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Warsaw Rising: Eyewitness Accounts

PR dla Zagranicy
Nick Hodge 01.08.2014 13:34
  • Marzenna Schejbal and Jan Pienkowski recall the Warsaw Rising
A former combatant and a civilian recall the lead-up to the Warsaw Rising and the outbreak of the insurgency on 1 August 1944.

Restored
Powstanie Warszawskie, restored footage (Next Film)

For those in areas seized from the Germans at the beginning of the insurgency, 1 August remains etched in the memory.

“Suddenly all these Polish flags appeared in every window,”recalls Jan Pienkowski, who was seven at the time.

Pienkowski, whose father fought in the Rising, went on to become one of the UK's most celebrated illustrators, and his memories of the insurgency remain vivid.

Veteran Marzenna Schejbal, who is currently head of the Home Army's Ex-Servicemen's Association, London branch, argues that in spite of the huge death toll, including at least 150,000 civilian categories, the rising was inevitable.

“We were young and we were ready to fight,” she said,

“We had had enough of sacrificing [ourselves],” she added, recalling the cycle of arrests and shootings in occupied Warsaw.

This audio report is composed of material from interviews carried out by Polish Radio correspondent Nick Hodge in London and Krakow in 2012.

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