the city.

When the insurgency was launched on 1 August 1944, Poland's underground Home Army (AK) calculated that the amount of weaponry available was sufficient to last about a week.

It was hoped that nominal ally the Red Army, which had advanced to the fringe of Warsaw, would continue to push back the Germans, in tandem with the Home Army.

Photo: PAP/Marcin Obara

However, Stalin dismissed the rising as being run by 'criminals' and he hampered the bids of his British allies to drop supplies to the insurgents.

Leader of the Home Army Tadeusz 'Bor' Komorowski capitulated to the Germans on 2 October 1944. Conditions included the pledge that combatants of the Home Army would be treated as POWs.

About 200,000 people died during the rising, the vast majority civilians.

At some points in the city on Thursday night, scouts created candle-lit signs in the form of the so-called 'anchor' (kotwica). The symbol, which was devised as a morale-booster during the war, combines the letters P and W, short for Polska Walczaca (Fighting Poland).

Besides the candle-lit tribute, the city of Warsaw observed the custom of extinguishing a ceremonial flame that is lit each year on 1 August on a memorial mound in the capital's Mokotow district. (nh)

Source: PAP. TVN